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60cs V 76cs


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Have long been looking to upgrade from my old Garmin 12XL to a *real* GPS, and long-expecting to get a 76s. But lo and behold, I now see the 60CS and soon-to-be-released 76CS. Too much $, but the Mrs. says she will pay half for our upcoming anniversary.

 

So the question is, what does the special Geocaching feature on the 60CS do for the Geocaching experience?

 

It looks like the 76CS will not have it. Sine the wife is paying half, my instinct is to wait for the 76CS and get the better unit, but without the GC feature, I am unsure what to do. The 60CS manual does not seem to say much about it. Is it worth it? Extra memory on the 76, or GC feature on the 60…??

 

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

KOTruckin

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I don't know anything about the 76CS, but just because its newer, it doesn't mean its a better unit, especially if its only a color version of the 76S. The 76S is a fine unit but has some issues. From everything I've heard about the 60CS, its a primo GPS and worth getting.

 

As far as memory, how much do you really need? I've yet to exhaust the 24 meg on my Vista. Maybe if I travelled a lot it could be an issue, but for me 24 meg is fine.

Edited by briansnat
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Have long been looking to upgrade from my old Garmin 12XL to a *real* GPS, and long-expecting to get a 76s. But lo and behold, I now see the 60CS and soon-to-be-released 76CS. Too much $, but the Mrs. says she will pay half for our upcoming anniversary.

 

So the question is, what does the special Geocaching feature on the 60CS do for the Geocaching experience?

 

It looks like the 76CS will not have it. Sine the wife is paying half, my instinct is to wait for the 76CS and get the better unit, but without the GC feature, I am unsure what to do. The 60CS manual does not seem to say much about it. Is it worth it? Extra memory on the 76, or GC feature on the 60…??

 

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

KOTruckin

I'll take double the memory(maps) over the GC feature any day.

 

I had a 76s and tried a 60cs in the store. I prefer the shape/form of the 76series (though many prefer otherwise).

 

The difference in price for me between the 60CS and 76CS was $35. Not bad for double the maps.

 

As of issues with the 76s mentioned above, ??? What issues? I know some people prefer a smaller (etrex-like) size, but that's a preference, not an issue.

 

The 76 fits my hand well. It floats and I canoe often. I like the size & button layout for use while biking / driving as they are easy to use.

 

The choice is yours more maps or gc feature.... I know where my money is :rolleyes:

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Currently the comments/extra info field only includes whatever you want to put in there, altho, for some reason GSAK is dumping a "3WA" in the comments field on mine. I haven't figured out what that means and how I could possibly change it.

 

I decided to go with the 60C for a number of reasons, and have not yet had the opportunity to regret my choice.

 

My 'new' GPS decision was made based on 3 main things:

 

1) Compass: having had a 76S previously, I knew I did NOT want an electric compass as I do not favor Garmin's implementation of said feature. That left me to choose between the 76C or the 60C. Phew. One down.

 

2) Memory: 115 is tempting. In real-life, practical applications, 56 is perfectly fine. I can get my entire state of City Select maps in 56 with room to spare (it's not a tiny state), so I could opt to add TOPO maps, or more of the surrounding states in there with the extra added auto-routing data and probably still have room to spare.

 

3) Size: this is the big'n for me. I have small hands so the form factor of the 76S/C/CS is really just not practical. If it were curved, or just a wee bit shorter/narrower it would have been much easier, but as it is it's uncomfortable for me to hold for any period of time. It becomes more of a two handed operation to fiddle with the menus. It doesn't fit in my back pocket. The Magellan Meridian series is easier to hold than the 76, I thought.

 

Not so important but worthy of mentioning:

 

I like the menu layout of the 60 better than the current 72/76/76S series. I am not sure if this is something that has changed or not, but I like the little alphabet keypad that pops up instead of having to scroll through every alphabet letter and numbers to get what I want up on the display. My geko has the same scrolling thing and it was cute for about 2.5 seconds, maybe less. I find the little picture menus a bit too cute, but I do like that there is less screen to scroll through to find what you want - in the 76 you have a single line for each menu item, and on the 60 you have at least three on each line. (Minor quibble, really.)

 

The screen size on the new 76C/CS is exactly the same as that of the new 60 series. So, same housing, smaller screen than the current 72/76 series. They couldn't shrink the housing too? (I might have gone for that!)

 

I do, believe it or not, like the geocaching feature but ONLY because it makes it really easy to change the icon on a 'not found' geocache to a 'found' geocache. Sometimes having it give me the next nearest unfound is also nice, but usually that's a wash.

 

So far the calendar feature is also a wash. I'd imagine if I found over 20 in a single outing, I might appreciate it more, but so far I'm not having a hard time remembering the cache I've done each day.

 

It did take me awhile to get used to the form factor of the 60 as well. I have a V, and had been using that quite a lot before I bought my 60. The V is even MO' smaller than the 60 in hand, and despite the fact that it looks odd being triangle shaped, it was super easy to hold and use one-handed. The 60, after using it extensively for a few months now, has become so itself.

 

Good luck with your decision. Only you can decide which one is right for you - but it would be BEST if you could play with/hold/wander around the store with both of them before you have to decide!

 

Enjoy!

 

-=-

 

michelle

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1) Compass:  having had a 76S previously, I knew I did NOT want an electric compass as I do not favor Garmin's implementation of said feature.  That left me to choose between the 76C or the 60C.  Phew.  One down.

 

Thanks folks, for all the helpful hints... Keep them comin'

 

What is it about the electronic compass that you find objectionable?

 

KOT

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I'm almost positive I can answer this one for c-gal. You need to calibrate it every time you change the AA's. Doesn't take long but its a pain sometimes.

 

Also You need to hold the unit LEVEL..but If you do that you could be losing SAT's power...so its a slight catch-22.

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The new 76c/76cs are listed on the Garmin page "with brand-new state-of-the-art receivers". Looking at the 60c/60cs specs they list "faster processor" but say nothing about the units having new receivers. Has anyone rang Garmin up and asked if the recievers are the same in both lines?

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Currently the comments/extra info field only includes whatever you want to put in there, altho, for some reason GSAK is dumping a "3WA" in the comments field on mine.  I haven't figured out what that means and how I could possibly change it.

 

This is a known problem with GPSBabel (which GSAK uses "under the hood") and is fixed in the latest release (3.02) of GSAK

Edited by ClydeE
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The issue with the 76S I was referring to is the fact that for the compass to work, you have to hold the unit flat, which in turn degrades reception. The setup works a lot better with the eTrex line which should be held flat for best reception.

Is the 60CS in the eTrex line?

NOPE.

 

More like the Rino 120 or 130

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The new 76c/76cs are listed on the Garmin page "with brand-new state-of-the-art receivers". Looking at the 60c/60cs specs they list "faster processor" but say nothing about the units having new receivers. Has anyone rang Garmin up and asked if the recievers are the same in both lines?

 

I sent Garmin a mail some weeks ago, asking what these "brand-new state-of-the-art receivers" were, i.e. if this was something like the SIRFStar III with hundredthousands of correlators.

 

In their reply they said they didn't have more information than on the web site and I should wait until the units were released, then the full specs would be available.

 

I bet the 76C/S will have the same electronics as the 60C/S, except for the memory chip.

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