[ORRando] GPS Unit

Jkeenan(Yahoo Account) jkeenan0407 at yahoo.com
Sat Oct 18 18:22:58 PDT 2008


Yo  CecilAnne...

I just went through the which one and why with Garmin gps units and came to this conclusion:

The cycling EDGE GPS units have far too many features such as heartrate, cadence, ride against a computer partner, training warning, etc. that me (personally) won't use.  I threw away the heart rate monitor/cadence stuff and decided to listen to my body since I wasn't training for crits, TT's, etc.    If I'm not mistaken you have to go to the very expensive 705 to get heart rate and cadence.  

I ended up buying an eTrex Visata hcx (about $210)  for these reasons:

  a.. Uses AA batteries with a run life of 25 hours instead of a lithium chargeable battery.  I can get AA batteries almost anywhere.
  b.. Route can be uploaded using a program such as Topo.  Has "auto routing"
  c.. If you want the gps will tell you based on above (auto routing)  when a turn is coming up and guide you.  Doubt I can use this much in China!!   The government does something to the satellite signal and my friend here with an EDGE 605 figures his location if off by 1/2 mile versus where he is on the China map.  Garmin confirms.  I digress :o)
  d.. Has all the necessary "cyclo" features: avg speed, run time, stop time, max, yadda, yadda
  e.. Costs far less.  Can get an eTrex for about $200 (bike mount about $10 to $15 extra)
  f.. High sensitivity receiver for signals under tree cover, canyons, etc.
  g.. Can add memory.  Shortcoming is it doesn't have much built in memory
  h.. Barometric altimeter
  i.. Ability to add custom POI (Points of Interest)
  j..  eTrex can also double as my car  "Help I'm lost gps" when (if) I'm back in the states and want to buy the navigation US map.  
  k.. And......it has a fun feature for something new I've discovered: "GEOCACHING".   Automatically tells you of geocaches near where you are.
  l.. Maps cost additional for both the EDGE and eTrex models.   The Basemap shows major highways etc but is not extremely accurte in either the EDGE or eTrex. 
So on brevets I'll have this unit AND my cycloputer as a back up.  I can use topo or a similar product to "map" the brevet route and uplaod it to the gps if I so desire.  

You can go to the Garmin website  http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us  and compare like products such as the eTrex , EDGE, but you can't compare an EDGE on screen to an eTREX.  

I currently have the Garmin Forerunner 101 which I've used on brevets, but the AAA life is at max about 5 to 7 hours.  It works fine for waypoints, cookie trail (to get back to whence you came) and some other nice features such as adding a waypoint, getting lost, selecting the waypoint and asking "Go To".  Give you as the crow flies directional and how far you are from there and then tracks distance as you wend your way to the place.  

Google eTrex Vista Hcx and you'll come up with a bunch of prices.  I just bought one for $209

Cheers

Slo Joe
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://orrandonneurs.org/pipermail/orrando/attachments/20081019/fbc486ff/attachment.htm 


More information about the ORRando mailing list