Customer Reviews

Garmin Foretrex 301 Waterproof Hiking GPS

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had the Garmin Foretrex 101 and it worked great until it got stolen. I have the 301 now and it works just as well. The only problem I had with the 101 was the strap. It was held onto the GPS unit with crappy watch pins. I'm in the military, so if you have to put a heavy ruck on and off quickly, and you get the ruck strap caught on the GPS, the unit would pop off the strap. Then, you are trying to find a tiny watch pin with NVGs on a mountain. Also, the strap that comes with it is just a bit too short, but the extension strap makes it too long. WTF?! It will barely fit on your wrist with nothing under it, but if you have a uniform on (ACU/BDU) you will have to use the extender and then it's too long and will move around.

For the 301 there is a better design to hold the strap onto the GPS. It uses screw in pins, so I think that problem is fixed and it shouldn't pop off. However, the strap length is still too short or too long. I am going to just buy a case where you can take the GPS and put it inside of a clear case and that has a Velcro strap.

I used the 101 on every mission in Afghanistan and it was really great to get quick grids of your location. Projecting points on the 101 and the 301 isn't that easy though. You can only choose distances at 100 meter intervals, so that's as accurate of grid as you will get. It's also not very easy to navigate the menu to get at the project waypoint screen. I just used it to quickly find out where I was, and for that it was fantastical.

The sensitivity of the receiver is awesome. You can pick up signals when it's sitting on the passenger seat of your car or when your in the woods walking. I ride mountain bike, and it seemed to work OK when I was under moderate cover at all speeds. When you get into really thick cover and you are going pretty fast the accuracy degrades a little, but it still tracks satellites. Your speed won't be that accurate though.

Hooking it upto a computer is easy too. It just loads as a USB mass storage device, so you don't need serial ports anymore. For military, I'm not sure if it will still be compatible with moving map on Falconview, haven't tried it.

I definitely recommend this. The only problem is the crappy strap that's not meant for human-sized wrists. On a bike mount, in a different case or attached to your body armor or whatever it's awesome.

Very happy with this little guy. I chose the 301 over the 401 because I wanted to track things based on GPS altitude and NOT barometric altitude. Specific example: pressurized aircraft cabins will not read correct altitude on the 401 because it's barometric... the GPS readings are slightly less accurate but ideal for what I needed.

There are lots of free software tools that read the GPX format that this device uses. You can also edit the onboard .gpx file directly if you really know what you're doing, which is very nice for bulk imports, etc. Just copy a valid .gpx file into the "GPX" folder (one level ABOVE the one that you download in the first place).

The GPS receiver is much, much more sensitive than earlier generations. It locks on to satellites in much less time, holds the signal better, and works through more overhead cover. This does NOT mean that you can take it into a cave and get a signal, nor will it work in the center of a widebody airliner... but it's still much better than anything else I've tried.

The logging and interface are a little cumbersome, but that's the tradeoff for making something this small and rugged (there are only four control buttons plus the one power button).

All in all, I've been exceptionally happy with mine.

The new Foretrex 301 is an excellent product (not to be confused with the old Foreunner 301 also presumably OK-- even Garmin sometimes gets them mixed up.)

The improved GPS receiver is very fine -- you can get reception while driving, wearing it on your wrist. Fuctions are much like those of the obsolete eTrex, plus new things, such as a compass heading readout.

The vendor, Mountain Gear, is very good, with extremely prompt shipment, and their customer service, in the unlikely event you need it, it also excellent.

Software is not furnished with the Foretrex 301.

The Foretrex 301 acts as a hard drive on your computer, through the USB port. Unfortunately, I know of no Garmin software that recognizes the Foretrex 301. However, Garmin's Trip and Waypoint Manager running on Windows XP Professional (and presumably Vista) will read Foretrex 301 data using the File option on the manager, so waypoints etc., can be read, mapped, and stored on your computer. This is not obvous, but easy to use specifying the GPX format.

Oddly, the Trip and Waypoint Manager does not work properly on the Microsoft VirtualXP under Windows 7, and the software is not yet supported for Windows 7 and will not run on it (I am using manager version 3).

If you are looking for a simple, no frills GPS for exercise or basic navigation, this is it! I'm amazed that Garmin was able to cram everything they did into the Foretrex 301 (and 401), especially since it is barely larger than a match box. Running on a pair of AAA batteries (alkaline, NiMH rechargeable, or lithium cells), the GPS straps to your wrist via an over-sized watchband (extender included). The watchband is secured via a set of small screws, and is easily removable. Also included is a USB cable for connecting the GPS to your computer, and the Foretrex 301/401 handily records your track logs and waypoints in the .GPX file format. Using Garmin's free "Base Camp" software download (or many other programs), you can send and receive data to the GPS. Overall this is a great unit and well worth the money.

worked good used for the ausable river canoe marathon batteries lasted over 17 hours continuous. great for training able to see your speed, distance, n average speed good product.

