[Closed] really old eTrex GPS - should I upgrade ?

I have an old etrex legend and to be honest I am not bothered about "upgrading" as it does what i need it to do. Plus it has the I will not cry too much if it falls off factor. If you are on the road surely it's only turnings you need to worry about???

I changed from an eTrex Vista (black and white screen with 250 trackpoints) to a colour Vista hcx for exactly the same reason - I didn't like having to spilt longer routes up into 2 or 3 sections.
In addition to the extra waypoint capacity the hcx versions can also take a memory card so you load the free openstreetmap maps which are pretty good and the newer gps chips are much faster at getting a lock and keeping it while under cover when the older one would have loast signal.
It cost me about £40 to upgrade (ebay purchase of new gps and sale of the old one) and to me its def been worth money. I'm glad I changed. Not sure paying full whack for the new one would be worth it to me though.

Got exactly the same thoughts at the moment but more to do with recorded traces and how much they will record. Moving to a USB connection rather than serial would be nice, oh and a barometric altimeter.
Big benefit will be the new chipsets though, seem to be much quicker and more stable with their lock (probably enough to make the altitude more useable as well) oh, and I am aware that I actually need none of the above, just want as it interest me 🙂

I was recently in the position where I needed to replace my Vista HCx (it got run over 😯 ). After looking at the really expensive OS mapping options I actually ended up buying another Vista HCx. Barometric altimeter, some on screen mapping, good reception, USB connection, 2Gb memory slot, good battery life, pretty tough (although not tough enough to survive a 2 tonne SUV).

£ 150 off Ebay new.

So they really have got 10,000 trackpoints ? Brilliant, as the daily routes I'm planning on Bikely are giving about 1500 each day.

I want to hold 14 days of about 1500 trackpoints each - will an HCx do that ? Otherwise I've got to take the PC and load each day, which Id rather not do...

Thanks

A good reckoning is 10 points per mile. Most of the newer etrex models have 20 slots for saved tracks sharing the 10,000 points so you would have 714 points for each of your 14 days (about 70miles). We (TrackLogs) did LEJOG (via london!) in the old blue monochrome legend split into about 10 x 100 mile legs.

If you were to go even newer to something like an oregon/edge then the limitation goes away entirely as these have real and expandable memory to store GPX/TCX files and to date we've not hit any limits.

@stumpyjon - You should have contacted Garmin, they do a crash replacement. Had my HCx replaced twice now (yes, twice!) for only 67 quid.

Digimap - you look to be an expert - Oregon or Vista hcx ? Money no object...

I'd personally go for the Oregon/Dakota in preference to the older eTrex Legend/Vista in a straight fight. It's newer technology with a much higher resolution screen, a nicer touchy interface, proper file system with oodles of capacity and nicer on screen maps (potentially). On the downside it's still quite a deep unit to accomodate the touch screen and a pair of AA's, but then so is the Vista.

The truth of the matter is with all of these available, plus a bunch more, I usually go for the Edge705, sometimes I opt for the wrist mounted forerunner 305 if it's a crashy sort of route. If I was walking not riding I'd take an Oregon so I guess it comes down to what you want it for.

+1 @stumpyjon... I smashed an edge to bits in a rocky tumble and Garmin replaced the unit for about £50.

How quick is crash replacement?

Mine got mangled on my flight to Ethiopia, and I'm coming back for ten days- will they turn it round whilst I'm there?

P

Thanks, Digimap. As it's a long road tour I'm hoping it's not a crashy route...

Household insurance covered but thanks guys, next time I'll know (always wrap the lanyard around the bars now 😳 ).

@ Digimap, I thought long and hard about replacing my trashed Vista with an Oregon, the idea of OS mapping on a larger screen really appealed. In the end though I couldn't justify the extra cost of the unit and the costs of the maps when the Vista does pretty much everything I want. I'm not sure the screen would be big enough to properly navigate from if you were properly lost. I've also heard (having done a little research) that they aren't as accurate as the Vistas which surprised me. All in all I knew the Vista worked well and did what I needed.

PS I was one my roadbike when it fell off, went over a cattlegrid, it fell off and the car behind me ran straight over it. Never had it fall off when I've been off road.

stumpyjon - what mount were you using ? that sort of thing could really ruin my fortnight !

@stumpyjon... all good points. The OP wanted a "money no option" idea, with a limited spend the Vista is still a seriously capable piece of kit which has stood the test of time, as are all the eTrex's with the possible exception of the camo(ugly) and the summit(pointless), both now obselete. I'm also on the fence slightly over the oregon bar mounts which seem to have some way to go.

The lanyard security is a good idea, learnt that when I dropped a GPS into a long muddy trail and had to fish for it manually. The other good one is to tighten the mount enough to stop the gps drooping but loose enough to rotate in a crash, bit like brakes.

@tootallPaul... I wouldn't bank on 10 days. From our experiences the returns are processed in batches and you sometimes get lucky but sometimes it takes a month. That could be old news now though as Garmin UK are growing all the time.

@flap_jack

the standard oversize bars Garmin mount. Never had a problem before, just the second cattle grid that did for it. It actually fell out of the mount, the mount didn't fall off or break. I've found the Garmin mounts do seem to wear in use so the unit can rattle a bit. Piece of electrical insulation tape usually sorts it. It was one of those freak accidents, on road, car behind me, the car was right behind me, the unit fell directly under the wheel 🙄

Cheers Digimap- I will have to try and see what happens.

Otherwise I will get someone to post it to me once its returned.

P

could always change the rate at which the track points are dropped. I've an old eTrex Legend that usually has the breadcrumbs set to auto drop but you can have them set to drop every 10k/20k/30k or whatever.

Not an ideal fix but does the job.