looking for basic handheld that does street routing

[+j2x]

I'm looking for a hand-held GPS for my dad. He's going to use it to go geocaching and to get him out of trouble if he gets lost on his motorcycle. The GPS would need to have street routing capabilities, though not necessarily auto-routing. It would need to either have enough onboard memory to load the state of Oregon or use a memory card of some sort. It needs to use AA batteries.

 

All that said, if it were under $150 and easy to use, that'd be great. He is by no means looking for a new model, either.

 

Any suggestions?

[+RRLover]

I'm looking for a hand-held GPS for my dad. He's going to use it to go geocaching and to get him out of trouble if he gets lost on his motorcycle. The GPS would need to have street routing capabilities, though not necessarily auto-routing. It would need to either have enough onboard memory to load the state of Oregon or use a memory card of some sort. It needs to use AA batteries.

 

All that said, if it were under $150 and easy to use, that'd be great. He is by no means looking for a new model, either.

 

Any suggestions?

DeLorme PN-20, no additional maps need be purchased, . . . unless you opt to.

 

Norm

[+Team CowboyPapa]

I'm looking for a hand-held GPS for my dad. He's going to use it to go geocaching and to get him out of trouble if he gets lost on his motorcycle. The GPS would need to have street routing capabilities, though not necessarily auto-routing. It would need to either have enough onboard memory to load the state of Oregon or use a memory card of some sort. It needs to use AA batteries.

 

All that said, if it were under $150 and easy to use, that'd be great. He is by no means looking for a new model, either.

 

Any suggestions?

DeLorme PN-20, no additional maps need be purchased, . . . unless you opt to.

 

Norm

The included maps with the DeLorme PN-20 cover the USA, but the Oregon portion will fit on a 4GB SDHC card which the PN-20 accommodates, right under a pair of AA batteries, of course.

It supports paperless geocaching with the latest firmware update, released this past Friday.

It does road, auto-routing, although that is not it's strongest feature.

However, as seen here at less than $150,

http://www.amazon.com/Delorme-AE-7843-201-...7866&sr=8-1

one will be hard pressed to find another that will do all that for under $250.

[+Chuy!]

The Delorme PN20s are snail slow. Might be acceptable for the trail, but users report that for biking and driving, the map redraws are slo mo.

 

For used models, look into the Garmin Etrex Venture Cx, Legend Cx, Vista Cx, or Venture HC. Garmin mapping software runs $80. The Venture HC is the only one mentioned that's still in production. They run $110 new. They hold 24mb of maps (Oregon has 20mb) but it does not autoroute. The Cx models do autoroute (and hold the entire US maps with an optional 2gb datacard) but they lack the sensitive chipset.

 

Don't forget to take into account the price of power cables/adapters and handlebar mounting kits.

[+Redwoods Mtn Biker]

The DeLorme road database is really insufficient in many places. You're asking for a lot for $150. There are free Garmin-compatible maps available if turn-by-turn directions aren't that important.