Garmin Venture eTREX HC Discontinued

[Beeezer]

So its been quite a while with my yellow Garmin eTREX and even though it works fine (I have to manually plug everything in due to owning a Mac) Garmin has discontinued it. Should I be worried?

 

I've had this GPS for several years and have been thinking to upgrade since I also hike, (and I mean HIKE) and having a fairly decent GPS with topography overlay would be really nice. Any suggestions? I can go as high as $150 in price.

[+gpsblake]

Etrex 20 is slightly above $150 and probably what you are looking for. It will also play somewhat nice with a MAC that it will read your device as a hard drive unlike the Venture HC. I will give a footnote though, I got the Etrex 20 and I think mine was defective as the accuracy for walking was horrible. Most others here have not experienced that problem. The Etrex 20 will be a real easy learning curve because you have the Venture HC.

 

One other to consider near that price range would be the Dakota 10, which is touch screen. Has a great deal more memory then the HC but no SD card storage and if you need to load a large map to it, memory might be an issue.

[+cliptwings]

I will second what gpsblake has said. The etrex 20 is a great all-around GPSr for hiking and geocaching. Although it doesn't come with detailed maps installed, there are several legal and free sources for very good topo and street maps. gpsfiledepot.com is one, and openstreet maps is another. The etrex 10 is okay, but forget about any kind of extensive maps. Ebay is a good source for a used etrex 20, and $150 is a fairly good target. I own a 10, 20, and 30, so I guess I am sold on the thing. I have owned the dakota 10 and 20, but the etrex screen is brighter and I personally like the joystick control better on the etrex. Obviously, I am very happy with the etrex.

[+Redwoods Mtn Biker]

Yup, eTrex 20.

[+ngrrfan]

So its been quite a while with my yellow Garmin eTREX and even though it works fine (I have to manually plug everything in due to owning a Mac) Garmin has discontinued it. Should I be worried?

 

I've had this GPS for several years and have been thinking to upgrade since I also hike, (and I mean HIKE) and having a fairly decent GPS with topography overlay would be really nice. Any suggestions? I can go as high as $150 in price.

I started with a Venture HC and loved it. Yes it was limited by memory so I couldn't load all the maps I needed but it was extremely easy to use and always led me to a cache.

When the E20 came out I got one for a couple of reasons. 1 - increased memory size, so now I can have the map of the whole state of Colorado loaded. 2 - A terrific increase in the number of caches I can have loaded.

 

Does my Venture HC still serve me well? Yes, I can let someone borrow it to go caching with me or I can use it if I have to. However, I much prefer my E20.

[Beeezer]

Ok, after talking to a few of my fellow cachers, and listening to some Geocaching Podcasts (hey, why not?) I've narrowed it down to the eTrex 20, Dakota 20, and looking at the eTrex 30. Now should I even bother with the 30 since the Dakota has the same 3-axis compass and it's cheaper? Also, how reliable is the compass on the Dakota? I've used 3-axis compasses before, and I can go either way. I do like the fact that all of the units have incredible battery life compared to my Venture HC.

 

So for those that own, have used these units and deal with Macs--what's the better option? The Dakota 20 or the eTrex 20? Am I just screwed that Garmin insists on keeping strictly to Windows, or have things changed? (I haven't kept up with news on Garmin since they've bricked my HC from paperless caching.)

[insig]

Either unit should be somewhat Mac-compatible. I'd go with the eTrex 20 for GLONASS.