Garmin eTrex Legend HCx Personal Navigator

This is the second mapping GPS I have owned, and it is nearly perfect for my needs. I can't believe how much better this eTrex Legend is than my old eMap unit. First, the bright color display is clear and readable in direct sunlight. My laptop wouldn't even be visible in those conditions. Battery life - there is no comparison! I haven't yet changed the alkaline batteries in 4 weeks of use (modestly heavy as it is a new toy). Finally, it is so sensitive that it has never failed to get a satellite position while indoors. Again, the HCx is a major improvement over the previous model where I could lose reception inside my car with glass all around and in open countryside. Pros: Light weight, small size, fits great in one hand. Can be operated completely with one hand. Display is amongst the sharpest and brightest I have ever seen. Very intuitive and simple to use for anyone except possibly a newbie to GPS navigation. Battery life seems endless. Ability to map a route to a destination address entered at the unit with the City Navigator software installed - the entire U.S. and Canada detailed road maps and POI fit on a single 1 GB micro-SD flash card. Useful in your car or outdoors for hiking, boating, fishing, snowmobiling, motorcycling, etc. A true all-in-one GPS solution for a low price. Cons: Small display compared to Nuvi series and other non-outdoor GPS units. No voice directions - it has two types of tones to alert you to pending and imminent turns. You need to add $120 worth of City Navigator mapping software to enable the auto-routing by address or point of interest functions. The click-stick 5-way joystick navigation device is not the easiest thing to use to move around the maps and menus. Overall I am very happy with my purchase and I expect to get at least 5 or 6 years of good use from this before I will be looking at replacements. Garmin quality and service has been excellent in my opinion; my eMap still works, though it will likely be relegated to a desk drawer.

Works, but I would spend more money to get a higher quality one next time.

This is a very well made item with nice, long battery life and reasonably intuitive controls. I used it on a very cold backcountry hut ski tour in Colorado and it did a great job of tracking our location. It was really fun - and comforting - to see that every time we were skiing on a known trail or driving on a known road, the GPS unit was right on the money. It picks up satellites reasonably quickly, and can be operated reasonably well even with gloves. I dropped it on the parking lot and it didn't show a scratch or suffer any internal damage. It has a nice, rubberized feel to most of it, and intuitively placed controls. You will absolutely need a separately-purchased topo map and an SD card to make proper use of its many features, and the installation process can be a little daunting for non-technophiles. But if you do some internet searches you'll find several sites that help take you through the process. It's much easier to create all your trails and waypoints on your home computer and then load the data onto this unit. Rather than spend mega-dollars on an official Garmin topo map, go online and search for free Garmin topo maps and you'll find several options. There are also very reasonably priced commercial topo maps out there with more features. I wish it had the ability to perform with Garmin's fitness tracking software, but unfortunately it doesn't. This is a perfect unit for hikers and backcountry skiers, but trail runners might be disappointed. (Then again, I don't know if the purely-running Garmin units do such a good job with displaying topo maps and the like.) As usual, the Mac side of the software features seems a little bit left out, but I'm enjoying using this with my Macbook and look forward to not being lost anymore - or at least not nearly as much. (Serious note: Never count on a GPS unit alone. Always bring along a hard-copy map and a compass, take along extra water and clothing, and tell someone where you're going and when you expect to be back!)