Garmin eTrex lousy ?

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hi,
been getting a Garmin eTrex recently, as I had to send my 2 units of GPS12 back for service.
The eTrex is one of the newer models, and actually I expected it to beat the (pretty good) performance of the GPS12. What I find is, that it stores positions with large errors and points the wrong way, too.
I now flashed soft 2.07, but no improvement. I suspect this thing is just meant to be so.

Anyone who is happy with his eTtrex ?

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hi,

I am interested in buying an etrex soon. I would like to know exactly what are your problems. Please provide more details. The latest version of etrex is 2.09. Here are the info from Garmin. Would it help?

This software is the latest production software as of 7/28/00 and adds/corrects the following in the eTrex GPS:

Changes Made from Versions 2.08 to 2.09:

Fixed elevation display on the Compass page so that it does not "dash out" after 9999.
Improvements in positioning to fix erroneous track logs.
Improved the arrival alarm.
Changed the meter unit symbol from 'mt' to 'm' to be consistent with international standards.
Changes Made from Versions 2.07 to 2.08:

The UTC label is no longer displayed on the time when the UTC offset is zero.
The user selected north reference offset is saved correctly.
The restore defaults button on the units setup page saves the defaults correctly.
Elevation is no longer displayed in kilometers or kilofeet when exceeding 1,000. It now remains in meters or feet.
Shortened the Australian grid abbreviations.
Changes Made from Versions 2.06 to 2.07:


New display option on the Map page for the Goto navigational line. The line can be displayed from your current position (default) or from your original point of navigation as a course line. This option can be changed from the Map page's option menu by selecting "SHOW BEARING LINE" (default) or "SHOW COURSE LINE".

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hi Jack,
since last weekend, I'm running the 2.09
I didn't use it enough to see an improvement, yet.

What I found nasty with the 2.07:
Arrow on the compass page does not quickly follow a course change, particularly when the view of the sky is not so good. It just freezes the last good direction. This way I get terribly lost in cities like Bangkok. The arrow on the GPS12 acts faster and sometimes jumps around if there are reflections, but this is then obvious and I have never been led the wrong way.

Other things I hate about the eTrex:
Map cannot pan, so you won't be able to follow a day's track in detail, when you sit in your tent in the evening. Need to download to PC first.

Recording of track log cannot be turned off, so you will all the time overwrite whatever track you load in / you want to keep. It's possible to store something into a track memory slot, but this means they run a compression algorithm over your track and throw out most of the trackpoints, I don't know what is the accurracy after.

Water gets into the battery compartment easily and damages the batteries and the springs. Rather bad if it is salt water.

If you need a small GPS, love gambling and believe in the future or in Garmin, then get an eTrex.
If you want to have the most for your money now, then get a GPS12, they should be selling at bargain prices.

Martin

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hi Martin,

Did you use battery save mode with etrex? The response time is slower.

I have a Garmin GPS 38. I like it very much but it is big & heavy, uses 4 AA batteries, and tracks satellites serially. I would really like the etrex to keep some of the functions of the GPS 38 or 12. Garmin simplifies etrex too much. I hope they will upgrade the functions but I doubt it very much.

Jack

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Turning off the battery safe mode was the first thing I did.

I'm sure Garmin will upgrade the features of the eTrex, I see new soft versions every few days. Only I am afraid that the ultimate update will be a long way to go and for a new hardware, let's say an eTrex II.

If you are now happy with a less-than-12-channel receiver, if you treat your GPS nicely, if you use it mostly for motoring and not for hiking, I believe the eTrex is the right choice.