Garmin GPSMAP 60Cx Handheld GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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List Price: Our Price: $295.94 You Save: $187.05 (39%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin GPSMAP 60Cx Handheld GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Best for what it does
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm giving this 5 stars as I think it is currently the best at what it does, but it does have some negatives.
From a positve standpoint, the new chipset is excellent at picking up a signal, even indoors. I also own an etrex legend and can't get it to pick up a more then 1 or two sats, even by a window, where the 60Cx finds them quickly and was giving me an accurate reading inside my living room. The screen is clear, albiet small compared to a lot of the car units. It is slightly larger then my legend but isn't to big. It does come with a belt clip attachment which allows for easy carry and access to the unit. I paired it with the garmin brand carry case and it works well. It seems well built and all the openings a sealed with rubber gaskets. The biggest selling point for me was that it still uses AA batteries and not a proprietary rechargeable system. When those rechargeable lithium-ions start to go out on people in a few years, they may be scrambling to find replacements, what with the way tech changes so quickly, where with the 60Cx you shouldn't run into that problem. Also it means no waiting when the batteries are dead, you just pop in another set. Expandable memory is also a nice feature.
The biggest negative is the lack of a good built-in basemap. Many of the inexpensive $200-$300 car systems have much better mapping software out of the box. Although Garmin does make much better maps available, they do so at far to high a price point. There are alot of the car units showing up with the SiRF III chipset, with some portabilty features, bigger screens, and addtional fuctions such as MP3 players, that are really looking attractive and may be a better alternative for you if you don't plan to take yours out into the field much and need the waterproofing and battery features. I also looked at the car kit for the 60Cx, but the screen seems a lillte small, and again for the price garmin wants for the 60Cx car kit I can get something like the entire Mio C310x.
If you plan on carrying a GPS around, this and the 60CSx are as good as they get (plan on spending for a map though). If you are looking for an in car model, try something else in the Garmin line. If you want a unit to do both, this will get you close, but the bigger higher resolution screens offered on some inexpensive in car models may make getting those for $50-$100 dollars more instead of the car kit for 60Cx a better option.
Customer Review: Garmin GPSMap 60Cx and TOPO 2008
Summary: 5 Stars
I received a Magellan Triton 300 as a Christmas gift and was truly disappointed. Complaints: unable to maintain a lock on the satellites, image appears to be inaccurate when comparing waypoints to current locations, there was virtually no user manual and general erratic behavior. Overall, I had a very frustrating experience with Magellan.
I returned the Magellan to EMS last week and was informed by the store manager that the Tritons have been coming back to the store with a steady stream of returns. He indicated that most units were returned with complaints similar to mine.
After shopping around a bit I decided to buy the Garmin GPSMaps 60Cx, TOPO 2008 and a GPS cover from Amazon (best price by far.) I received these items last week and used them for some extensive tracking over the weekend. I had no problems connecting the GPS to my laptop and loading-up routes I worked out on TOPO 2008. Normally, I would hold off on commenting on technology like this until I've had a chance to use it over a period of time. However, this thing is so easy to use and works so flawlessly that I decided to get the review out of the way immediately. It seems to always have a strong link to 4 or 5 satellites, even when inside may house. I could not find any tree cover that caused problems for the satellite link (and I tried.) The interface is intuitive and easy to use. The base map that comes with the GPS is basically useless but I was expecting that after reading about it in other reviews.
I'm a new GPS'er and I'm planning on using this for hiking and Geocaching with my kids. This thing is so easy to use that my 8 year old son is already proficient at basic GPS operations after one weekend (the pre installed games go a long way to teaching him to orient himself in relation to the GPS.)
Memory: I found I could fit the TOPO map of northern New England (MA and north) on the 128MB card that was include with the GPS. I'm going to pick-up a 2GB micro-SD card and load the entire TOPO 2008 onto the GPS. Memory is so cheap, why not? Hopefully this will not impact performance.
Compared to my experience with the Magellan Triton, THIS THING ROCKS. I must admit, I did like the higher resolution screen on the Magellan. However, I'll gladly trade a little resolution for something that actually works.
Customer Review: Two year review...
Summary: 5 Stars
We've had this receiver now for two years.
Like others, I was a disappointed to discover that I had to pay extra for maps. Also, this replaced another Garmin that suddenly stopped working when it was dropped on grass. At first I was a little reluctant to purchase this GPS.
Having said that, I hope that person who designed this receiver received a bonus / promotion. We just returned from a trip. First, we downloaded a waypoint for our hotel to make certain the taxi driver at the airport didn't "take us for a long ride." Once at the hotel, using Google Maps and a notebook computer, and the cord that comes with the device, we downloaded a waypoint for the place we were going to pick up a rented car. We also loaded waypoints for the nearest grocery store so we could pick up some "munchies" for the hotel room and our trips. Using Google maps and the software for the device, we downloaded waypoints for all of the places we wanted to visit during our trip.
