Auto vs Handheld GPS

[+TheCrazyCs]

My daughter and I are new to this and we love it. But we have been barely getting by with my Garmin, mounted in the vehicle. Would we have better luck with a handheld? Or does it still just get you in the general area? I will buy one if required. Any recommendations?

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

Battery life on an auto unit generally, well... is not good. Until lately (newer models) you couldn't even change out the battery for a spare. Think about that one...

 

Most auto units are useable -- to a point. They are made for road navigation, whereas a hand-held is made for hiking, geocaching, hunting (oops, that also is geocaching). Most hand-helds are far more conducive to better geocaching. Some are made specifically for that.

 

Hand-helds are far more rugged and durable (you ARE gonna drop it), they are most always waterproof, easy-change battery and finally, they are made to fit in your hand after you exit the vehicle.

 

In short, most (not all) vehicle units will work, but you can also bat a baseball with a soda straw.

 

I love in-car units.... in the car.

[+Lieblweb]

Car units are specific to street navigating - and are great for getting you to parking at each cache. A handheld will serve you much much much better in finding GZ. And the containers. Not only that but a handheld is designed for geocaching and allows you to download all the cache information as well as being able to log them (paperless). A car GPS will hold geocaches but with limited information, more complex to load them, and you can't log anything in it.

 

We have a Garmin Nuvi to get us to parking, two handhelds for getting the caches!!

[Mr.Yuck]

My daughter and I are new to this and we love it. But we have been barely getting by with my Garmin, mounted in the vehicle. Would we have better luck with a handheld? Or does it still just get you in the general area? I will buy one if required. Any recommendations?

 

You are a premium member, and can do pocket queries, and with the program GSAK, and a 3rd party "macro", you can download the caches into the Garmin, a Nuvi, I assume. Are you doing that?

 

Those of us who have been around 9 years (like myself) or longer saw an explosion of sorts of people Geocaching with automotive GPS's. When they became relatively inexpensive; I don't know 2006 or 2007 or so? At that time, there were many fierce advocates who would argue in favor of them until they were blue in the face. Not unlike how we now have fierce smartphone advocates who have never used a handheld GPS. I don't know if any of them are still around to argue here now though.

 

In my opinion, several major disadvantages. Poor Battery life. Not waterproof. Not shockproof. No navigation arrow, or navigation screen. Not "ergonomic" (i.e. like walking around holding a picture frame in the woods). Never an electronic compass, but a "differential compass", where you have to be moving (although I personally use a lower-end GPS with a differential compass myself).

 

I'd strongly recommend a handheld. The Garmin Etrex10, or Magellan Explorist110, can be had for $100. The Magellan ExploristGC is about $130, and the Etrex20 about $180. These are all current models, and all support paperless caching.

 

EDIT: P.S. I know a guy whose been Geocaching 3 1/2 years, has 550 finds and 10 hides, all with a Nuvi plucked off the windshield. It can definitely be done.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Mr.Yuck

[+BAMBOOZLE]

Car units are specific to street navigating - and are great for getting you to parking at each cache. A handheld will serve you much much much better in finding GZ. And the containers. Not only that but a handheld is designed for geocaching and allows you to download all the cache information as well as being able to log them (paperless). A car GPS will hold geocaches but with limited information, more complex to load them, and you can't log anything in it.

 

We have a Garmin Nuvi to get us to parking, two handhelds for getting the caches!!

 

Us two, exactly.

We walk with a 62S and Oregon 450.

[+StarBrand]

Generally speaking handheld units have better battery life, are more ruggedized, fit in your hand better, can be operated with one hand and are designed for off road use. Some exceptions.

[+Tobias & Petronella]

Those of us who have been around 9 years (like myself) or longer saw an explosion of sorts of people Geocaching with automotive GPS's. When they became relatively inexpensive; I don't know 2006 or 2007 or so? At that time, there were many fierce advocates who would argue in favor of them until they were blue in the face. Not unlike how we now have fierce smartphone advocates who have never used a handheld GPS. I don't know if any of them are still around to argue here now though.

