Garmin GPSMAP 60cs

[bbarry]

I'm new to the game and looking for a GPS. I've been researching and, although I'm not done looking, I was wondering what kind of oppinions are out there about the Garmin GPSMAP 60cs. Is it an accurate gps? Easy to use? Good for geocaching? Anything useful to a new geocaher about this model, or about the entire Garmin 60 line, is taken gratefully in advance. .

[Fluxuated]

Its a GREAT Unit, there's ONLY GOOD, no bad, no Ugly.

[Neos2]

It's a very good unit. If you want a bit more accuaracy, the 60 CSx will get better reception. It will aslo cost more.

 

My 76CS and my husband's 60CS are really good units--in fact, we still have them. He uses his all the time for work and caching. I have switched to the 60 CSx now though. We only bought the CSx because we got a good deal from someone we know--but I am so glad we did.

 

I usually get a slightly better signal no matter the conditions. In fact, the 60 CSx will pick up satellites from inside my house. I had locks on 10 satellites from my living room yesterday. Before I got the CSx I used to read in these forums where people said things like that and I thought "Yeah, sure you do" Well, now I know...yeah, they did.

 

Honestly, any of the Garmin handheld units that are currently being marketed will get you to the cache.

 

The cheapest units do not offer connectivity to a computer or a map, so you have to punch in cords by hand and all you get is a pointer showing you the direction to travel. I went caching one day with a guy who has found a couple of thousand caches with one of the little yellow guys (a Geko 201). He found several caches before I did.

 

The next level up (Legend for example)...come with base maps, they connect to a computer, and they can accept additional maps. They will lose a signal in heavily wooded areas and you have to make adaptations for that. But they are inexpensive and lighweight.

 

The next level up has better reception--that includes the 60CSx and the "H" models

 

After that, it's pretty much a matter of how many bells and whistles you want.

Do you want/need autorouting? A compass? How much memory storage will you need for maps? Do you want geocaching mode?

 

Personally, I think the 60CSx is the best handheld out there. Someday (probably soon) the Colorado will surpass it in some ways. You might also take a look at the Vista HCx and the Legend HCx; they both pack a lot of bang for the buck and if I were getting a new unit today on a tighter budget, I'd probably get one of those.

 

There is a page you can use to compare the features of many of the units to see what's right for you. Feel free to ask questions about the pros and cons of certain features.

 

Here are the four units I talked about compared.

[+Team Dromomania]

I've really gotten a lot of mileage out of my 60cs. It is a great little device. It's very easy to see the screen in sunlight, the night back lighting works well and it seems easy on the batteries. It does ok under tree cover if it isn't too thick and it will work in some areas inside my house. I've only have two issues with the unit and they're minor. First, although the book says the compass should be calibrated each time the batteries are replace I find myself having to do it very often. Second, I have the buttons worn down so that the lettering is missing, the rubber "dimples" on the unit are wearing off and the "bridge" support at the antenna has broken.

 

To be fair, I use the unit a lot and I don't treat it with kid gloves. It rolls around on the dash board or I may have it in my pocket with keys, etc.. I've dropped it numberious times in water, mud and just this week it went slamming into rocks when I slipped on web stones and fell. I thought I had finally killed it when I saw the screen went dead but a push of the power button and all returned to normal again. About the only kind thing I've done for it is to use a protective shield over the screen. After all of this that screen still looks new.

 

I've heard the newer ones are better but they cost more. Get what you can affort but I don't think you'll regret a 60cs.

[+Miragee]

Is there any reason why you want the Garmin 60 line? Although the 60CS is a great GPS unit, the much newer Legend HCx might be close to the price of that older GPSr. I have a Vista HCx and really like having the data card for adding more maps and for having Custom Points of Interest on the GPSr. Getting a unit with 'x' in the name means it will have expandable memory, making it much more versatile.

[+Ry and Ny]

I got a 60C on the cheap from eBay. I was somewhat concerned at first about the lack of an expansion card, but after downloading every map withing 250 miles of my location and the closest 300 caches from my location and still having over half the internal memory left over, I'm not sure what the need is for an expansion card. Sure, it'd be nice to have the entire US loaded up and ready to go on a whim, but gawd, if I ever get too lazy to reset to a vacation destination or display caches along a route, I think I'm in the wrong hobby to start with.

