Without doubt the best GPS unit is the one that you don’t have. My Garmin eTrex Vista HCx
There’s a LOT of technical stuff to think about when it comes to GPS receivers: antennae strength, accuracy, barometric altimeter readings, storage capacity. But for most users I think a good decision boils down to a few basic features. Decide on these and all the other stuff will be part of the package.
1. Does it Plug in to Anything?
My first GPS was a Magellan Explorist 200 that I bought on sale at Big 5. I figured that a model 200 was bound to be better than a model 100, and certainly better than a model 50, so I was all set.
When I got home and tried to find some help on the Internets on how to use a GPS, all I found was talk about uploading and downloading coordinates. I wanted to upload and download coordinates too. But I couldn’t, because the Explorist 200 doesn’t have a USB connection.
So here’s your first decision. A standalone GPS receiver is a huge help for finding your way home when you’ve followed an unmarked hiking trail up a canyon, which actually turns out to be more of a coyote track, and then disappears completely over a long granite escarpment and then a werewolf-fog blows in cutting visibility to 40 ft. and it gets dark and starts raining.
You can also use a standalone GPS to mark trailheads that you find on the Internet or in trail guides. This is very helpful when you come upon two roads diverged in a wood and you’re not very good at reading a map. Finally, you can manually punch in Geocache coordinates (a tedious process) and use your standalone GPS for geocaching. The warning here is that without a base map or route plot you can wind up in some really hairy situations trying to take the shortest route to a backcountry geocache.
But if you plan on sharing, recording and archiving route data then get a GPS with a USB connection.
2. Are You Going to Go Geocaching…a Lot?
If your main interest is in Geocaching then I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you to look into something in the Garmin eTrex series. The key here is that Geocaching.com gives you one-click coordinate uploads to Garmin products. You can’t imagine what a timesaver this is, considering that on most GPS receivers you have to hunt-and-peck numbers and letters one at a time using a tiny little joystick contraption.
3. Color or Black and White?
People tell me that color doesn’t make that much difference. What I’ve found is that the newer color screens have better resolution, making it a little easier to match the switchbacks on your tracklog to the route on your USGS map. But I wouldn’t list color as a necessary must-have.
4. What’s the Best All-One-God-Faith GPS for Car, Bicycle and Hiking?
Forget it. Portable units designed for automotive use simply aren’t tough enough for the trail, not to mention the fact that their base maps aren’t likely to be very helpful in hiking areas.
You’ll have better luck trying to get multipurpose use out of a higher-end handhelds. For instance, Garmin eTrex HCx models (both the Legend and the Vista) have automatic turn-by-turn routing similar to that offered in an automotive dash-mounted GPS. The problem is that the screen is so tiny that it’s pretty well useless (or is extremely dangerous, take your pick) unless you have a navigator in the car reading the GPS unit for you.
5. Base Maps
I don’t yet have enough experience to say much intelligent about this. My sense is that experienced GPS users don’t find base maps especially helpful while hiking. However I’ve also heard that it’s easier to find your position on a paper map if you have a base map on your GPS.
On the other hand, mapping ability more than anything seems to be what differentiates Garmin from Magellan from Delorme GPS units.
Without getting too far over my head the thing to consider here is that GPS receivers primarily handle vector data, which is a very compact way to store information about lines, curves and areas of color. But not the detailed dot-by-dot pixel data that you have in photographs, for instance. That would be raster data.
Garmin products exclusively handle vector data. Thats one of the reasons you can’t upload USGS maps or maps from National Geographic’s Topo! series, which are based on raster data. So with Garmin you are stuck with their low resolution 1:100,000 scale topo maps or their higher resolution 1:24,000 National Park series. Making your own maps is a gnarly PITA from what I gather, but the good news is that some hardy souls do this and offer such maps for free.
Some GPS units, such as the DeLorme Earthmate handle raster data nicely. This series lets you upload USGS maps, and even Google Earth-style arial maps. The downside, according to GPS comparisons, is that the DeLorme units are mind-numbingly hard to use.
Your other option for a GPS with raster map capability is the Magellan Triton series. As with the DeLorme you can upload National Geographic Topo! maps from the USGS series, to 1:24,000 resolution. However, according to one reviewer Magellan has some firmware issues and MS Vista incompatibilities that make this series a non-starter.
As always, feel free to leave any questions or insights in the comments section. It’s a confusing topic, made all the more difficult by the wide range of good devices, many with overlapping features.