 

That sounds almost like us?

 

Let me see... First started caching in Sept. 2008 after we bought a Nuvi 255w for our car. Have posted many times about how easy it is for us to use our car unit for caching. Since then we have upgraded to a Nuvi 1350T. So far we have found 3936 caches in which 339 were FTF's. For more info on us see our stat page.

 

Handheld vs. Car unit is like asking which is better a Pickup Truck, a Four Door Car, a Motorcycle or a Bicycle when you want to get from one place to another. And since there are alot of different Handhelds and Car units it would all depends on which two you are comparing and your style of caching. Like any tool, if you know how to use it correctly you can get better results than someone that doesn't.

 

Some of the things that are said about car units are true and others "less then true". Lets take a look at few of those statements. For this I will only be using the Nuvi 1350T since that is what I use. Other car units may not have the same results.

 

Its like walking around holding a picture frame in the woods. - Ours is a larger than a pack of playing cards but smaller than a package of 3x5 index cards. 4.8"W x 2.9"H x .6"D (12.1 x 7.6 x 1.5 cm). Since they make pictures frames that small I guess that makes it true. To get around this we have a small carrying case (with zipper and strap) which makes it much easier to carry. Also, because of the small size we can put it in our coat pocket if we choose.

 

Poor Battery life. - We can get about 3-4 hours from our unit, but since we didn't normally go on long hikes that has never been a problem. For those few times we do, we turn the unit off when its not needed that way it can last all day (and it has).

 

Not waterproof. - This is true. But since we live near Seattle in Washington state, we know a little about getting wet. At the first sign of rain we put our Nuvi in a light weight plastic bag that we got from the craft section at WalMart. I think we paid about two dollars for one hundred bags that "zipped lock".

 

A handheld will serve you much much much better in finding GZ. - Not true. The GPS receiver in a top of the line Handheld and the GPS receiver in a top of the line Car unit are the same if both are made by the same company. The main difference is what each unit does with this info. This was told to me by a Garmin Rep.

 

A car GPS will hold geocaches but with limited information. - Both true and not true. It depends on what you want. We have all the caches in Washington state in our unit with full text. The only thing we don't have are the pictures and the logs from other cachers. For that we use our smart phone. A few weeks ago we did a 3000 mile road trip through 6 states. For that trip I added over 4000 caches that we would be passing or wanted to get. Because of where we went, we needed to all the info about the caches with us on our Nuvi since there were many areas without phone coverage.

 

Hand-helds are far more rugged and durable. - True. So if you are a person that drops things a lot or falls down alot then you might want to get a handheld, knee pads and a helmet to go caching. I have met cachers that have dropped their handheld and it cracked the screen because it hit a rock just right. We have dropped our Nuvi on the road and it bounced. The only damage was a small nick to the side of the case. Did we get lucky? Maybe.

 

You can change the battery in a handheld but not in a car unit. - True. But since most of our caching is within a short walk from where we park (less than .5 miles) we just plug it back into the car as we drive to the next cache. Because we are always recharging the Nuvi we can cache all day.

 

No navigation arrow, or navigation screen. - Not true. For a few screen shots of what our Nuvi can do check this out. I have other pictures if needed.

 

Car units are only good for the streets but not for trails. - Not true. When we get out of our truck to go "off road" we simply put the Nuvi in Bicycle mode and follow the colored line to the GZ. Maybe those that use handhelds feel this is cheating, but all I know is how easy it is for our unit to show us the direction and how far we need to walk.

 

We like the wide screen and the turn by turn voice directions on the road. Since we do a lot of driving anyway, we see no reason to have two units when one will do everything we need. So for us, the Nuvi is the best choice. For others the handheld would be better. It all depends on how you cache and what you want from a GPS unit. Truck, Car, Motorcycle, or Bicycle... Just remember to have fun.

