Garmin GPS advice please!

[osmartinspereira]

Hi everyone!

 

I've been geocaching since college but went on a big break, and i was willing to comeback and start doing it as a family now. I own a Garmin GPS, the Oregon 550 model, however it might be a tad slow nowadays. It was one of the things that even at that time, i thought was frustrating.

I'm thinking about purchasing a new GPS device, but am so indecise on wich model to choose. I know that there are not new models (only the solar panel one), but any upgrade to my device is more than welcome i guess.

Iwas wondering if anyone could give me some advice between the Etrex Touch 35 or the Etrex 32x wich one do you find best? If you recommend any other model please do tell, although i'm not inclined to the high end models.

 

Thanks in advance, looking forward to read some opinions.

Edited April 30 by Keystone

[Keystone]

I moved this thread from the General Geocaching Topics forum, after removing an unnecessary reference to an unauthorized third party application.

[SergZak]

Quote

if anyone could give me some advice between the Etrex Touch 35 or the Etrex 32x wich one do you find best?

I have the eTrex 32x and while it's a great & compact GPS unit overall, if you're looking for speed (map rendering), this is not the unit for you. I've found the map rendering speed even slower than my elderly eTrex Vista HCx. The preloaded (shipped on the unit) TopoActive maps on the current 32x's (US version) are 2020.10. Updating those maps to the current 2024.20 version provides even slower map redraws and simply searching for saved waypoints near your location takes a few seconds with 2020.10...this increases to around 15-20 seconds with 2024.20. I don't know why this happens since you're not even searching the map POIs but your saved waypoints. This unit is known to be slower than even the eTrex 20 & 30 units. I've also returned the unit twice to Amazon thinking maybe I got a dud...but they are all the same.

 

If you want to experiment with the unit's map version, make a full backup of the unit (this will take hours, thanks to the elderly and slow mini-USB data connection) and it's preloaded maps before you update. This way you can fall back on the original 2020.10 mapset. If you don't back them up, you can not download then again from Garmin and you'll be stuck with the newer (slower) 2024.20 maps.

 

If you can tolerate the speed, it's otherwise a great unit, especially the 3-axis compass and barometer.

 

You may want to wait for new eTrex's since there are bound to be new models released in the future...when that will be is anyone's guess. Seeing as there are the eTrex SE and eTrex Solar units out, maybe the wait won't be too long.

Edited May 2 by SergZak

[+Viajero Perdido]

Are you willing to consider a phone?

 

It doesn't have to be your daily-driver fragile phone, and it doesn't have to be the unspeakable app nor the default one.  A rugged Android dedicated to the task, with a quality app, can run circles around many a Garmin...  EDIT: ...even without a cell plan.

 

Edited May 2 by Viajero Perdido

[+Atlas Cached]

I would try to find a good used Oregon 7x0 - this has always been my favorite Geocaching GPS. They really are hard to beat. 

 

Or, as others have suggested, if you can wait a little longer,  mayber something new will come out later this year. 

 

 

Edited May 4 by Atlas Cached
Typos

[+Red90]

Use your phone and the normal app unless you are hiking a lot and need longer battery life. Etrexes are not great for caching.