After HEAVY research on GPS ... Im willing to pay $350 for a barebones GPS!?

[BigMemory]

I'm replacing my horrid Magellan ColorTrack handheld GPS (I never liked this buggy unit, though it did save my life once in Linville Gorge, NC), and have researched all the options for about 2 weeks. I am a fitness and recreation hiker.

 

Now I am wanting to pre-order perhaps the most over-priced and mediocre GPS on the market, the Garmin ForeRunner 405:

 

 

While this has a high sensitivity GPS built in, you wouldnt know it. It basically has a "bread crumb" trail feature, so you can find your way home. I cant find any screenshots of this advertised feature though, i bet its graphically unimpressive. This unit has no maps. No way to add maps. It does have a way to set "waypoints" though. It also has completely state of the art fitness features.

 

Somebody talk me out of this horrible purchase decison!

Edited March 30, 2008 by BigMemory

[+rwdflynavy]

I think the forerunner will be great for your fitness goals, but I don't see how it will be very useful for geocaching. I'd buy the bottom of the line forerunner for $100 and spend the rest on a Etrex Legend HCx or Vista HCx and spend the same amount of money.

[+Maingray]

Posting in this forum I assume you want it for geocaching? Would be tedious enough for very casual caching but it would "work"... i.e follow the arrow but more than, yeuch...manually having to enter co-ordinates using watch buttons would instantly turn me off.

 

For jogging, simple downloading of hike tracks..sure. It is helluva expensive for even that though. I'd buy a dedicated non-GPS fitness watch and buy a cheap handheld GPS which would be a million times easier and more GPS-featured than that watch.

Edited March 30, 2008 by Maingray

[+DustyWalker]

I have a Forerunner 205 which I purchased a few years ago. I mostly use it for running but I have used it for a few geocaches along the way, and found it worked quite well for that. When I saw the new 405 I was impressed with the looks of it and thought I would like to have one. When I researched it I changed my mind. It does not have pace, distance or time alerts, which I find very useful. I guess it depends on what you want to use it for.

[cowboyshootist]

You really didn't explain Why you would order this unit? Are you just a constant complainer looking for the next crappy product to buy so you can post how bad it is?

 

If you're looking for something small and compact then look at the Etrex or if you want something a little more look at the 60CSx. Heck a couple of extra pounds shouldn't be an issue for you since you're a fitness hiker.

 

If nothing else why not look into the new crop of Cellular phones that have GPS built-in like the Motorola Q9 from ATT? With an all-in-one unit you'll have music, camera, web browsing and even a video camera so you can record your dieing words as the phone battery dies and the gps becomes useless.

[+GOT GPS?]

There is a lot of power packed in that little watch, but with a touch sensitive bazel, around the whole ring of the watch, it maybe troublesome to wear clothes over the top of the watch.

 

Here are some YouTube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...mp;search_type=

 

I like the idea of this watch, that you can wear this thing on rollercoasters, or whatever. The cheaper Forerunners could fly off your wrist while on a rollercoaster, but the 205 or 305 might be wearable when doing rough activities like coaster riding.

 

I would probably get the Garmin 205:

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=142&pID=348

Righthand side of the webpage at the link above, lists all the forerunners.