 

Tobias

Edited July 27, 2012 by Tobias & Petronella

[+The_Incredibles_]

Definately, get a hand held. You can usually expect an accuracy of +-10 meters. Then you need to think where would be a good place to hide something and use the hint if there is one.

 

It will get easier as you get more practise.

 

GPS reviews here:

 

http://www.gpsinformation.net/

 

I could recommend an Oregon 450. However it's alot of money if you're just starting. I started with the MAgellan Explorist GC which I loved also. It was cheaper, but with a smaller screen and not a touchscreen. I can also recommend the Dakota 20. It has almost all the features of te 450, except a smaller screen and cheaper.

Edited July 27, 2012 by The_Incredibles_

[Mr.Yuck]

Those of us who have been around 9 years (like myself) or longer saw an explosion of sorts of people Geocaching with automotive GPS's. When they became relatively inexpensive; I don't know 2006 or 2007 or so? At that time, there were many fierce advocates who would argue in favor of them until they were blue in the face. Not unlike how we now have fierce smartphone advocates who have never used a handheld GPS. I don't know if any of them are still around to argue here now though.

 

That sounds almost like us?

 

 

No, not you specifically. But I definite3ly remember your username now. Ironically enough, The Troll "laughing at u all" who started the "you're all barking mad" thread in the Geocaching Topics forums yesterday was mainly using a 5 day old quote of mine as his troll ammunition.

 

Oh boy, I could have just given a two sentence answer like Starbrand. I guess I put the back story in there because I thought it was cute that there were adamant "never gonna use anything but Car GPS users", and more recently there are adamant "never gonna use anything but an IPhone users". Well, I'll tell you what; the Iphone Geocaching app basically emulates the features of a handheld GPS, and you can buy waterproof, shockproof Otter boxes for them.

 

So you've actually upgraded from using one Nuvi for Geocaching to a newer Nuvi for Geocaching? All I can say there is you've obviously "adapted". And you're probably like 1 in 3.5 million (the number of world-wide Geocaching accounts). I'm not here to argue with you though, and the getting started forum isn't the place to do it. If the OP does decide to stick with the Garmin for a while, who better to give advice? And I think the guy who wrote the GSAK Macro for Garmin has a "tips" page for caching with a Nuvi? Any idea where that is?

[+briansnat]

Those of us who have been around 9 years (like myself) or longer saw an explosion of sorts of people Geocaching with automotive GPS's. When they became relatively inexpensive; I don't know 2006 or 2007 or so? At that time, there were many fierce advocates who would argue in favor of them until they were blue in the face. Not unlike how we now have fierce smartphone advocates who have never used a handheld GPS. I don't know if any of them are still around to argue here now though.

 

That sounds almost like us?

 

 

No, not you specifically. But I definite3ly remember your username now. Ironically enough, The Troll "laughing at u all" who started the "you're all barking mad" thread in the Geocaching Topics forums yesterday was mainly using a 5 day old quote of mine as his troll ammunition.

 

Oh boy, I could have just given a two sentence answer like Starbrand. I guess I put the back story in there because I thought it was cute that there were adamant "never gonna use anything but Car GPS users", and more recently there are adamant "never gonna use anything but an IPhone users". Well, I'll tell you what; the Iphone Geocaching app basically emulates the features of a handheld GPS, and you can buy waterproof, shockproof Otter boxes for them.

 

So you've actually upgraded from using one Nuvi for Geocaching to a newer Nuvi for Geocaching? All I can say there is you've obviously "adapted". And you're probably like 1 in 3.5 million (the number of world-wide Geocaching accounts). I'm not here to argue with you though, and the getting started forum isn't the place to do it. If the OP does decide to stick with the Garmin for a while, who better to give advice? And I think the guy who wrote the GSAK Macro for Garmin has a "tips" page for caching with a Nuvi? Any idea where that is?

