Garmin GPS Receiver

I took this unit to Galapagos and Amazon forest, it was amazingly fast in South America (10 seconds after power up to get the location; while it takes more than a minute in California to find locations). It kept a useful record of the places we visited along with time and our labels, since there are no detailed maps of the points in the jungle.

Even though I could not find detailed maps for the Amazon forest anywhere, the unit was helpful in tracking my paths and showing how to get back from treks in the dense jungle. It did have all the South American cities and large rivers in its default database, though the Amazon river tends move with the seasons.

Once we got lost in Guayaquil city in Ecuador at night, I just had to turn on the unit to see the direction I had to walk to get back to the hotel.
It is useful even when traveling in a taxi to make sure you are heading approximately towards your destination or not.

Tip: Use Sanyo Eneloop AA batteries, which keep their charge for months, and power the unit for 10s of hours of continuous use.
Tip: To conserve power turn the unit ‘on’ only once in a while to mark important locations (like your hotel, lodge, and tracking hikes), this way, a single charge may be enough for a week of traveling.
Tip: Back home, download the data to your computer and view the locations/hikes in the map-source software, and right click on it to view the points in Google maps.

Cons: The accompanying software Mapsource is functional but not easy to use.
It is not easy to export/import scanned maps as overlays, since sometimes that is all you have.
I wish it was integrated with google maps and wikimapia.org for exporting/importing maps, paths and notes.

Caveat: I have just used the basic functionality of the unit so far. It has a lot more features like
altitude, speed, sunrise, sunset, compass.

I bought my GPS about one year ago. Every time I used this GPS without any external power supply the batteries gave up after about 3 hours. The batteries I use are Energizer rechargeable NiMH, NH15, 1.2V, 2300mAh. So you cannot keep track of a hiking trip of more than 3 hours. I think that this is pretty limiting for a device in this price category.
I like all the other, very useful functions.
Besides I also have problems connecting to the PC with the USB. The device does not show up as a device despite having installed the latest USB drivers from Garmin!

I fell in love with this GPS. I bought it for search and rescue work. It was fairly intuitive and I could easily plug it into my laptop to download tracks and waypoints to Google Earth and my USGS topo maps. But it has a fatal flaw. The software that comes with it does not support Macintosh. Come on Garmin. What were you thinking?? I am seriously disappointed.

For a hand held GPS this one is pretty good. I have ac as well as dc car charger. For my purposes i use the 24K topo for out doors activities. I rearly gici anythink a 5 star. but this is at the top of my gps rateings.

I got this to use both on my motorcycle and when hiking in the woods. The ability to change the screen settings for what stats are being displayed is very helpful. The screen brightness adjustment is very easy to use, even with gloves on. It would be nice to have a larger screen and have is weigh a little less. When hiking, it is a bit clunky and weighs more than I would like.

All in all well worth the money, if you have a larger budget though get the lighter one for hiking.

I guess this one is one of the best GPS product ever, I love it and works just fine

Easy start up out of the box. Rechargeable Nmhi batteries extended the run time. Slow to charge off the USB port.
Works excellent, for tracking and as an odometer. Really like the altimeter/barometer. Trekking is great, excellent tool!