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I loaded the topo maps onto the device and the display showed the topo details quite nicely. If the device had been intuitive, I would have given it 5 stars. My top priorities were to have a small hand held unit with a highly sensitive GPS receiver (since most of my walks are in forested areas). I think that is the price to pay for adding so many features to more device. I got lost while hiking a few years ago and decided that I needed to research hand held GPS units.
With more practice, I'm sure I would have figured the device out. The Vista HCx was the cheapest Garmin I could find that met all my criteria (and the Amazon reviews were reasonable). However, that doesn't bode well for those times when you REALLY need it and your facilities are not all in order. So, I returned the Vista and continue my search. Now why is my rating only 3 stars. I tinkered with it off and on for 2 weeks at home, while hiking, and while taking walks in the neighborhood.
I put that decision off until I started hiking with my kids. I picked one up along with the Garmin topo maps and a micro-sd card and started to play with it. I never figured out how to properly use the device. After looking at many reviews, I settled on the Garmin Vista HCx. In short, the operation of the device was not intuitive. While inside my house, the vista locked onto the GPS satellites quickly which satisfied my sensitivity requirement (and it did a good job under tree cover).
After thinking about it some more, I thought a color display, the ability to add detailed maps, and a compass would be nice. I was impressed with the size of the device along with the quality of the color display.
A month ago I replaced my old Garmin Etrex Vista with the new Etrex Vista HCX. And, you can't beat Amazon pricing and quick delivery-----I got this GPS from Amazon for about $60.00 less than any other vendor's pricing.In other words, this is a highly functional and useful hiking and biking GPS. The new HCX has solved this problem, but I may have to go to Target to get a new door stop as I sold my old GPS.I can now hike in very heavily wooded, mountainous and deep rock canyon areas in central and southern Mexico and not worry about the signal. The altimeter and compass are very accurate.
I did some internet research and found effective workarounds for getting non-Garmin maps on the unit and some reasonably good free maps which would have cost me a total of $500.00 had I bought them from Garmin. What can be done to make it a five-star product:1. You do get a beep, but that's not useful and, indeed, potentially dangerous if you're behind the wheel of a car if you're constantly looking at the screen, leading me to recommend a separate car-specific unit for a car;2. Garmin should either lower the price of their maps or provide instructions for loading non-Garmin maps on their units. The basemap of the Americas is useful, but be aware that Garmin maps are expensive should you desire topographic, street, other country or specialized maps. My old Vista was great, except when I was in heavily wooded areas or rocky canyons---in other words it was worthless to me as a GPS but priceless at the front entry as a door stop.
Since this is a routing-capable GPS, add voice prompts for turns. Slim chance. This HCX locks into the satellite signals and rarely lets go. The battery life is much improved over old units (up to 25 hours on two alkaline batteries).
Seems to work great, But for me it demands some study and learning. The Garmin etrex Vista is every thing promised.
This might be considered a bit of a hassle.The sensitivity of the GPS is really good, mine localized satellites even when indoors. Bought one for my trip to California. Only drawback was that it froze a couple of times when I started using it, but since I upgraded the firmware it has worked without problems.Highly recommended. Battery time is superb. Was a bit put off by the reviews that said it would be hard to use, I think it is very intuitive and has worked great for be. If you use a mac you need to convert the maps using Mapconverter in Windows, which will generate a map file that you can use on the mac.
Amazon gave me the money back. After two weeks it stopped working - wasn't able to acquire satellites.
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