 

Smartphones and automotive units work fine for some types geocaching, particularly when caching around town or if you aren't going to be far from your car. Once away from that kind of caching all kinds of tricks and expedients are necessary to get the device to perform like a hand held. Ziplocs, Otterboxes, etc. so they are waterproof. Extended life batteries and portable chargers to provide extra battery life. Padded cases to make them shock resistant. A coat or blanket so you can create enough shade to read the displays in bright sunlight. I've read of all sorts of makeshift solutions and they do work to some extent, but why go through all of that nonsense when you can just get a hand held unit?

 

I have a Nuvi and use it for geocaching sometimes and it just plain stinks for that purpose (and it is the Nuvi 500 which was made with geocaching in mind). Like many here, I use the Nuvi to get me to the trailhead and my handhelds to get me to the cache.

Edited July 28, 2012 by briansnat

[Mr.Yuck]

Thank you BrianSnat, for posting so I'm not a thread killa. Yeah, I hear that awkward silence when people read mine and T & P's post.

 

My fault, really. What on earth was a thinking adding "ya' know, there used to be staunch defenders of Geocaching with a car GPS around here" to my post? I should have just given an answer. I hope the OP has come back, and at least gets some useful information out of the thread. Or maybe he left in awkward silence.

 

EDIT: And I just read a review for the Nuvi 500 BrianSnat mentions, which is supposed to function as a handheld out of the car. I did not know Garmin had made anything like that.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Mr.Yuck

[+garyg51]

I've never figured out why in the world auto GPS's are popular, roads are generally marked, numbered and on maps. Why one would spend $$ extra for an electronic voice is beyond me.

[+briansnat]

Thank you BrianSnat, for posting so I'm not a thread killa. Yeah, I hear that awkward silence when people read mine and T & P's post.

 

My fault, really. What on earth was a thinking adding "ya' know, there used to be staunch defenders of Geocaching with a car GPS around here" to my post? I should have just given an answer. I hope the OP has come back, and at least gets some useful information out of the thread. Or maybe he left in awkward silence.

 

EDIT: And I just read a review for the Nuvi 500 BrianSnat mentions, which is supposed to function as a handheld out of the car. I did not know Garmin had made anything like that.

 

I believe it is now discontinued, but it was waterproof, shock resistant and had a compass screen (the only automotive unit I've seen with one). It has a 500 cache capacity, Wherigo capability and a geocaching mode. The 500 also has topo maps (the 550 didn't). Also had field replaceable batteries, though you needed their proprietary battery and it was pretty expensive. It addressed many of the shortcomings of automotive units.

 

That said, it was still awkward to hold and there was no lanyard or method of securing it to a belt. You either have to hold it in your hand, or put it in a pocket (where it will often lose its signal). The compass was not magnetic and very slow to react and the screen was hard to read in direct sunlight.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

Thank you BrianSnat, for posting so I'm not a thread killa. Yeah, I hear that awkward silence when people read mine and T & P's post.

 

My fault, really. What on earth was a thinking adding "ya' know, there used to be staunch defenders of Geocaching with a car GPS around here" to my post? I should have just given an answer. I hope the OP has come back, and at least gets some useful information out of the thread. Or maybe he left in awkward silence.

 

EDIT: And I just read a review for the Nuvi 500 BrianSnat mentions, which is supposed to function as a handheld out of the car. I did not know Garmin had made anything like that.

 

I believe it is now discontinued, but it was waterproof, shock resistant and had a compass screen (the only automotive unit I've seen with one). It has a 500 cache capacity, Wherigo capability and a geocaching mode. The 500 also has topo maps (the 550 didn't). Also had field replaceable batteries, though you needed their proprietary battery and it was pretty expensive. It addressed many of the shortcomings of automotive units.

 

That said, it was still awkward to hold and there was no lanyard or method of securing it to a belt. You either have to hold it in your hand, or put it in a pocket (where it will often lose its signal). The compass was not magnetic and very slow to react and the screen was hard to read in direct sunlight.

 

We have a 500 in our " collection "........really nice unit.

