What is the best hand held GPS?

Need topographic maps, good satellite lock up in the back country and good battery life.

Did a search but the results seemed dated.

Thanks

I believe Garmine makes the best units. The newer models access both US and Russian satellites. Look at the Garmin Oregon 600. Don't get one with preloaded topographical maps because they aren't that great. Get a basic unit then get the topo maps on mini sd cards and install them.

I've had great luck with the Garmin 60 / 62 csx hand held units. Best thing about them is how sensitive they are. Work extremely well even in the dense New Zealand bush getting enough satellite coverage to navigate. Screen works well in sunlight and good battery life (up to 19 hours constant use on a set if batteries).

These take the topo maps loaded onto a micro SD card which as Doublegun has mentioned is the way to go with these units.

I'm pretty much in agreement with Kiwi: the 60 and 62 lines are both excellent, and I use a 60GPSmap Cx as my personal GPS receiver to this day. I bought my wife a 62GPSmap SC, and it works fine as a GPS, but there are firmware glitches that make dealing with the camera a royal pain. The 62 series antenna (firmware?) is a little better than the 60 series.

Garmin has now introduced their line of "64xxx" receivers so support for them is current, but if you can get a 60-Cx, or (especially) a 62-ST with the topo you want, AND if it's cheap, AND you can add/exchange other 24K maps to it, go for it (you'd have to verify that 24K maps are available and can be loaded into your unit).

Otherwise, you might consider the bottom-of-the-line, bare-ones GPSmap 64, though there are lots of other units out there that are perfectly fine. (I regard wireless sharing and electronic compass as fluff. I've played with the wireless communication and didn't like it at all.)

In general:

1) I believe you MUST be able to add 24K maps to whatever you decide to buy (not all of some series, or other GPS lines, will accept maps other than those supplied with the unit which may not be very good topo maps — you want a unit that will accept micro-SD cards).

2) Learn how GPS receivers can mislead you: they can place you where you aren't. You must be smarter than your equipment.

3) Understand that a GPS compass is far less accurate than a good hand-held magnetic compass properly used, one with a set-and-forget declination adjustment. Again, you must be smarter than your equipment

4) Learn the quirks of your unit. They have them, and you would be well advised to identify them.

5) Practice, practice, practice.

UPDATE 2/05/2016

6) You want your unit to use AA batteries — they're available everywhere.

7) You want your GPS to be waterproof at least to the IPX-7 standard.

What about the Garmin Montana series?

quote:

Originally posted by MHC_TX:
What about the Garmin Montana series?

It's an excellent series. I particularly like the large display. In terms of accuracy, just about all the GPS units now will give you a 95% chance of being within 3 meters of where the numbers tell you you are, assuming good satellite location and that there is a good number of satellites.

It pretty much boils down to what your personal preferences are (what's the best backpack? The best deer rifle? The best .22 bolt action?).

I prefer to use keys rather than a touchscreen. I don't need or want lots of extras of the sort found on many of today's GPS units (including changing its look, wireless, electronic compasses, etc.): I just want 1:24k topo maps, a quick and secure lock on satellites, and for it to be pretty damned impervious to the elements and being dropped. I want to be able to customize pages for information, and customizing for a particular activity (?)or aesthetic seems superfluous to me.

I also want simplicity: sometimes, less is more. (How many of Microsoft Word's features do you really need or want?)

I am admittedly biased in favor of the 60Cx and 62s or 62st: when I taught land navigation (maps, compass, GPS) to my SAR unit, I was given carte blanch to select GPS receivers for our team. I ended up selecting the Garmin 60Cx (22 units), and, when the 62 series came out, we upgraded to the 62s (24 units).

I never regretted selecting the 60Cx receivers, which always seemed to be focussed on the essential. The 62 units had a slightly better antenna (or firmware?) and could lock up satellites a little faster, but it seemed like there were lots of features to it that were incidental to its purpose . . . and that is worrisome because if you don't use your GPS a lot, you can end up getting lost in a maze of menus, being confused because the unit isn't doing what it should be doing or screwing up waypoints. And you pay for flexibility: if you're going to use flexibility, then great. If not, why pay for it?

I set up our 60Cx and 62s units according to the KISS principle. I think I had 5 screens at the top level, and I taught people how to save and view waypoints, how to change position formats (lat/long or UTM), how to check and change datum, how to record and save tracks, and other basic stuff associated with each page. (Nevertheless, busy little fingers would STILL find ways to change settings in unusually creative ways!)

quote:

Originally posted by MHC_TX:
What about the Garmin Montana series?

I have 4 yoa Montana its a very good unit.

I don't doubt that Garmin make the best GPS but I'm over the brand. I lost my humble Dakota 10 with everything else in my daypack when it fell off a ledge high in NZ last year. Being used in a sporting pursuit at the time, no insurance was available.

