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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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin eTrex Vista Handheld GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Cool little GPS device!
Summary: 5 Stars
Just finished my first weekend with the unit, and I have to say, it's a real treat to use. The screen is small, but its very high resolution so many details can be displayed on a relatively small device. The "click-stick" is a neat little idea for navigating the menus and scrolling the map around. One feature that I really liked about it, and the deciding factor between this and the emap, was that it's water resistant to 1 meter for 30 minutes. I plan on taking it river kayaking, so waterproof is good. The unit comes with 24MB of RAM, which I've found gets swallowed up very quickly by things like the MetroGuide maps. At around 8MB for every MetroGuide area, it doesn't give you much to go with. I did compare it to a friends emap unit, and the only things that would make the Vista better would be audio alerts and more RAM. Another rather strange thing about the device is that it would appear to be made for someone who is left handed. The "Click-Stick" is on the left hand side of the device, and me being right handed I'm constantly blocking the screen when I use it. I'm trainig my left hand to use it. :-)All in all, a great, compact, feature rich GPS device.Customer Review: Nice Features - Bad Reception
Summary: 3 Stars
The eTrex Vista has all the features one would want in a small hand-held GPS. The small size is nice, and the 24 MB was enough storage to put in my US TOPO for MA, ME, and most of NH. Couple problems with the unit - the small display makes for difficult reading when moving - I used it on a boat and basically had to stop to see what was on the display - also it is just too small a display to see in the car (although it does fit nicely in the steering wheel between the air-bag and the outer rim) The big complaint is that the small size makes for a small antenna, and poor reception. I also tried to use the unit for mountain biking un-marked trails in western Maine, and it just doesn't do well in tree cover - 75% of the time it just said "need clearer view of sky" - so my path was marked with way to few waypoints to be useful. I found the same results when hiking in the woods around my home in Lunenburg. I tried downloading the latest firmware, but it made no difference ... I returned the unit and plan on trying the Garmin 76s - it has the same feature set (a few more), and a much larger display and antenna - it also accepts an external antenna which the the Vista does not.Customer Review: Great product but...
Summary: 5 Stars
I just purchased this unit 2 weeks ago and have been trying it out all over the place. I even took it down to Orlando this past week during my vaction and used it on the plane to track our flight position (since GPS is a receiver only, it won't interfere with the cockpit instruments and radio). Anyway, one thing I've noticed about these units is the high incidents of defects. The first unit I received had a bad compass that spung out of control. The second unit I received had a joystick that is not centered so that i would accidently select and click at the same time. Although this second problem is not as cronic. However, you would think that they have better quality control for something that costs $350. Well, i'm going to return this second unit and hope that the third will be the charm.Also, this unit does take some time for it to lock on to satellites. If you are under almost anything thicker than a pane of glass forget about it. I haven't used it extensively under foliage but so far it's a no go. I'm giving it 5 stars because it's just the coolest toy (it's a tracking computer in the palm of your hand!), but it's only 4 stars if you count the before mentioned problems.
Customer Review: A wonderful unit
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this for my wife's birthday, kind of like how Homer purchased a bowling ball for Marge on The Simpsons. I didn't get it engraved with my initials, though! Just like The Simpsons episode, Jill's taken the gift and made it her own, even though she suspect my ulterior motives (hey, I'm a geek, I love toys--and really, so does she!).Her first use of it was in the Bahamas during a biology course she was doing down there, and it proved very useful, especially in comparison to some of the older units they had. I gave it to her the night before she left, and she just took it and the short instruction guide with her and had no problem figuring out a majority of its functions.
Since she's been back, we've recruited the unit (now called "Mary Jane") for use in Geocaching and it's been wonderful, able to keep signal in some heavy tree cover, consistently getting us within 10 feet of the cache.
If there's anything "wrong" with the unit, it's how power hungry it is (two AA batteries last for about 8 hours of use). We're investigating some rechargeable solutions, but it would have been nice if the unit had the ability to plug it in when you're not out in the field.
Customer Review: Not very useful.
Summary: 2 Stars
I ordered this GPS unit for a trip out west to several National Parks. I also ordered the very expensive National Parks West maps from Garmin. I downloaded the maps for several of the parks I was to visit, so that I would get detailed trail maps once I got there. Once at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, I went to use my eTrex Vista with the "detailed" map and all I got was a rough location of the city I was near. Clearly the detailed map did not download properly, or when I entered map info for one park it overwrote the information I downloaded for other parks. The only park listed was the last park I downloaded and I never ended up going to that park, so my purchase was a complete waste of money. If you are completely incapable of reading a map, perhaps this unit can be of use to you driving down the road, of course it barely receives a signal from within a car, you have to get out and hold the unit if there are any trees or buildings around. The screen is also too small and not in color, and the batteries don't last long enough. I have stock in Garmin, so I suppose I should not bad mouth them too much, but if I could return this unit to Amazon, I would.