The 500 is Totally Paperless including uploading of finds.....we used it for this purpose and carried it in the field for cache info. before we got paperless handhelds. It wasn't marketed properly.....it had been out a long time and myself and others were still buying various Nuvi's and using the awkward poi workaround for cache info.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

I've never figured out why in the world auto GPS's are popular, roads are generally marked, numbered and on maps. Why one would spend $$ extra for an electronic voice is beyond me.

 

Actually I leave all sounds turned off on mine. Most folks after using one for a bit would never go back to a map ( I still like carrying a large map for reference but almost never look at it )....also the proximity of restaurants, motels, etc are at your fingertips .

Then there are dashboards ( most speedometers in cars are slow), trip calculators, etc.

[+BCandMsKitty]

My daughter and I are new to this and we love it. But we have been barely getting by with my Garmin, mounted in the vehicle. Would we have better luck with a handheld? Or does it still just get you in the general area? I will buy one if required. Any recommendations?

Yes, and easier too.

[+The_Incredibles_]

I've never figured out why in the world auto GPS's are popular, roads are generally marked, numbered and on maps. Why one would spend $$ extra for an electronic voice is beyond me.

 

I take it you've never used one? I have used one extensively for work and I can tell you it's much superior to glancing down at a piece of paper with instructions on it, then squinting to see a road sign in the distance. It's safer because you're not having to read while looking at the road. You're also more likely to make your turn, rather then driving right past it and not seeing the road sign until it's too late.

 

When you have cars going fast behind you, it's VERY helpful to have some warning that your turn off is in 500m or 200m away and what lane you should be in.

[Mr.Yuck]

I've never figured out why in the world auto GPS's are popular, roads are generally marked, numbered and on maps. Why one would spend $$ extra for an electronic voice is beyond me.

 

I take it you've never used one? I have used one extensively for work and I can tell you it's much superior to glancing down at a piece of paper with instructions on it, then squinting to see a road sign in the distance. It's safer because you're not having to read while looking at the road. You're also more likely to make your turn, rather then driving right past it and not seeing the road sign until it's too late.

 

When you have cars going fast behind you, it's VERY helpful to have some warning that your turn off is in 500m or 200m away and what lane you should be in.

 

See look at me, now I'm posting positive comments in favor of auto GPS's. What about the find function? Ever been 250 miles from home, and your kid and his cousin demanded a Pizza Hut? Obviously, I have. Found one about 8 miles away. Then in June I visited the Highpoint of Ohio, and wanted to go to the Highpoint of Indiana, about 80 miles away (both have Earthcaches). Let me tell you, I would have had to study maps for about an hour to find my way from a small Ohio City to a very rural location in Eastern Indiana. The Tom-Tom took me there no problem.

[+Tobias & Petronella]

See look at me, now I'm posting positive comments in favor of auto GPS's. What about the find function? Ever been 250 miles from home, and your kid and his cousin demanded a Pizza Hut? Obviously, I have. Found one about 8 miles away. Then in June I visited the Highpoint of Ohio, and wanted to go to the Highpoint of Indiana, about 80 miles away (both have Earthcaches). Let me tell you, I would have had to study maps for about an hour to find my way from a small Ohio City to a very rural location in Eastern Indiana. The Tom-Tom took me there no problem.

 

Welcome to the Dark side.

 

See how easy that was.

 

Soon you will be ready to join the rest of us that cache with Auto GPS 's

 

:laughing:

 

Tobias

Edited August 4, 2012 by Tobias & Petronella

[+clarinetqueen]

I'm a newbie too...I've been geocaching since the first of the year. I started out using my auto GPS (Garmin Nuvi) because that's all I had. It was a pain because I would have to write down the coordinates at home (or pull them up on my phone), and then use the "Where Am I" on the Nuvi and try to match them up. A lot of times I would have to try to guess which direction to go in at first until the coords started moving in the right direction. I bought a Magellan Explorist GC a few weeks ago, and let me tell you it was SO worth it. (I know a lot of people don't like the Explorist, but anyway...) I spend SO much less time trying to figure things out now:

 

1. POCKET QUERIES - Having caches loaded in saves me SO much time from having to look them up every time I go out. I run PQs around the major cities around me so that, even if I go to one of those places at a moment's notice, I'm ready to cache.

