Garmin eTrex Vista HCx Color High-Sensitivity Mapping Handheld GPS
by Garmin
|
List Price: Our Price: $186.18 You Save: $113.81 (38%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $160.00 (click here) Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin eTrex Vista HCx Color High-Sensitivity Mapping Handheld GPS
Customer Review: Learning Curve
Summary: 3 Stars
I got lost while hiking a few years ago and decided that I needed to research hand held GPS units. I put that decision off until I started hiking with my kids. After looking at many reviews, I settled on the Garmin Vista HCx. My top priorities were to have a small hand held unit with a highly sensitive GPS receiver (since most of my walks are in forested areas). After thinking about it some more, I thought a color display, the ability to add detailed maps, and a compass would be nice. The Vista HCx was the cheapest Garmin I could find that met all my criteria (and the Amazon reviews were reasonable). I picked one up along with the Garmin topo maps and a micro-sd card and started to play with it. I was impressed with the size of the device along with the quality of the color display. While inside my house, the vista locked onto the GPS satellites quickly which satisfied my sensitivity requirement (and it did a good job under tree cover). I loaded the topo maps onto the device and the display showed the topo details quite nicely. Now why is my rating only 3 stars? In short, the operation of the device was not intuitive. I tinkered with it off and on for 2 weeks at home, while hiking, and while taking walks in the neighborhood. I never figured out how to properly use the device. I think that is the price to pay for adding so many features to more device. With more practice, I'm sure I would have figured the device out. However, that doesn't bode well for those times when you REALLY need it and your facilities are not all in order. If the device had been intuitive, I would have given it 5 stars. So, I returned the Vista and continue my search.Customer Review: Good Geocaching Tool
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought the Vista HCx for geocaching and also to use in my sea kayak. It performs well except for a few exceptions. When the unit is first turned on for the day, it does take a relatively long time to set itself, on the order of 45 seconds, after that, a quick turn off and on can be done very quickly. For geocaching, the direction arrow is mind numbingly slow and frustrating to use. For example, when you get out of the car and start to walk toward the cache, it usually takes several seconds before the direction arrow indicates the direction of the cache. Also, then if you want to walk into the cache from 90 degrees from your present location, the direction needle again is confused for several seconds to re-adjust. Even though the unit has a 'geocache' menu, its abilities are very minimal. For example, you cannot review what caches you have found or review what caches you have tried to find but couldn't. All it does is give you a listing of caches in the geocaching menu. When you find one and acknowedge it, it then disappears from the geocaching menu. You cannot later go back and review it to see what time and date it was found. Judging from the increasing numbers of geocachers out there, the geocaching capabilities of the unit from a software perspective needs to be greatly improved. Over this past weekend, I had the chance to compare the Vista HCx to a model 60 and there is no doubt the screen of the 60 is clearer (gives a better mapping picture) of where you're at. To sum up: This is a very good unit indeed, but you get what you pay for. I really wanted a Colorado 400T for the same price as the Vista ! Ha Ha.Customer Review: Beginner and vista hcx
Summary: 4 Stars
--If you are new as I am to this type device, it is going to take patient practice and focused reading to get comfortable with it. After all, this device is essentially a computer calling for point by point feature mastery.
--As with any keyboard, so with the 5 buttons and rocker switch: I had to get past the frequent error of hitting zoom instead of the "menu-find" key. No problem now.
--I am happy with the precision of the device. In my experimenting, if I walked around a tree, the tracking showed the circular loop.
--In finding a spot I had marked as a waypoint or on a route's endpoint, I am very happy with the guidance and closeness of the final arrival.
--Currently it serves the simple needs I have, which maybe says I could have done with a simpler model. I use it for deep woods nature location work. It works nicely under trees. Out of curiosity, I walked right through my house with it and it kept tracking.
----The map provided lists only major highways. The county road by my house isn't there. When I went to the website, I don't recall seeing a map for the northeast US at the detail level given the rest of the US, and wondered why. I noted a review saying a map download takes 24 hours. Given my household, I'm not sure I can reserve the computer that long! I have to explore further to see if Garmin sells preloaded SD cards. I welcome comments on that. My rating is 4, not 5, based on some map disappointment. I have no knowledge of other gps's for comparison, but the device itself seems an ingenious product--again, for my needs.
Customer Review: Very Good Upgrade from eMap
Summary: 5 Stars
Pros:
Excellent satellite reception, many, many nice, customizable features, long battery life. "Tracks" is one of my favorite features of the GPS, where you can download to the PC, a second by second record of your location & speed. And contrary to other reviews, it seems the Map Setup now does allow setting the Tracks feature up to 10,000 points (based on your SD Chip capacity ?). Works with MetroGuide North America v6.0 (which I already had). I have all of North America(1.1 GB) easily on a 2Gb chip. Built-in Routing is limited, but works. Not bad for a little pocket device.
Cons:
The unit has a barometric Altimeter that may be good for hiking, but if you use it inside a car it is useless. You can use the GPS to calibrate the altimeter, but you can't switch it to indicate and record the GPS altitude! USB interface to PC seems awfully slow when transferring the maps. Display is bright, customizable and well laid out, but small. First unit I got locked up intermittently. Returned it and the 2nd unit is working perfectly.
Update - May 2009 - 2nd unit stopped talking to the computer - With USB cable connected, the GPS won't power on. Garmin replaced it under warranty at 11 mos. whew ! In hindsite, I probably would have rated this a 4-star, and saved $40 and purchased the Legend Hcx since I think the Vista's barometric Altimeter is a pointless detriment to this unit. The GPS calculates altitude much more reliably than the baromter. And while i like the compass feature, it is unreliable, and requires frequent re-calibration.
Customer Review: Bad UI makes an OK GPS painful to use
Summary: 2 Stars
If all you want is a GPS, sure it works fine, even with reasonably heavy tree cover. I've only seen one glaring track error, on a recent ride out and back along a shoreline trail, where two miles of one leg is shown a few hundred yards out into the lake.
However, the UI is non-sensical and the "get started guide" useless. I don't get why Garmin supposedly has a reputation for good UI.
Take the back-light button: who in their right minds makes a back-light button bring up the back-light UI and not the back-light?
The clock is even funnier. You'd think a GPS would know where it is, and thus the time zone, but no, on the Idaho Panhandle twenty miles west of the Montana border the clock will be off not one, but two full hours.
By the way, the top right button is the primary button you're supposed to use, and you'll just have to circle through 8 UI screens to go back and forth between the two screens you want.
Finally, the MapSource Topo software is well past useless: it can't even provide driving directions to trail heads for the small fraction of logging roads it knows about (only some of which actually exist.)
When you're in the woods you'll really wish the topo lines were distinguishable on screen from fire roads and you could toggle between a zoomed in and a zoomed out version of the map.
The good news is I have yet to be eaten by a grizzly bear or any of the theoretically endangered wolves who've taken to howling at all hours of the night just up the hill from my house.