Upgrade Vista HCX to Oregon 450?

[+terratin]

Hi,

 

we're thinking about a GPS upgrade. We currently have a Garmin eTrex Vista HCX and consider buying an Oregon 450, especially as we'll be in a country soon where they are really cheep (here in Denmark they cost a fortune).

 

Are there people here who have used both? What is your experience, which one do you prefer and why? Which one has the better reception, what about battery life, sturdiness, display, menue usage (adding coords by hand...) etc..

 

The great pro for us is paperless caching, though we don't know what it looks like on that gps yet. Every now and then I'm away on business, quite often on rather short notice and it would be great to just load all the caches in the area plus the descriptions instead of spending days and days to find out what caches are in the area and select a few, make a description sheet in Word (don't like the layout of the print-options here), print and take a big pile of paper along.

 

Being able to do whereigos also sounds nice as we don't have a smart phone and don't plan on buying one anytime soon.

 

Cheers,

Mrs. Terratin

[MtnHermit]

I've owned a OR 450 for ~15 months, before that a Venture Cx

 

Are there people here who have used both? What is your experience, which one do you prefer and why? Which one has the better reception, what about battery life, sturdiness, display, menue usage (adding coords by hand...) etc..

Reception = About the same

Battery life = 2:1 in favor of the Vista

Display = 2:1 in favor of the 450, although not as bright

Menus = Especially using profiles, big edge to 450

Adding text = Big edge to touchscreen 450

 

The OR 450 is always my preferred GPS, have 5, and I've never had Montana lust.

[+quadsinthemudd]

Well there really is no comparison of the two units. The Vista wins hands down on reliability. You put the coords or caches in the vista it just works, it is not a little computer like the 450 so it just powers up and takes you to the spot you have requested. That being said the new paperless caching GPS units are the best. Yes sometimes there is trouble getting the programs to work properly and you feel frustrated with wasting a little time getting everything to work right at first but the time it saves on the trail and when you get back to log your caches with field notes you will never want to go back. Right now the 450 is on sale at cabelas for $250 american dollars. Go with the 450 you will be very happy you did.

[+terratin]

Thanks for your answers. Our Vista is getting a bit touchy lately. Sometimes it just switches itself off or has weired display errors, and the rubber band is broken and needs repair anyway. We're going to Calgary and are seeing some marvellous offers around there. I haven't checked yet what the prices are now after this crazy Friday (Can't come up with the correct name) but it will still be so much cheaper.

 

What I've been wondering: How sturdy is the 450? can it deal with a bit of dirt and a bump?

 

Battery life is a bummer. I don't necessarily need all sorts of wild display options and would prefer loger battery life instead. But other than that it seems to win over the Vista with everything else important to me.

 

Mrs. Terratin

[MtnHermit]

Battery life is a bummer. I don't necessarily need all sorts of wild display options and would prefer loger battery life instead. But other than that it seems to win over the Vista with everything else important to me.

Why not consider the eTrex 20 or 30 then? I believe they have all the paperless features of the OR 450 and the interface will be near identical to your Vista. See here

[+terratin]

Battery life is a bummer. I don't necessarily need all sorts of wild display options and would prefer loger battery life instead. But other than that it seems to win over the Vista with everything else important to me.

Why not consider the eTrex 20 or 30 then? I believe they have all the paperless features of the OR 450 and the interface will be near identical to your Vista. See here

 

Yes, we considered that for a moment but in a whim* we just bought the Oregon 450 for a really good price. I think it got everything we're looking for, and it's a tested GPS. If something is not working perfectly I'm sure there's a workaround for it.

 

We're happy now already

 

*well, it took us almost 2 hours to find out how to buy and pay for it. In the end we phoned up the shop and will pick it up when we're in the area.

[+quadsinthemudd]

If you get some duracell rechargeable batteries they last about 8 hours with full back light. just make sure you get the 2450mAh

[+terratin]

If you get some duracell rechargeable batteries they last about 8 hours with full back light. just make sure you get the 2450mAh

 

That's certainly the idea! For some reason getting good rechargables here is quite difficult but they are on our Canada shopping list as well, as is a handfull of mini-containers.

Hmm.. just looked at a Danish GPS website. There the Oregon 450 costs more than double of what we paid

 

Mrs. terratin

[+terratin]

Just a quick update: We picked up our Oregon last week Monday in Calgary and have been trying it out ever since. I must say I'm quite impressed. Even in downtown Calgary amongst skyscrapers it connects to satellites within the blink of an eye while our Vista HCX needs minutes and ages to do so. The accuracy is also somewhat higher and there's less drift. The screen is not as reflective as I first thought and I don't need back light.

 

A few nibbles:

still need to get used to the touch screen. It feels like it takes longer to navigate to a certain menue item, though I'm not sure if that's really the case. e.g. select cache -> auto-go to map -> go to menue to select cache and read description, then to compass.

 

not sure if it's compatible with EasyGPS. After we set out for a trip we found that our pocket query transferred with EasyGPS was missing. Back home we realised the data was there, but somehow not stored as geocaches.

 

Gosh! It really needs a lot of energy. While the etrex can deal very well with as good as empty camera alcalines, the Oregon needs better stuff. Anyway, Eneloops are ordered and should arrive next week. Lets hope they will work better.

 

tiny nibble: the same map on the Etrex seems to be more detailed, or rather more simplistic, and at the moment easier to use. Also the 'follow road' line is more difficult to distinguish from the road colours.

 

Despite all it's a very nice unit.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

We use GSAK for loading our 450 as well as our other units.....perfect, no problems.

 

Be sure you have your map detail set to "more detail" or most detail.....I've never seen sharper maps than on the 450 due to its high screen resolution.

 

I use Sony Eneloop 2500 NIMH batteries.....you can get about 12 hours of constant use.

[+terratin]

We use GSAK for loading our 450 as well as our other units.....perfect, no problems.

 

Be sure you have your map detail set to "more detail" or most detail.....I've never seen sharper maps than on the 450 due to its high screen resolution.

 

I use Sony Eneloop 2500 NIMH batteries.....you can get about 12 hours of constant use.

 

Cheers,

I bought the 2500 Eneloops. Lets see how the Oregon performs with them

 

And indeed I have set the map to 'more detail'. Maybe, after the very simplistic Vista map this one looks a bit too detailed at the moment and I only need to get used to it.

 

One last (hopefully) question: how does the elevation plot work? On the Vista I could simply go to that screen and see the high profile while walking or driving, with the Oregon this screen stays empty and I get a message that there's no height available or something like that (can't test at the moment as I'm home with a cold). Btw, related to this, is it possible to show the elevation plot for a planned trip, either straight line, along a road or along a track e.g. from google earth? That would be really great!