 

2. BATTERY POWER - Nothing was more frustrating that the Nuvi dying while I was trying to find a cache. I'd go back to the car and try to charge it for a few minutes and try again. That got old really fast.

 

3. DIRECTION - No more trying to make coords match up, just follow the arrow to the cache. It has made the getting to the coords so much quicker so that I then have time to actually look for the cache. (I've started finding harder ones because of this)

 

Just my two cents!

[+Lexmarks567]

I have a garmin Nuvi 265T and So far its gotten me to the area with a cache. Im using it in the city and In bike since I don't drive. I found about 14 caches with it. Yes it wants to take me through someones backyard to get to the location so then I have to improvise on how to find another route to the location without trespassing through someones backyard.

[+Crow-T-Robot]

I was one who started out using a Nuvi as my GPS and it can work. I think I found a little over a 100 caches with it but the disadvantages became tiresome. The biggest disadvantage? I was new to caching, so of course I wanted to find alot of caches...and with the Nuvi, I was taking about 3 times as long to find a cache than it "should've" taken. The accuracy, most times, was marginal and sometimes it was downright horrid. It was never exceptional.

 

I assumed that with a handheld, I wouldn't have to wander around, trying to walk down the North coords and then match up with the West coords and the accuracy would be better. You know what? I was right. With a handheld, I could just hit "Go to" and start walking directly towards the cache. Once I got close, I could eliminate alot of spots I would've had to check if I was using my Nuvi because with the Nuvi, I could never really be certain that the accuracy was better than 60-70 feet and it was worse than that in the woods. My caching enjoyment went way up because my frustration level went way down.

[CraftyKel*]

Definately, get a hand held. You can usually expect an accuracy of +-10 meters.

 

A little off-topic, my apologies for that but...

 

Really? From posts on the forums I had thought that a proper gps handheld was more accurate than a smartphone, yet I get an average accuracy of 8m, sometimes down to 3 or 4m on my Droid.

 

I was planning on 'upgrading' to a proper gpsr when I had the funds (which unfortunately may take a while lol), perhaps I'll just buy some spare batteries for my droid instead

Edited August 8, 2012 by Aeggil

[+briansnat]

Definately, get a hand held. You can usually expect an accuracy of +-10 meters.

 

A little off-topic, my apologies for that but...

 

Really? From posts on the forums I had thought that a proper gps handheld was more accurate than a smartphone, yet I get an average accuracy of 8m, sometimes down to 3 or 4m on my Droid.

 

I was planning on 'upgrading' to a proper gpsr when I had the funds (which unfortunately may take a while lol), perhaps I'll just buy some spare batteries for my droid instead

 

People put too much stock in the EPE (estimated positioning error) that shows on their device. It is simply an estimate of the accuracy of the device arrived at using the manufacturer's calculations. As the methodology behind these calculations differs it isn't a apples to apples comparison.

 

There are certain factors, chiefly terrain and tree cover, that can affect the accuracy of a unit. Someone living in Kansas or some other relatively flat, treeless area may consistently report an accuracy of 2-3 meters, while someone living the mountainous, tree covered areas of the northeastern US may only see an accuracy of 8-10 meters, even using an identical device. Satellite configuration can also have an affect, meaning that someone standing in the same spot, using the same device on different days may experience a significant difference in accuracy.

Edited August 8, 2012 by briansnat

[+DonB]

My daughter and I are new to this and we love it. But we have been barely getting by with my Garmin, mounted in the vehicle. Would we have better luck with a handheld? Or does it still just get you in the general area? I will buy one if required. Any recommendations?

If I could only own one GPS it would be a handheld with a full set of maps. I have a 76CSx with a full set of maps and other then lack of voice directions it will route as well as my Nuvi.