Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx Handheld GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx Handheld GPS Navigator
Customer Review: All the things you need in a GPS
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased an eTrex a few years back and have been pleased with that and resisted upgrading for a while. I'm glad I did as I would have ended up with a unit that was inferior to this. Everything I was missing on my eTrex or the other units I looked at is here. This unit is light, actually not much bigger than an eTrex but with a much larger screen, and is full of great features.
First and foremost the satellite lock is exceptional. This was the biggest complaint I had, and others too, with the eTrex series, that their internal antennas were not that great. With this unit I have kept a lock in deep tree cover, canyons, cities with high rises and more.
Next the color screen. Again, this was one of the things I looked for, and the screen really lives up to the promise. It is visible in all kinds of conditions, and when it is lacking a little, turning on the backlight slightly brings the clarity back.
Another thing that made me stick with my eTrex was that very few handheld units allowed for memory upgrades. This unit does this and with the cost of transflash/microSD coming down so much, you can carry just about as many maps as you like. I have a 512MB card and have all of the western United States topo and street maps on there.
Another thing I wanted but couldn't satisfactorily find in a HH unit was auto route generation. This has it and it works great. I love being able to drive somewhere and just take a turn off the road to investigate a new place and having the unit just put me straight back on track again when I am ready. You do have to purchase additional software, and for those who are complaining about this, it is quite clear that this is the case when you buy the unit. I agree with a couple of the other reviewers that without the supplemental maps you may as well just stick with the eTrex. I love the eTrex and would recommend it to any one who wants a basic GPS. For what this unit can offer though and when you compare it to comparable in car units, that are limited to the car, the price is actually not so bad. If you want to spring for the other maps though, or have a license for them from another GPS that you have only registered once, this GPS stands head and shoulders above the rest.
Personally I love it and at the current price on Amazon ($[...] after rebate as I write this!) I don't think it can be beaten.
Customer Review: Still the most accurate and versatile
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had mine for several years, and after reading about the newer Colorado and Oregon units, I would still go with the 60CSx. The screen is more readable in sunlight than the newer units, despite their bigger screen size, and it still has a more accurate antenna/receiver system. It's the best handheld for hiking because of its accuracy and topo maps, and a pretty good navigator in the car as well, so it highly versatile if you need a unit for both purposes. I particularly love the fact that it can save "infinitely" long tracks as GPX files in its flash memory (organized by date), long after its 10,000-point active track log is full.
In addition to being able to use it now with the Mac, another great thing that has happened more recently, is that you don't have to go to Garmin to get downloadable topo maps. For example detailed 7.5'-scale New England topo maps are available at [.....]and they're free. You still need a PC to install the maps, but then you can transfer them to your Mac for use with Garmin's software.
I do have some annoyances, all of them related to use in the car:
1. Zooming out to get a big picture of where you are, covering an area bigger than about 20 miles across, can be very tedious due to slow redraw, and going beyond that is near-useless. This is not an issue when hiking or boating, but in a car it means you still need road maps if you want to get the really big picture. You'll tear your hair out trying to viewing a spot a few hundred miles from where you are now by zooming and panning. However, if you know the city or other point of interest, you can use the Find function to get there quickly.
2. Small roads disappear when you zoom out a certain amount, which makes sense except when those are the only roads around. In sparsely populated areas, this can make getting your bearings difficult. To be fair, I haven't found any of the dashboard GPSes do any better in this regard. Even online mapping services have this flaw.
3. The search feature to find something generic (a restaurant, gas station, etc.) gives you a list based on distance from where you are, not distance from the route in the direction you are traveling. Because of this I've found that feature difficult to use unless I know the name of a specific place I'm going to.
Customer Review: Amazing Performance This Unit Rocks
Summary: 5 Stars
First, a couple years ago I had an e-trex legend, non-color. That thing stunk, always losing signal, very slow, and pretty much painful. My job had given me a really nice Dell Axim X30 so I decided to d/l a gps program for it (destinator) and buy a bluetooth GPS receiver. This worked ok. Really fast and was ok for the car, but still I hated the cables and rechargers and stuff I had to use. and frequently, right in the middle if driving it would lose bluetooth connectivity... annoying. No good for hiking/off-road either which i really missed and hated using the etrex also.
So finally, after reading some reviews and comparing this product to the older gpsmap 60CS which you could have just purchased for dirt cheap at REI btw, I sucked it up and spent the money and bought the 60CSX.
This thing is great. I ahve been using about 2 weeks now. I get amazing reception even in the middle of my house nowhere near a window!!! Unheard of! It has yet to ever drop a signal driving in the city (downtown boston) or through really deep woods in the white mountians. I have used this thing a lot and I am still on my first set of batteries for it. No complaints there. Others must have the backlight on full blast while they sleep or something...
