GPS Help? :)

[Spanner15]

Hi,

 

I'm allowed a new GPS this Christmas and have been trying to research the best for up to £150...

I have found the Garmin eTrex 10 and 20 are rather good, so please can you help me decide which? Or even if not these, suggest your own and why?

I want to be a premium member, so paperless geocaching would be a must, colour screen would be nice, quick(not slow with picking up the position!) and easy to use (possibly touch screen?), extra maps? and anything else really that you think a fifteen year old addicted to geocaching would like?

 

Thanks For Your Time

 

Spanner15

(Hannah)

[team tisri]

Hannah, you may have a local store that will let you play with the units. Better still would be to find a local geocacher who will let you see what they have. A local caching event would hopefully let you look at units in far more detail than any shop would let you do.

 

Depending on what part of the country you are in there may be events close to you.

[Spanner15]

Hannah, you may have a local store that will let you play with the units. Better still would be to find a local geocacher who will let you see what they have. A local caching event would hopefully let you look at units in far more detail than any shop would let you do.

 

Depending on what part of the country you are in there may be events close to you.

 

North Yorks, Skipton way, never seem to be any 'that' close..

[Spanner15]

If you want to have decent maps then you need the 20 rather than the 10, which only comes with a very basic road map, and cannot have additional maps loaded on to it. Otherwise the 10 will be a great unit to start with.

 

If you do want maps, and get the Etrex 20 (just slightly over your budget though), there are free ones around ... wwww.talkytoaster.info is a great site for free maps ... so there's no need to pay for them

 

Will the maps on the 10 be 'reallllly' simple, and if I get the 20, will it be worth the extra money for the os maps?

[Spanner15]

The map on the 10 is only a road map, no help when geocaching. OS mapping can be put on the 20 but is expensive. You get a £20 voucher if you buy one from Go Outdoors, and others I think, which gives you 600 sq kms of 1:25,000 OS mapping ... but 600 sq kms isn't very much. I have used the free talkytoaster maps for years, and find them excellent for geocaching.

 

So getting the 20 is worth it, or not?

With the talkytoaster are they basically os maps?

[team tisri]

The map on the 10 is only a road map, no help when geocaching. OS mapping can be put on the 20 but is expensive. You get a £20 voucher if you buy one from Go Outdoors, and others I think, which gives you 600 sq kms of 1:25,000 OS mapping ... but 600 sq kms isn't very much. I have used the free talkytoaster maps for years, and find them excellent for geocaching.

 

So getting the 20 is worth it, or not?

With the talkytoaster are they basically os maps?

 

Talkytoaster maps are from the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project. OS (Ordinance Survey) maps are usually about as good as mapping gets but they are expensive and heavily controlled by copyright. Most maps are heavily controlled by copyright although most people don't fully realise that. The copyright restricts what you can do with them, which basically means all sorts of creative uses are prohibited.

 

OSM maps are intended to be in the public domain, and are made by people like you and me walking trails and roads with a GPS and sharing their track logs. Because they are in the public domain they are free and have no copyright restrictions so you can do whatever you want with them.

 

I used to use the UK Topo maps with my old 60CSx until I realised the OSM maps were better overall. The routing is still a little hit-and-miss (in that sometimes it picks a spectacularly convoluted route that takes 6 miles to get to a point that is literally a mile up the road) but I've never had any major issues with the detail. The main issue I have had with the detail has been that sometimes the primary road isn't correctly marked, but then I've had the exact same problem with the UK Topo maps that are based on OS data.

 

Of course the great thing with the OSM maps is they are free, so if you don't like them you can just delete them and you haven't wasted any money.

[+Chilli Pipers]

I have the 30 which as the same screen as the 20 just a few extras like compass etc.

 

Its my first ever GPS. I used to use my androi phone with cgeo and would forever worry about battery life (which was shockingly poor) and everytime before I went out I would hand draw a map (using the open street map version on geocaching.com) with all the paths and cache locations etc.

 

Very time consuming.

 

Since getting the 30, never bother drawing maps or planning. The talky toaster maps are awesome, have never got lost and have done 25 or so caches in a day without any difficulty. Also battery life is no longer a worry. Has lasted for weeks and when they suddenly ran out this weekend gone, took seconds to chuck some spare ones in and off I went.

 

A totally liberating experience. Personally would not bother with the 10, the maps really will not help you at all and I am sure you would end up regretting it.

 

any more questions feel free to ask

[+splashy]

The Etrex 10 has NO Expandable memory = NO SD

Thats important because sooner or later you will need more memory with todays maps, they grow every month.

You will have tracks, routes, waypoint. poi's, so an SD is an issue.

 

As mentioned Talky toaster and OSM are nice maps and free.

Edited November 14, 2011 by splashy

[Spanner15]

So overall I think I'll go with the 20, the 30 is a bit to on the expensive side but I might be able to beg for the 20

Thanks for your help everyone!

