Bushnell 363500 Onix 350 GPS with sensors

by Bushnell

Product Features

• Compact GPS navigator with TruView navigation layering technology
• Layers satellite photo, topographical map, and compass on same screen
• Lets you plot course by comparing surroundings with onscreen pictures
• 3.5-inch full-color LCD display; barometric pressure and temperature sensors
• Embedded 512 MB microSD card; measures 3.1 x 7 x 0.55 inches (W x H x D)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Combining satellite photography and navigational aids on a single screen, the Bushnell Onix 350 GPS navigator lets you plot your course by comparing your surroundings with the pictures in your palm. As a result, you can easily find your way back to the car whether you're hunting or hiking in the woods. The Onix 350 works by layering a satellite photo, topographical map, compass, and other navigational aids on the extra-large, 3.5-inch full-color LCD display. Because you see all the images and aids on the same screen, you eliminate all of the guesswork of GPS navigation. This means you don't have to worry about taking a wrong turn or making an "educated" guess that the tree patch on the left is supposed to be there. The Onix 350 also includes barometric pressure and temperature sensors, helping you predict changing weather conditions. In general, lower pressure brings inclement weather, while high pressure brings stability and clear skies. And fishermen will love the unit's Solunar Edge technology, which provides sun and moon tables to determine optimal animal and fish activity times.

Other details include a SafeTrack battery conservation mode that helps the Onix 350 run for up to 30 hours; a user-friendly interface that provides easy access to all of the features and controls; a self-calibrating three-axis digital compass; an embedded 512 MB microSD card; and a rugged, waterproof rubber armor.

Specifications:

• Receiver: SiRF Star III 20-channel GPS
• Navigation type: TruView screen layering
• Screen type: Full-color LCD
• Display size: 3.5 inches
• Display resolution: 320 x 240
• Battery type: Lithium ion
• Battery life: Up to 30 hours
• Waterproof standard: IPX7
• Dimensions: 3.1 by 7 by 0.55 inches (W x H x D)

About Bushnell
Bushnell has been the industry leader in high-performance sports optics for more than 50 years. The company's guiding principle is to provide the highest quality, most reliable, and most affordable sports optics products on the market. Bushnell product lines enhance the enjoyment of every outdoor pursuit, including nature study, hunting, fishing, birding, and stargazing. Indoors, the company's binoculars bring the audience closer to the action in fast-moving sports or the fine arts at theaters and concerts.

Product Description

Introducing the world¿s first handheld GPS to combine navigational aids, satellite photography on a single screen. It shows you the perfect pinchpoint for this wind. And how you should dress for the day. Layered over a georeferenced satellite map of your location keeps you prepared. It¿s all housed in a rubberized defensive armor built to XPX7 waterproof standards, with a high gain SIRF GPS receiver. In your palm. Includes Embedded 128 micro SD card Rugged rubber armor Waterproof. Warning: This device is intended as a supplemental navigation aide only. The user assumes all responsibility with the use of this product

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10 x 9 x 3 inches ; 1.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00192GL10
• Item model number: 363500
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,034 in Sports & Outdoors (See Top 100 in Sports & Outdoors)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Hardware and Terrible Software, February 12, 2010

By 

Robert R. Birge (Coventry CT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

I got the Onix350 during a wootoff for about $65. The hardware is excellent. The software is incredibly bad. The pros and cons are below:

Pros:

The GPS system is extremely sensitive and unlike the majority of GPS systems, can acquire satellite signals below deep forest canopies. I had read about this capability before I bought the unit, and choose it for that reason. I live in the middle of the woods and wanted a unit that would work while hiking in the heavily wooded areas near my home. In fact, the unit acquires signals inside my house which is surrounded by trees. I am writing this review in my living room, and the unit has acquired seven satellites with three in the green (strong signal). My garmin unit cannot acquire a single satellite when I am inside the house. I do not know whether this is due to the electronics or a good antennae, but it matters not ... this unit has superb signal acquisition.

The display is very good but not outstanding. It is plenty bright, but the resolution is only medium. But the color is excellent and the ability to overlay either topographic maps or aerial maps is a very nice feature. But you will have to pay for these maps, and you should count on adding at least another $20 to collect enough maps to make this unit useful (see below).

Cons:

The web software is terrible. The Bushnell web site is disorganized and seemingly designed to prevent the user from getting to where they want to be. For simply registering the product, you get four free downloads which is enough to get you around your neighborhood, and thats it. The maps are small in area coverage, and hard to download. You will need to use trial and error to get what you want, so only having four free downloads is a tease and an insult.