Also, this thing re-draws really fast like when panning and zooming. Way faster, maybe even 2X or more the 60cs.
Navigation in the car is great to. The display is obviously not as big and pretty as my Dell Axim was but I can still see all i need to and more while driving.
Complaints:
1) The basemap is worthless as everyone says. Seriously Garmin, we spend all this $$$ for the top-of-the line and you chince out...
2) The city navigator software is critical if you want to use it for driving, and thats another $130 !!! what a SCAM! And good luck trying to d/l this. you cant. no one has broken it so dont wast your time. Luckily I already owned US Topo East (which is not locked so I could use it)
3) lastly, there should be adjustable volume for the alerts for turning etc... It is not very loud.
All in all, this product is the perfect comprimise of in-car navigation combined with outdoor functionality. Really is the best of both worlds. I see why it has won the "Gear of the Year" award.
Customer Review: Garmin 60Csx
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are doing anything with a GPS (except for strictly using it in a car), this is the model you want. Forget the newer, "gee-whiz" PDA/GPS/Mobile-phone devices - they simply will not work as well as this excellent, single-purpose device - though they're more expensive.
Over the years i've watched others struggling to get a satellite lock, loose their satellite signal, their device locking up, and all sorts of problems. I watched and appreciated the abilities of a GPS, but wanted nothing to do with all the problems i had been seeing so i just didn't buy one.
As new technology is developed, the prices for "older" technology always drops. At some point the "older" technology reaches a point of where it is excellent and new innovations are added to the device. Such is the situation with the Garmin 60Csx - it is the best for what a handheld GPS is made to do - it locks onto satellites fast and accurately and rarely loose the signal. Though there are lighter units, smaller units, and more energy efficient units this 60Csx simply outperforms them all. Incidently, the battery life in real-world useage (in the mountains or trips around home) is more than adequate, the weight difference between other "light-weight" models is indistinguishable, and the larger size of the 60Csx helps ensure it isn't accidently left somewhere.
This GPS locks onto satellites so fast i am still amazed by it. When i bought mine, i was still living in West Michigan along the lakeshore. When i turned it on for the very first time, the device required maybe 2 minutes to have a "satellite" lock. Each subsequent time i turned it on the longest it took was maybe 30 seconds to get a satellite lock and usually half that.
When i moved to Bosnia and turned it on for the first time the 60Csx took another 2 or 3 minutes to get a satellite lock. It is just as fast here as in the States.
The accuracy is utterly amazing. I used to find a couple of geocaches and everything about it was easy to use. Initially, i forgot to "zoom" in the screen map, but as i neared the coordinates for 1st cache i remembered and went directly to the cache.
I've since used it in deep forest cover, valleys, and on mountains. It has been infallible.
Customer Review: Great product
Summary: 4 Stars
It is a great GPS device for anyone who loves outdoor activities. I use it for hiking and biking purposes. With the right kind of maps you can use it for navigation in the cities also. It comes with only a base map. Base map is a very low resolution map. When you are buying this device you might want to consider buying a set of maps that suits your needs. Garmin makes several maps. If you are an outdoor-sy person you might want to try out TOPO maps from Garmin. They have a good TOPO maps for all of US. Also, they have higher resolution maps for national parks and some state parks. City Navigation maps that Garmin sells would be ideal for using this device in your car. It is not as good as some of those other Garmin GPS units that are designed for navigation in cities but will do the job. One of the best things about this unit is the speed with which it can catch the satellites and get a fix on your position. On a clear day, it would get a fix in a couple of seconds after you turn the device on. It gets a fix even when I am sitting in my living room! The software that comes with the unit (on the CD) is just a waypoint and map manager (you have to get maps separately). That software, called Mapsource, can be used to manage several maps that you may own - like TOPO USA, TOPO 24K, City Navigation, etc. Mapsource software is useful and intuitive. It does not need a lot of training or help to use. Software on the device is also intuitive. It comes with a manual although I never had to use it.
A couple of things missing that would have fetched this product 5 stars from me:
*Maps: I think this device should come with maps. If not detailed topographic maps, it should at least come with a better basemap.
*Mapsource software: The software that comes with the device is a trip and waypoint manager. Although the software is intuitive it could be better. The software is for PC only. This software is available for Mac computers also (download from their website, still in beta) but managing maps is not an easy solution with Macs. You first have to buy Mapsource maps for PC, put them on PC, download a PC-to-Mac map conversion software, convert the maps into Mac format, burn a DVD and then transfer those maps to Mac. I think that needs to be fixed.