[+Miragee]

The reason the expansion card is nice, in additon to having the ability to load a larger area of maps, is the ability to load caches and other things as Custom POIs. Did you know you can load all the Starbuck's locations in the U.S. as POIs . . .

 

I have all the caches I have Found, all the local caches I have yet to Find, and more than 1000 Benchmarks loaded into my GPSr as Custom POIs.

[+Ry and Ny]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come across as belittling the perceived need for an expansion card. For what I'm guessing the majority of cachers will actually use (not load up, but actually use) on a regular basis, I think the expansion card is a luxury rather than a necessity.

 

Your mileage may vary, of course. I just found that, for my needs, since GC.com will track what I've found or not found, I don't even come close to needing an expansion card.

[+Miragee]

No, I didn't take it as belittling. The main reason I upgraded to a Vista HCx from my Vista C was for the 1000 waypoints in the newer model. This area is so cache-rich, I could drive out of a 500-cache circle pretty quickly.

 

The amount of memory, and number of waypoints, in the 60C/CS would be more than enough for my caching, but the High Sensitivity receiver in the newer Garmin 'H' units is very nice. The need for that depends on the terrain a person caches in.

[+Ry and Ny]

Yeah, well, with my "girlish figure" (Ny speaking, the big fuzzy one on the profile picture--Ry is actually rather petite), it's going to be some time before I play with some hardcore terrain.

Edited March 30, 2008 by Ry and Ny

[+Driver Carries Cache]

Did you know you can load all the Starbuck's locations in the U.S. as POIs . . .

 

You could probably go out blindfolded and randomly toss a handful of rocks and hit at least one Starbucks

 

There's one on every corner (and some have two!).

 

DCC

[+MoeJacob]

I'm new to the game and looking for a GPS. I've been researching and, although I'm not done looking, I was wondering what kind of oppinions are out there about the Garmin GPSMAP 60cs. Is it an accurate gps? Easy to use? Good for geocaching? Anything useful to a new geocaher about this model, or about the entire Garmin 60 line, is taken gratefully in advance. .

 

I am in the process of upgrading and am looking at the Colorado 300 ... It might be worth your while to have a good look at it ...

[+briansnat]

I was wondering what kind of opinions are out there about the Garmin GPSMAP 60cs

 

That is an older unit. Do you mean the 60CSX? The difference between the 60CSX and 60CS is significant. THe 60CSX is a far better unit. The 60CS is OK, but I wouldn't pay too much for it. It's been discontinued for close to 2 years.

Edited April 2, 2008 by briansnat

[Neos2]

Did you know you can load all the Starbuck's locations in the U.S. as POIs . . .

 

No, I didn't know that. Where did you get the coords? I love to stop at Starbucks at the end of a long day of caching, but not all the stores are up to date in the maps on my unit. Is there a list somewhere?

[+Night Stalker]

I have both the 60CS and now the 60CX. There are a couple of properties in the 60CX that I find much better than my older 60CS. I have often cached under heavy tree cover and my 60CS has often lost sattelite coverage making finding the cache, and afterward finding my way out of the area much more difficult. I didn't realize how nice it was to have a memory card until after I got my 60CX. I travel all over the western U.S. for work. It is really nice to have the maps already loaded for my entire travel area. I used to go home on a weekend, and the first thing I would have to do is load new maps in my 60CS covering the area I would be working in next. Recently my boss has changed my mind after I arrived at my work location, and it was really nice to already have maps loaded for the area I was now going to work in.

 

With that said the 60CS is a very nice unit. I have over 800 finds with that unit, and compared to other GPS's that were out there it was the best.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Is there any reason why you want the Garmin 60 line? Although the 60CS is a great GPS unit, the much newer Legend HCx might be close to the price of that older GPSr. I have a Vista HCx and really like having the data card for adding more maps and for having Custom Points of Interest on the GPSr. Getting a unit with 'x' in the name means it will have expandable memory, making it much more versatile.

 

I got the 76Cx primarily due to expandable, and more importantly, plugable memory (and also that it allegedly floats...a benefit for a kayaker). The 60Cx comes with a very small micro-sd card (64Meg I think) and the 76Cx 128Meg. You can but 1 gig cards for it for $15 or so. I prefer to have a few 512M-1G cards that I can store different mapsets on that I can just swap out, but it doesn't take much time to create a bunch of different mapset for different areas and download the appropriate mapset as needed.