If you are running Vista, then I recommend you buy another GPS. The combination of Vista paranoia and the Bushnell web site makes it nearly impossible to download maps. There is no Mac support, so forget about that as well. But I was able to download maps using Windows XP, although the process was convoluted and tiresome. The instructions are obscure, and often incorrect. Downloading maps to the GPS is a three or four step process, involves multiple windows, great patience and adequate karma. You will be cussing out the software engineers who designed this junk well before you have achieved success. I am guessing the software development was farmed out to Siberian potato farmers without access to computers or heat.

Summary:

Great hardware, terrible software. Count on adding another $20 for map downloads. This will give you unlimited downloads for 90 days. I paid $30 for one year of "free" map downloads, but in retrospect, the extra $10 may have been a mistake. I will lose patience long before 90 days are up. Nevertheless, after you suffer the indignation of dealing with the obscure and obscenely incompetent map download system, you will have an excellent GPS that works well in the deep forest. I know of no other GPS with comparable signal acquisition capabilities.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent GPS unit with big screen if you can live with the quirks, February 12, 2010

By 

Timothy Lam "trustedsince1996" (Temple City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

I've had the Onix 350 for a month now. I have read some pretty bad reviews on this unit which had me worried until I bought this unit and tried it myself (the price was too tempting). It takes a little bit of savvy to figure it out but once you've done that it is MOSTLY completely functional and quite usable.

I'll just give a few tips:
Donwloading maps:
Go to the Bushnell website, register your unit, get to the download maps page, go into the "New Users Start Here" link. Scroll to the bottom of the page and get the PDF files. Follow them to the letter and save yourself a ton of time fooling around. I have had to use I-Explorer for downloading maps due to some activeX thing. You can get rather large areas of topo maps using the "grab area" function on their page. Buying maps there? Get a years worth of unlimited downloads for $29. Maybe it hurts to pay that for you but it is not a bad deal really. The topo maps are USGS and not updated frequently. The satellite images that I have seen are less than a year old as far as I can tell. Resolution is not that good it is true but I found them to be MUCH easier to follow than on the Garmin Etrex I was working with the other night. Of course there is the fact that you can get free topos for Garmins on [...]. Nothing seems to exist like that for he Bushnell ... yet. Another hint, after downloading maps copy them directly to the SD card. Using the software "PC Companion" will take much longer and add no value to the process.
Waypoints and GEOCACHING:

I'll give 2 scenarios:
1st scenario, get a GPX file from something like [...] or get a .LOC file ([...]'s native format) Get GPSBABEL (the latest version 1.3.7-beta20100116 or later) You can convert directly from any of the other formats to the Bushnell WPT format. I found this to be rather easy... but again it takes a little bit of work to get started. You can copy the WPT files directly to the waypoint folder in the unit's SD card... no need for the PC Companion and it is much faster. OK this requires linking to a computer... what will you do while sitting next to your friend in the woods who is using a Garmin and he wants to share a waypoint?

2nd scenario: Look at the coordinates of his waypoint, zoom into the map page on your Bushnell and move the cursor until the coordinates match or nearly match those of his waypoint. Set a waypoint on the Bushnell unit at that cursor location. On the Onix 400 I could not find a way to actually enter numeric coordinates and then set a waypoint. I can enter coordinates and FIND the location, but not set a waypoint when in the 'enter coordinates' mode.... But the cursor movement method is nearly as accurate.

It is not NMEA compatible (proprietary) in case anybody is wondering.

Satellite acquisition: I found it to work quite well. Sometimes even on the 1st floor of a 2 story building ... but of course it works better outside as do they all.

Bigger SD card? This thing is supposed to come with a 512 meg. Probably you won't find a larger card to be all that useful. I had loaded a large portion of northern Los Angeles county in topo maps on my unit that took up almost 400MB. It took 6 minutes to boot up. So I carry fewer topo maps now. It boots in about 45 seconds now when I am carrying just the Angeles National Forest.

Battery life: not bad. I can run it almost all day before the battery indicator turns red. (using 10% backlight which is plenty brigh I think) But I have not tried seeing how long it will run in the "safetrack" mode. I'm sure it is longer. Batteries are proprietery and rechargable. I'd recommend the car charger and extra battery accessory kit. Yeah it would be nice if it used AAs.

Visibility of the screen in bright sunlight? I've heard that it is hard to see when using polarized sunglasses. Maybe that is true; I don't know. I have also heard that it is hard to see when in bright sunlight even without sunglasses.. definitely NOT true. The display is some sort of reflective LCD which I have found to display excellent resolution and to have very good visibility in bright sunlight. The screen is larger than most... I think that makes it easier to read.

