Garmin eTrex Vista Handheld GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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List Price: Our Price: $65.00 You Save: $234.99 (78%) 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 eTrex Vista Handheld GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Easy to Use and a Great Value
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the Garmin eTrex Vista for general hiking, biking and geocaching. I had never used a GPS system before, and I had no trouble getting started. It is very intuitive and easy to use. The map that comes with it is very basic (not a lot of neighborhood streets), but it is a great start until you can buy additional software. We purchased a neoprene case to keep it safe from nicks and a bicycle mount. We've found the compass to be very helpful for navigating, and the altimeter is really fun to have. We have had no trouble using it in the car on road trips. It can track fairly well...even sitting on the passenger seat. It is really neat on road trips because it gives you your current speed and average speed information, plus the elevation from the altimeter is great when driving through the mountains. In tems of the geocaching, it takes a little time to enter the waypoints, but we found it did a great job leading us to them. When you activate the use of the satellites with the higher numbers the accuracy has been as good as 8 feet so far.Customer Review: Can be frustrating to use yet a god send at times
Summary: 3 Stars
I started with the Etrex summit. Liked it and progressed to Vista. I have beeen using this for over 2 years now. Cons:
1. warm up can be frustratingly long esp. in the city with tall buildings.
2. Reception can be very bad in city areas. (perhaps this unit was never meant for city use) Becomes grossly inaccurate.
3. After 6 mths of use had problems with the unit. It would become inaccurate very often starts to track and continues to point in the wrong direction until I switch off and on again and then it will track again.
4. When I get near my destination the pointer will start to point inaccurately even I'm in the open sky .
5. Sent the unit in for repairs and came back saying nothing was wrong with it.
6. Display would auto switch off for no reason.
Pros:
1. Was in Mt Fuji once got lost and the Vista brought me out. I guess this alone would have been worth it.
2. Used it for driving in NZ,Japan,Hawaii,Malaysia .Was not always reliable but always aided me trememdously.
Customer Review: Comparison to Sportrak
Summary: 5 Stars
My criteria won't be the same as others as route handling is important.The Vista, I feel, does this very well. The Magellan software that comes with doesn't allow the creation of routes. When one does create a route, seems to me that ETA, ETE and other info is for the leg, not the route. I want to know when I'll get to my desired ultimate destination. The Vista seems to calculate ETA, etc., better when not currently heading to the target better.
The option vista software allows creation of a route to download. The vista has mag compass, barometer, average speeds, top speed, trip distance, total distance, and other info and features not available in the Magellan product.
The oomputer interface was USB where on the Magellan, it was DB9 which is harder to find on laptops these days, as I recall.
Vista has elevation profiles. Topo software less expensive for vista.
Had a Vista, lost it, bought Sportrak and used for awhile and just appreciated the features and route handling with Vista better.
Customer Review: Garmin eTrex Vista GPS
Summary: 2 Stars
I received my Vista about two weeks ago and was excited to get it. After playing with the unit for about 30 minutes I was unable to get a satalite signal. Finally after I got in the middle of the field it picked up on 3 satalites. Thinking that this was a setup thing, proceeded to use the unit trailriding, in the car, walking around. Was pretty disappointed in the reception in all three places, satalite signal was being lost and accuired. One of the biggest disadvantages was if you have to turn on the unit close to trees it can't find a signal, even if the trees are 30 yards away and only 20 feet high and your standing in a opening. Now other than reception this unit does have an easy to use interface with some really cool features like the altitude, time stopped, average speed etc. But to top off the review I think for the money this unit is not worth it. Garmin needs to rethink there reception issue big time. I sent the unit back and looking for a better one.Customer Review: Rugged and Easy to Use
Summary: 4 Stars
ProsA very simple prouduct to use and understand. Most new GPS users that I show it too pick it up right away. The base map is excellent! I find that with these "Personal Use" GPS units if you mark a spot or waypoint it will never be completely accurate when you come back to it, however I notice that if I walk off a predetermined unit of length, like a football field
it is dead accurate.
Con
I have used the Garmin Topo maps and upload the various local topos to my unit, but come on, compared with a standard USGS topographical map or the TOPO software it just doesn't compare. So in a perfect world (in which you had lots of money) you could buy both the Garmin TOPO map and the National Geographic Topo Map.
I hate to admit but I know use it as the worlds most expensive bike computer. I use it on both my road bike and mountain bike and it certainly is rugged. You just cannot go wrong with this product.