Looking around for a handheld GPS unit to use cycling & hiking with OS mapping, Mac compatibility, and hopefully under £200.
The [url= http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/garmin-etrex-20-gps-p191377 ]Etrex 20[/url] ticks the most boxes, should I be looking at anything else?
I'm currently running an etrex 20 for hiking and mtbing and it ticks all the boxes for me; amazing battery life, loads of choices for maps (many free), good signal, and reasonable mapping software for the PC. The only issue I've had with it is that its a bit slow when zooming right out on maps but I guess that is down to it using a lower powered processor to conserve battery life.
The etrex 30 has a digital compass, barometric altimeter and I think it can link up wirelessly to a heart rate / cadence sensor if that is required. The Dakota series has the same functionality with touch screen.
There's been a few threads recently asking the same question so you might find more info on some of them.
Thanks - any other complaints with it? How long do you get out of the battery?
Bear in mind that link is only a £20 os voucher - that won't get you a lot!
Using decent quality rechargeable batteries I reckon about 15-20 hours is about right. The great thing is that because it takes normal AA batteries you can just swap them over if you're doing multi-day hikes or rides.
I've had a couple of minor niggles with it. For a while it stopped auto-connecting to the computer when I plugged it in via the USB cable. I eventually worked out it was because of a corrupt waypoint file but I had to do a fair bit of online detective work and Garmin weren't much help. Its got "stuck" with the satellite lock a couple of times which seems to be a common problem with Gamin units but it usually corrects itself after a minute or two. Overall I'm really happy with it though. Decent bit of kit for outdoors types and much more practical than a smart phone.
I've got an Etrex 3.0 and think it's great; as above it takes rechargeable batteries which is a real plus (my old Edge 200 was sealed).
The screen size is a little small compared to some newer units but the firmware is regularly updated and there are lots of mapping options.
The main downer IMHO is that it's got an ancient USB 1.1 interface; transferring a 700mb map file can take over 10 minutes (pretty inexcusable for a modern device).
The main downer IMHO is that it's got an ancient USB 1.1 interface; transferring a 700mb map file can take over 10 minutes (pretty inexcusable for a modern device).
Its a bit of a pain but you can get round this by transferring maps onto the SD card directly i.e. taking it out and putting the card directly into your computer. In the days of USB 3.0 it is a bit of an oversight to only have USB 1.1 speeds though.