Poor data port covers? Yeah they should have put more thought into that design. The data port cover was not attached. Once removed it does not want to snap back into place and stay there and it is not attached. So its like a loose cork in a way... A poor design there. I just leave mine out or I'll lose it altogether.

I think the entire user interface is easier to use than the Garmin Etrex. Others may have a different opinion.

It is not very good for highway navigation but it was not meant to be.

All in all: I love it for hiking and geocaching, rather easy to use and rugged. I did not find most of the complaints to have a lot of merit but it takes a little effort to get everything lined out. But this unit had lots of promise. If Bushnell avoided proprietary map format and did a little more work to improve their web-site for downloading maps, a couple of improvements in port cover design and an alternate battery: they would have given the competition a run for their money.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A little frustrated, April 7, 2010

By 

Pseudo Guru (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bushnell 363500 Onix 350 GPS with sensors (Sports)

I bought this particular GPS mainly for hikes in some of Colorado's national forests, and some of the 14ers. I'll reiterate almost all of the other comments thus far regarding satellite acquisition, screen appearance, etc. It seems to be top notch from a hardware standpoint. As for the little rubber cover for the battery charger and USB port, just hold the unit over a garbage can, and shake a couple times. That way, you'll know where you lost the cover, rather than wondering. It wasn't going to keep out water, anyway. Maybe dirt, but that's about it. From a price standpoint, I chose this unit because I figured I would spend over $100 for a map CD from one of the other GPS manufacturers, and with this unit, I could have a relatively cheap GPS, and at $30 a year for unlimited map downloads, it would be years to equal the cost of a m,ore expensive GPS, and map CD, which is true. Note that in a lot of the things I purchase, I figure there's a cost involved in convenience, so I went ahead and bought anyway, even after seeing the horrendous software and website reviews, because I'll sacrifice some convenience for the sake of a buck. The map website is a real spirit-breaker, though, and it really pushes that philosophy the the brink.

All that said, here are a couple of suggestions that might help alleviate some of the map download headaches. These are by no means comprehensive, just a couple of things I've picked up. First off, if you're at all savvy, don't install their software. There's a file structure on the Micro SD card that you can easily figure out and manually dump Aerial and Topos into the unit. If you want to save waypoints, trails and routes, you may have to install their software. But I don't plan on needing those features, and would rather steer clear of installing software that may have been written by the same people that wrote the website. Besides, that's why I got a GPS, so I don't need to need to save my trails! Note the unit just shows up as an external USB drive when you plug it into your computer, so there aren't any extra drivers needed to make it work. (Windows XP) As for the website, it's ActiveX driven, so yes, you're locked into Windows, and Internet Explorer. For best results on the website, just assume you're going to have to close your browser after doing anything successfully, and then log in again. I found that if I used the Area Grabber, it would work once. After that, I couldn't select another area until I closed the browser. If you get any sort of error message at all, close your browser. Whatever you think it's doing, it probably isn't at that point, and you'll wait a long time to find out you've got nothing. Limit your map downloads to about 9 at a time. Any more than that, expect error messages. When you select maps for download the site says "Finalizing". That takes forever, even with a small number of maps. Once you start the actual download though, they drop in quickly. I'm just on DSL, and the DSL seems to be the speed limitation, not the Bushnell site. That said, there doesn't seem to be a sure fire way to determine just what you've already downloaded and what you haven't. Under "My Folders", some maps are grayed out, others aren't. But I've wound up downloading a lot of maps multiple times, because I can't figure out what reality is half the time. Once you've achieved a download, don't look at the download log. That caused my browser to crash every time. If you accidentally attempt to download a map twice, select "overwrite". If you select "Skip", your browser will crash. Also, I'd suggest downloading to your hard drive first, and then just copying the maps, etc. to the GPS unit. Note that the Bushnell site must look for the serial number of your registered unit, because I couldn't download anything without the unit being plugged into my computer, even to my hard drive. On a brighter note, the USB appears to charge the unit, which is nice.

Overall, the unit works well once you get the maps into it. I'd suggest whenever you have some spare time, sit down with a beer and Google Earth for reference and download a few megs of maps and aerials. I'm expecting that over the course of a year's worth of unlimited downloads, I'm going to accumulate maps for just about everywhere I ever go. Just keep in mind you need to close your browser after anything that's successful, because the next thing you do won't be, unless you shut it down. And don't kill yourself for hours trying to accomplish a multitude of maps. Do a few a day, definitely not the night before a hike, and you'll be fine. Maybe some day someone from Bushnell will read the reviews and get the map site converted to Silverlight, or Java, or something more reliable.