Buzzillions.com - Garmin eTrex Vista HCx GPS Reviews www.buzzillions.com

Great product!

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Great product!

mpolege from St.Louis, Missouri

I am a web designer during the week and hiker/photographer by week-end, so I bought the product for 2 purposes. 1). As a web designer I sometime have to seek out locations or landmarks(for example city parks) in cities are am unfamiliar with to photograph sites to use in websites for clients. Even with the Typography Maps, it is still a big help in plotting destinations and finding my way with the street names. 2). On the week-ends I seek out more rural locations some by road, some by foot to photograph for my artwork photography. In this regard this product has also been a huge help in finding locations as well as plotting points I discover during my 'scouting' of new places to photograph. I can add additional information (like best time of day to shoot) to the points I plot. The sunrise & sunset times are especially helpful to me. I would highly recommend this product... Read more

HCx

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:01 GMT

HCx

Seldom Seen from Northern California

After using the Etrex Vista for years, with its dull grey screen, and downright lousy ability to hold on to satellites-in even the lightest of forest cover-I was waiting for a GPS that would acquire satellites quickly and hold on to them through dense forest and deep canyons (something my old Vista, simply would not do). When Garmin introduced Mapsource Topo USA 2008 for Mac, and the ability to "convert" National Parks West v.3 from PC to Mac, I decided it was time to upgrade to the HCx. I couldn't be happier! The HCx starts up about 100% faster than the old vista and acquires satellites almost instantaneous! It has a beautiful color screen that displays the basemap (or Mapsource maps) beautifully! It holds on to satellites in buildings and in places most GPS lose reception. My biggest complaint is that there is absolutely no documentation for the Mac user in the box. Even on the Garmin website it is very unclear what one needs to do to transfer Maps to the unit. Once I figured this … Read more

Much Better But NOT Perfect

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:01 GMT

Much Better But NOT Perfect

spongebob from Portland, OR

This is my third Garmin GPS unit. Each has been a marked improvement over the previous model. The HCx has the potential to be a truly great tool. The hardware works flawlessly. Reception sensitivity is very, very good. The new MediaTek chipset really makes a difference in where you can get a usable satellite lock. An accuracy estimate of 3 meters is the norm in the open and a 6-satellite lock is common even under heavy tree cover. However, the units own software is definitely bleeding edge. Fortunately, this can be cured with software downloads from Garmin's website as fixes are released. Some known issues are: faulty Trip Computer odometer readings (off by miles but the Track and GPX data are accurate), some early WAAS problems and a really annoying (for me!) auto-shift to lower case after the first letter when using the onscreen keyboard. Again, these are download-fixable so do not really detract from the longterm value of the unit. It is just a matter of getting Garmin's a … Read more

Poor Map Transfer and Storage

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Poor Map Transfer and Storage

Scott M from Santa Cruz, CA

My wife and I received this product as a wedding present and I'm really glad we have it, but there are many times when it is really a pain and I wish REI sold a better one. First of all, the Mac support is horrible. It comes with a Windows only DVD and in order to convert it to Mac map format you need a Windows computer, and the fact that I don't have one is exactly why I need to convert it. I finally borrowed a computer to convert the maps, and still couldn't get them to work on my computer (and I'm pretty good with computers). Since I really wanted this product to work, I went out and got a 4GB microSD card so I can put all the Topo maps that came on the DVD on the GPS (using the borrowed Windows computer). The good news is that the GPS does support 4GB microSD card. The bad news is that the unit only supports 2048 maps at once and Garmin divides the US Topo Map into over 5000 "maps" so that even though I can fit all the maps in 4GB, you can't put them all in at once. I did di … Read more

A Big Disapointment

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

A Big Disapointment

DRC the Hiker from Hermosa Beach, CA

The unit acquires satellites well and tracks without dropouts. It has, however serious performance flaws that render it unusable for the serious backcountry traveler. The first indication that something was wrong was when I tried to operate the unit with lithium batteries. Yes, I did change the battery setup to lithium! A message appeared on screen saying that the battery was too low for the backlight and the battery icon showed zero capacity. No amount of battery swapping solved the problem. More problems surfaced with the altitude function and the trip computer. The elevation displayed was sometimes correct but at other time way off! The altitude accumulators, the total ascent and total descent were always low by more than 50%. The speed window was so irratic as to be unusable, oscillating from 0 to 4 mph wildly. The odometer is consistently low compared with map measurements and measurements by other GPS units. As a result, the average moving speed and the overall speed were biased … Read more