SummitPost.org

Hi there.
I want to know if anyone has an experience about next generation Garmin hand helds. I've not good experience about Garmin Colorado 300 (Power consumer, cease to function).
I want to know about Garmin Oregon. I'm not sure that Touch-screen hand helds are good devices to use in extreme weather condition while mountaineering. Any experience about?

I have the Garmin Vista HCx. Long battery life, small size, color screen, high sensitivity chip that gets readings under canopy (inside buildings as well). Allows averaging before storing a waypoint, which increases precision. Half the price of the models you mention. I have had mine for over a year and am happy with it. It has the digital compass and altimeter. The altimeter did not work well initially, but since I upgraded the receiver via direct download from Garmin's website, those problems have gone.

Moni wrote:I have the Garmin Vista HCx. Long battery life, small size, color screen, high sensitivity chip that gets readings under canopy (inside buildings as well). Allows averaging before storing a waypoint, which increases precision. Half the price of the models you mention. I have had mine for over a year and am happy with it. It has the digital compass and altimeter. The altimeter did not work well initially, but since I upgraded the receiver via direct download from Garmin's website, those problems have gone.

eTrex Vista HCX is great but you know it's unable to use raster maps (Google maps) and just can read Garmin topo-maps. I live in Iran and there is no topo-map to use. So I prefere to use next generation of garmin's hand-helds to be able to use map of any location. if there is a map, then Vista HCX is great. thanks anyway

I just got the Dakota 10 and so far I love it I used mountaineering in sierra last weekend and it worked perfectly the touchscreen is excellent I would recommend this unit

is it OK use a touch screen hand held with gloves? I mean in winter we need gloves and we need GPS too.

neghafi wrote:

Moni wrote:I have the Garmin Vista HCx. Long battery life, small size, color screen, high sensitivity chip that gets readings under canopy (inside buildings as well). Allows averaging before storing a waypoint, which increases precision. Half the price of the models you mention. I have had mine for over a year and am happy with it. It has the digital compass and altimeter. The altimeter did not work well initially, but since I upgraded the receiver via direct download from Garmin's website, those problems have gone.

eTrex Vista HCX is great but you know it's unable to use raster maps (Google maps) and just can read Garmin topo-maps. I live in Iran and there is no topo-map to use. So I prefere to use next generation of garmin's hand-helds to be able to use map of any location. if there is a map, then Vista HCX is great. thanks anyway

The HCX supports an SD chip, so you should be able to upload maps to it.

The touchscreen does not work with gloves so if you need to use it in the winter another unit may work better

Moni wrote:

neghafi wrote:

Moni wrote:I have the Garmin Vista HCx. Long battery life, small size, color screen, high sensitivity chip that gets readings under canopy (inside buildings as well). Allows averaging before storing a waypoint, which increases precision. Half the price of the models you mention. I have had mine for over a year and am happy with it. It has the digital compass and altimeter. The altimeter did not work well initially, but since I upgraded the receiver via direct download from Garmin's website, those problems have gone.

eTrex Vista HCX is great but you know it's unable to use raster maps (Google maps) and just can read Garmin topo-maps. I live in Iran and there is no topo-map to use. So I prefere to use next generation of garmin's hand-helds to be able to use map of any location. if there is a map, then Vista HCX is great. thanks anyway

The HCX supports an SD chip, so you should be able to upload maps to it.

Hey dude There is no Garmin topo map of IRAN in the shop

harryquach wrote:The touchscreen does not work with gloves so if you need to use it in the winter another unit may work better

I think the same but please have a look to this
http://www.anatolyivanov.com/prose/en/AI.7.00150/
and this
http://www.anatolyivanov.com/prose/en/AI.7.00159/

This guy says it's ok to work with gloves. I'm not that sure! do you?

I tried it with my gloves and it did not work

neghafi wrote:

Moni wrote:

neghafi wrote:

Moni wrote:I have the Garmin Vista HCx. Long battery life, small size, color screen, high sensitivity chip that gets readings under canopy (inside buildings as well). Allows averaging before storing a waypoint, which increases precision. Half the price of the models you mention. I have had mine for over a year and am happy with it. It has the digital compass and altimeter. The altimeter did not work well initially, but since I upgraded the receiver via direct download from Garmin's website, those problems have gone.

eTrex Vista HCX is great but you know it's unable to use raster maps (Google maps) and just can read Garmin topo-maps. I live in Iran and there is no topo-map to use. So I prefere to use next generation of garmin's hand-helds to be able to use map of any location. if there is a map, then Vista HCX is great. thanks anyway

The HCX supports an SD chip, so you should be able to upload maps to it.

Hey dude There is no Garmin topo map of IRAN in the shop

I don't know if Moni is talking about downloading Google maps for Vista. Anyway, have you checked that one

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=11023

Yury wrote:

neghafi wrote:Hey dude There is no Garmin topo map of IRAN in the shop

In a previous century I was making raster GPS maps by processing scanned topo maps etc. with the help of OziExplorer.
Depending on a format of Garmin raster GPS maps, it should be possible to use a similar approach for any area without readily available electronic maps.

http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/cache/ ... fragment-2

harryquach wrote:I tried it with my gloves and it did not work

I really needed to know this because it's an important isue. Thanks. what was your GPS model? Oregon or Dakota?

Yury wrote:

neghafi wrote:Hey dude There is no Garmin topo map of IRAN in the shop

In a previous century I was making raster GPS maps by processing scanned topo maps etc. with the help of OziExplorer.
Depending on a format of Garmin raster GPS maps, it should be possible to use a similar approach for any area without readily available electronic maps.

Yes and you know how hard and time consuming it is. I mean image processing and removing noise of a vectorized map is a great job. Colorado, Oregon and Dakota make it easy just to use a calibrated raster map and there is multiplicity limitation to use vector maps (I think at most 4 vMaps) but I didn't hear any limitation about number of KMZ using.