On getting home I happened on the Aust/NZ map disk that had been loaded on it and asked if I could have the code to use it again, if I buy a new Garmin. No way, said the shop I'd bought it from, so I bought a Magellan from the opposition. At least they haven't done that to me - yet.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
I don't doubt that Garmin make the best GPS but I'm over the brand. I lost my humble Dakota 10 with everything else in my daypack when it fell off a ledge high in NZ last year. Being used in a sporting pursuit at the time, no insurance was available.

On getting home I happened on the Aust/NZ map disk that had been loaded on it and asked if I could have the code to use it again, if I buy a new Garmin. No way, said the shop I'd bought it from, so I bought a Magellan from the opposition. At least they haven't done that to me - yet.

That sucks . . . did you contact Garmin directly? If the company itself turns down your request, they deserve the strongest condemnation, and I, for one, want to know that.

I have found Garmin customer service to be top notch

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
I have found Garmin customer service to be top notch

Agreed. I spent a lot of time on the phone talking to Garmin support both when I was deciding which units we should buy and, later, when I had technical questions that needed answering.

I would be very disappointed to learn that they couldn't accommodate sambarman338's request, which strikes me as totally reasonable.

Hello, I’ve been researching this same thing for the last 6 months or so. I think I’ve settled on the Garmin 64st.

I was looking at the bigger touchscreen models, but heard from various users that in extreme cold or rain they were harder to manipulate than one with regular buttons. also it seems the 64 series (and AFAIK the 60 and 62) is better for satellite acquisition with its quasi external antenna.

I was fortunate enough to get to use one on a weeklong backpack trip into the Absoroka Beartooth Wilderness last fall, I liked it and it performed wonderfully. the only thing is the screen resolution could have been a bit better but was plenty usable and I don’t believe it would outweigh the other qualities I mentioned.

quote:

Originally posted by B L O'Connor:

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
I don't doubt that Garmin make the best GPS but I'm over the brand. I lost my humble Dakota 10 with everything else in my daypack when it fell off a ledge high in NZ last year. Being used in a sporting pursuit at the time, no insurance was available.

On getting home I happened on the Aust/NZ map disk that had been loaded on it and asked if I could have the code to use it again, if I buy a new Garmin. No way, said the shop I'd bought it from, so I bought a Magellan from the opposition. At least they haven't done that to me - yet.

That sucks . . . did you contact Garmin directly? If the company itself turns down your request, they deserve the strongest condemnation, and I, for one, want to know that.

No, I didn't contact Garmin directly but have no reason to think the agent would have a different position to theirs - after all, he was in a position to sell me a new GPS. He told me that buying the maps was basically buying a one-use licence. True as that may be, the furnishing of a tangible disk at damned-near as much as the GPS itself gives the customer the feeling that he should have some right to use it again, at least in the case of a misfortune like that.

Having seen Windows disks sold under similar conditions, I should have known better than to ask.

Never mind, I try to only use the GPS as back up against failure of my ageing brain cells. Call me a Luddite, but I now wonder if we put too much reliance on electronic gadgetry these days. As Aldo Leopold said, the moral justification for hunting is mostly in its atavistic recreational aspect - like a child climbing down from a tree, we are recreated by revisiting the skills our ancestors mastered as our species ascended by descending.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:

. . .

Never mind, I try to only use the GPS as back up against failure of my ageing brain cells. Call me a Luddite, but I now wonder if we put too much reliance on electronic gadgetry these days. As Aldo Leopold said, the moral justification for hunting is mostly in its atavistic recreational aspect - like a child climbing down from a tree, we are recreated by revisiting the skills our ancestors mastered as our species ascended by descending.

You're wise beyond your years, grasshopper! IMO, you're navigating the way you should: you have to be smarter than your tools.

I stressed to my SAR teams that they have 3 navigation tools and that in importance they are: 1) Map; 2) Compass; 3) GPS. A good land navigator needs to learn how to use all 3, especially how to orient and read topographic maps.

I also taught that while GPS is wonderful, it is 100% correct perhaps 95% of the time: it can, and will, lie to you.

I've had it happen too many times to count, both with my car's GPS and my hand-held (during one training session, several of us got to a spot where our GPS units were giving wildly different, and changing, locations . . . I suspect because the satellite signals were being reflected off some terrain features and that those reflections changed as the satellites changed their locations).

When they work as they're supposed to, there's nothing as cool as a GPS. But, IMO, too many people depend too much on them, as if they (the receivers) are infallible. Plus, they are more easily broken than a compass or map, their antennas can be blocked by canopy, their batteries run dry, they're more susceptible to water damage, etc.

JFWIW.