We walked/explored the resort town on the way to pick up the rented car and never got lost. Once we got the car, we drove to supermarkets and took our supplies back to the hotel. Then, we took off to visit several tourist attractions ranging from hiking trails to places in urban settings, to ocean adventures and and museums. Each time we parked the rented car, we marked it as a waypoint so we could find it again. We constantly switched from pedestrian to automobile mode. We used it in a rented kayak too, to find our way back.
We took more than one wrong turn and missed more than one street, but the receiver quickly recalculated the route and put us back on track. After more than 15 hours on the road we used the receiver to navigate, in the dark, on roads we had never traveled, to bring us back to the hotel. We had spare AA batteries just in case the re chargeables wore out.
Two things we've learned: Put the GPS on a lanyard that goes around your neck so you do not lose it. It is easy to lose when pre-occupied with taking pictures and exploring/shopping. Second, if your batteries are running low, switch them out before you start driving on a super-highway in a strange town. Third, you will not lose much by turning off all the sound notifications.
It is a well designed device.
Customer Review: Best GPS I have ever had
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my fourth GPS I have had and it does everything I could ever want a GPS to do. I use this for Search & Rescue work, Geocaching and general GPS usage.
Realize to really use this unit you need the maps and they are not cheap. I agree that Garmin should provide them out of the box, but they don't and we just keep buying them - so can you blame them. It connected right up to my PC and the new update software gamrin provides makes adding software a snap. I already had the TOPO software and an old version on Metroguide that was not supported by this unit. I do not know why they say that the old Metroguide is not compatible, my copy works fine and even gives routing directions. The last unit I had was the eTrex Vista. I don't miss the compass or altimeter at all, save the $50 and battery life and skip the GPSMap 60CSx. The altitude is given to you via the GPS location and you only have to move a few feet to get the compass direction.
It picks a signal up extremely fast, better than any GPS I have ever seen before. The color screen is really amazing after being used to my monochrome unit for so many years, worth the extra cost alone. Now I can actually read the screen day or night. With the out of the box memory card I was able to load all the topo maps for Colorado and all of the metroguide data for all major cites within 200 miles of home. I was going to purchase a larger manual, but now can not think of a reason to do it.
What I like best:
Battery Life - even with rechargeable batteries it is amazing
USB - easy and fast, fast, fast
Simple Navigation
Automatic backlight
Ability to show topo and Metroguide at the same time
MicroSD slot
Ability to show current any address with one click
Navigate on map to route points
Size
Water Proof (critical for the work I do)
What could be improved:
Slightly larger screen would be helpful
Simplified menu navigation
Main map page
Ability to turn the sound up for turn notifications
Overall for this unit has the best cost vs. performance of anything out there - but figure in the cost of maps when you look at this unit. You will not be sorry if you buy this unit.
Customer Review: It's essential that you understand the limitations of this device before buying.
Summary: 2 Stars
There's no doubt that GPS technology has come a long way during the last decade. I bought this to replace my old Garmin etrex -- the 60Cx is vastly better at tracking under trees, in mountain valleys, and has a much faster processor. I use it primarily for hiking, and it is virtually impossible to become lost. Even under trees, in a valley, with the unit inside my backpack, it never lost satellite track and was never off by more than about 50 feet, comparing the hike in with the hike back.
So what's the problem? Surprisingly, the achilles heel of this mapping GPS is that there simply are no good maps for hiking/backpacking. Garmin sells a topo map set, which is completely unacceptable for any kind of in-the-field use. It lacks any kind of detail (for one thing, vertical countour lines are 150 feet, and it includes very few trails or national forest roads), and although it is nice to upload your journey to a map once you get back home and see where you went, the map itself is next to useless while hiking. Garmin makes a high-resolution topographic map set, but it covers ONLY the national parks (not even the national forests). I live in Oregon, with thousands of miles of trails, and only 1 place -- Crater Lake -- is available in high resoultion topo from Garmin. National Geographic makes a nice high-resolution map set, but it is expensive and the maps can only be loaded to a Magellan GPS, not any of the Garmins. Ditto with a GPS/topo map set from DeLorme. There is a company that has made high-resolution maps of 2 states -- Washington and Colorado -- but they require the Garmin Mapsource CD, and then they cost another hundred bucks per state on top of that.
The lack of good, high-resoultion topo maps is completely baffling, and -- at least for hiking -- makes the mapping function of this GPS completely superfluous. If I had it to do over, I think I would buy one of the newer but less expensive GPS units, like maybe a newer extrex. The extra money that you pay for the mapping capability with this unit is wasted, IMO, at least until good topo maps become available (if they every do).