Edited November 15, 2011 by Spanner15

[team tisri]

So overall I think I'll go with the 20, the 30 is a bit to on the expensive side but I might be able to beg for the 20

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php/5041/garmin-etrex-20 (£160, not so badly over budget)

[Spanner15]

So overall I think I'll go with the 20, the 30 is a bit to on the expensive side but I might be able to beg for the 20

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php/5041/garmin-etrex-20 (£160, not so badly over budget)

 

Thanks!

[Spanner15]

Sorry, but does the 20 have any sign of a compass at all?

And what does the photo navigation mean?

Thanks

Edited November 15, 2011 by Spanner15

[+Keokas]

Hi!

I recently got my 20 and I have been happy with it. So far I haven't added any maps, since they are not available in my current region. When in a need for map, I still use my computer or my mobile phone, which I always carry anyway. I am looking forward to do geocaching in Europe with some maps in my garmin also. But without a proper map, a colour display is pretty much useless. So is the sd-slot, I guess... So at least for me, here it could be as well etrex 10 but I chose 20 for future use.

 

Etrex 20 has a compass as etrex 10 also. The etrex 30 compass is different, 3-D or so, but a compass is a compass, showing you your direction, north and so....

 

All new etrex models should be as accurate, all of them can use the new Russian Glonass satellites as the old gps ones.

[Spanner15]

Hi!

I recently got my 20 and I have been happy with it. So far I haven't added any maps, since they are not available in my current region. When in a need for map, I still use my computer or my mobile phone, which I always carry anyway. I am looking forward to do geocaching in Europe with some maps in my garmin also. But without a proper map, a colour display is pretty much useless. So is the sd-slot, I guess... So at least for me, here it could be as well etrex 10 but I chose 20 for future use.

 

Etrex 20 has a compass as etrex 10 also. The etrex 30 compass is different, 3-D or so, but a compass is a compass, showing you your direction, north and so....

 

All new etrex models should be as accurate, all of them can use the new Russian Glonass satellites as the old gps ones.

 

Hi,

Have you used the photo navigation at all in your 20? What does it do & include?

Thanks

[Spanner15]

Photo navigation enables you to navigate to geotagged photos ... but as the Etrex 20 doesn't have a camera it's not excatly easy to set up, personally I wouldn't even bother.

 

With the 20 as well as 'paperless geocaching' can you download the hint photos too onto the gps?

[+Keokas]

The photo navigation I haven't used and probably will not.

The photos seem not to be saved with the geocaches. That would be useful, although the screen is pretty small for images. I seem to be using my mobile for that also...

[Spanner15]

Well you can certainly transfer them as the Etrex can view pics, but as far as I know they're not automatically downloaded as part of the process. You would have to save them on your PC and then load them into your Etrex separately.

 

Thats Great So what will be the best software for a mac? And would you say when I become premium member the geocaches download etc will be easy to use?

[+Keokas]

I have a Mac and I haven't installed any software. You just need to drag and drop your pocket queries to the GPX folder of the etrex. For pocket queries you need to be a premium member.

[Wintertime]

So what will be the best software for a mac? And would you say when I become premium member the geocaches download etc will be easy to use?

Hannah, check out this page on Garmin's website:

 

http://www8.garmin.com/macosx/

 

BaseCamp will let you add coordinates to photos; then if you drag the photos to the appropriate folder on the eTrex 20, you can navigate to them.

 

MapInstall will let you install additional maps, including the free public-domain ones that folks have mentioned.

 

Garmin Communicator will let your web browser use the "Send to GPS" button from geocache pages and maps on Geocaching.com. It also allows you to upload field notes to Geocaching.com to start your logs for you. For example, if you find a cache on Nov. 15th and mark it found on the eTrex, then upload the notes and click "Compose log," the "Found" menu item will already be selected and the date already entered; all you have to do is type your log. In fact, if you don't mind using the tedious text-entry method on the eTrex, even that can already be done by the time you get home and upload your field notes. Or you can type a brief note (such as "ants") in the field and use that to jog your memory when you write the full log at home.

 

Patty

[Spanner15]

Great, so to when I do come to download the 'free' maps, will I have to buy the SD card, or will there be enough space on the GPS itself?

[Spanner15]

There'll be ample on the device, I have the whole of UK on mine and still oodles of space left

 

Ta

[+phlatlander]

Regarding maps - in particular for Garmin GPSrs.

You might want to try a few maps from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ Took me a while to figure out to use the website but the results are OK and the maps are free.

I have installed a modified map of Europe (Germany, Austria, Czeck Rep, Hungary) onto my Nuvi 1350 and it is likely most Garmin products will read/use a .img map file. I have been advised by an Etrex 20 user that it can read/display the .img map.