Looking to Buy a GPS

[team thunder bear]

Hi Everyone,

 

So my wife and I have been out geo caching with some friends a couple times now and want to get into it ourselves, looking to buy a GPS but quickly realizing how insanely expensive a decent one is. I was hoping someone could point us in the right direction for finding a good gps at a palatable price, or if you know of somewhere thats having a 'blow-out' sale.

 

We've pretty much exausted all the resources around here trying to find one, no store has a decent sale around here, nothing really on kijiji or craigs list, not a single pawn store in a 50km radius has one either, cant believe how hard it is to find one!

 

Thanks Guys!

Edited July 23, 2012 by team thunder bear

[+Chief301]

First it would help to know what your definition of "insanely expensive" is, i.e., how much are you willing to spend? You really want to consider not getting the cheapest thing you can find....if you really get into Geocaching you may find yourself wanting something better and having to spend the money twice. Expect to spend around $200-300 for a decent unit with paperless Geocaching, more for a fancier unit with more bells and whistles.

 

I usually recommend Garmin because that's what I'm experienced with and I'm happy with them. Other like Magellan, DeLorme, or Lowrance are also popular.

[team thunder bear]

Hi Chief301, thanks for the reply.

 

Well it seems anything decent costs 400-500$ and I could buy a tablet PC for that price (and the markup on thoes is huge) which has 100x the hardware of one of these relatively basic units so I really dont understand where they are getting these prices from.

 

Our budget is around $100, hoping to find something used or a really good deal on something online but so far not coming across much.

 

So far the best bang for the buck looks like the Lowrance Endura Out&Back, can get it for 115 on amazon.com the problem is amazon.com wont ship to Canada so thats not much good.

 

Also might be able to get a Magellan Triton 1500 for under $100 used locally but Im a little hesitant, cant find many positive reviews on it.

Edited July 23, 2012 by team thunder bear

[+Chief301]

Do either of you have a smartphone of some kind? There are lots of Geocaching apps out there that could get you started cheap, some even free.

[+Kissyfurs]

We use an iphone and a Magellan eXplorist GC. I just purchased the eXplorist from EasternMountainSports.com on sale about a month ago for $119 total (combination of the sale at that time and a coupon code that I googled). Amazon has them now for $121 and free shipping. We use this exclusively for geocaching (obviously, that's all it's made for). I like the iphone better, but it loses signal a lot where we are (very rural) and the eXplorist is a very adequate unit for what we want. It gets us fairly close to the cache and has all the details that we want to go paperless. I've used it for about 10 of our 20 finds so far and I'm fairly happy with it. For your budget, I'd definitely recommend this unit. It's a bit touchy and takes awhile to get used to, but it's a really good starter unit for the price.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

It's almost like Catch-22.....

 

If you get a unit that is clumsy or difficult to use for geocaching you will soon tire of the activity, and you have wasted the money, or very soon have the (strong) desire to upgrade and end up buying a good one anyway!

 

A decent paperless unit is the next thing to a God-send. Don't shortchange yourself expecting something for nothing -- or very little. It isn't gonna happen.

 

You should really peruse through the GPS Garage Sale category further down the list in these forums.

 

P.S. I agree with your hesitation on the unit you mentioned. It is a decent unit, it was not designed with geocaching in mind however.

[team thunder bear]

Thanks for tall the replies guys,

 

Yes we do have a smart phone but dont have a data plan, even if we did its hard to get signal out in some of the places we plan to go plus they arent built to take a lickin and inevitably it will get dropped or fall in the drink and that will be the end of it, I just dont think its a good idea to use a smartphone for this.

 

I really want a paperless unit but it seems only the newer models have this option and thoes seem to be the really expensive ones, again the Lowrance Endura Out&Back looks like it would be great but amazon.com wont ship here so Im out of luck with that one.

 

Ill have to check out that GPS garage sale forum and see what I can find there.

[+T.D.M.22]

$100 will get you a GPS, but not anything special. You manually enter the co-ords in, it might not have maps, no color screen. If you are fine with that then go ahead and do it. I started with an Garmin Etrex for just under $100. click HERE That's from Calgary. of the first 6 items, the last 4 are good and under $200, and except for the Explorist GC you could sell it for a decent price if you figure geocaching is not for you. I use the Explorist GC, and it's made specifically for geocaching. You can download the caches right to the GPSr, and you can view the description and hints(called paperless geocaching)

[team thunder bear]

Im not really into paying retail price, ever, so for 100 I plan to find something much above that price retail.

 

The Dakota 20 looks tempting but from what Ive read the screen is very hard to see in strong daylight, the etrex 30 looks good but a bit pricy for what it is. the GC just is 'almost but not quite', its missing some features I want and reportedly a pain to work with for getting maps on it and what not.

 

I still think as far as bang for your buck the Lowrance Endura Out&Back is best, just wish amazon would ship to canada or I could find one somewhere else for that price.

[+briansnat]

Im not really into paying retail price, ever, so for 100 I plan to find something much above that price retail.

 

The Dakota 20 looks tempting but from what Ive read the screen is very hard to see in strong daylight, the etrex 30 looks good but a bit pricy for what it is. the GC just is 'almost but not quite', its missing some features I want and reportedly a pain to work with for getting maps on it and what not.

 

I still think as far as bang for your buck the Lowrance Endura Out&Back is best, just wish amazon would ship to canada or I could find one somewhere else for that price.

 

Noooooo, don't get an Endura. Awful unit. If you want bang for the buck look for a DeLorme PN40 or PN60. PN40 has crappy battery life but is a darn good geocaching GPS overall. PN60 addressed some of the PN40's shortcomings. A nice thing about the DeLormes is that they include detailed maps with the unit. Maps can cost $100 or more for Lowrance and Garmin units.

Edited July 24, 2012 by briansnat

[team thunder bear]

Thanks for thewarning about the Lowrance, the DeLorne does look nice and I had checked it out before but the price is a little prohibitive, I really dont want to spend more then 150, these things just arent worth that much and I'd feel dirty spending any more then that on a $50 bit of hardware.

 

So whats bad about the Lowrance unit? Specs wise it seems quite good, there seems to be some firmware updates which enable 20m tomops and what not.

Edited July 24, 2012 by team thunder bear