This is a great device. Purchased and then immediately used on a 4 day backpacking trip. The PITA (abbreviation for Pain in __ __) part of it is turning the tracking on or off. It's buried within the menus. So to save battery (because we all want to carry a bunch of batteries backpacking...) I would turn this feature off when we break for lunch/etc. The end result of the tracking though is stunning. Upload to google earth and you can see 3d of where exactly you were. Pretty slick. The file this outputs is a .gpx, which you can upload to some sites on the web and get all kinds of statistics, like time climbing, total distance, etc. The screen on the device is customizable with a selection of available variables. I found these usefull all on the same screen for backpacking: sunset time, time to next waypoint, and elapsed distance. This way we could approximate how long we had until sundown (a very accurate feature) and how far we were from where we wanted to go. Also note you can turn this on at home, and enter coordinates using the buttons for waypoints ahead of time before you go on a trip, but you cannot "upload a file" to it with waypoints you want. You have to do it manually. Overall, a pretty capable little device for a great price. Also, it takes a beating, mine is a little beat from the trip I took, but the rubber and plastic body is plenty tough. Recommend it.

I love this product as it does exactly what I wanted: I wanted to go on a hike and be able to "display" the hike on a map and see the exact distances. Then I could print the map and let other friends take the hike too. The unit perfectly meets this requirement. Using the map portion is trivially easy by logging into Garmin/Connect, which is a free Internet based product. You punch a button on the web page and it downloads the contents of the unit to their database, all over a USB cable Once you do, you will see thousands of other users' hikes, bike trips, etc. in your area and all around the world.

I admit to getting a bit lost once in a while and there's a neat feature to "take you back" to the start of the hike, either by walking you back the same trail or giving you a compass heading and distance.

Customer service is unbelievable. Quick email answers. Once they even called me to talk about the issue I had questions about. Wow. Many other companies, your query simply goes into a black hole. I have had $40K cars where I couldn't get info and these guys call me on the phone about their $140 product.

No, I don't work for Garmin but I do have a Nuvi for my car.

Great little GPS. I bought this for backpacking, specifically for use w/ a map. My main requiremnts were that it be light, waterproof, give UTM coordinates, and work without a great view of the sky. This little tool does all of that, and more. Without the wrist strap, it weighs @ 2.5oz w/ NiMH batts, which is great. I put batts in it, turned it on, and threw it in a glass of water for a while, and it didn't leak at all, and though it took a while, it found satellites even in the basement of a house below two other floors.

The GPS altitude seems to be off around 30-40' where I checked it(usually about double the stated GPS error), at times it was closer, it didn't seem to make much difference if WAAS was enabled or not. I expect that it could easily be more accurate than a barometric altimeter that wasn't just calibrated.

This is NOT a mapping GPS, and the small screen isn't particularly useful on your tracks, either. This isn't a problem w/ the product, just something to be aware of if you are considering it. Think of this as a "You are here" arrow on a real map.

Works great in a car as a speedo, to recheck the factory one for different sized tires, etc. The customizable screens give you the ability to choose the info they display easily. I would consider a larger GPS for many users, but if the size and weight are important, this one is very good.

still bulky on the wrist, getting caught on things with its oval shape. This model is improved from the last because the unit is now connected to the band with screws instead of springs. the previous model was always unspringing on one side and flopping around. both springs finally came off at the same time, and it was lost. That won't happen with this one. Though not fully accurate, I enjoy the altimeter that not all gps's have. good unit for the price. easy to use.

This is a great and handy (handsfree) GPS receiver.

Pros: small, light, accurate, easy to upload and download data, will display up to 2 position formats at one time including Lat/Lon, UTM, GMRS..., Also, it saves data if the universal GPX format.

Cons: resolution a bit low, strap (limited adjustability) see below.

Notes: not a mapping or 'turn by turn' navigator, but it is not supposed to be. Will display tracks, straight line distance to destination, bearing to destination... everything you'd expect from a basic GPSr.

Review:
This is a great field GPSr. As a background I own a Magellan Meridian Gold and a Garmin Etrex Legend HCx and have used both extensively. I've been using the Foretrex 301 for about six weeks now.

I've usually used it for my running to track time, distance and speed. Also for trail hiking, cycling and basic navigation.

For basic navigation (ie inputting waypoints) it is best to use the Mapsource software. You can input waypoints and routes as well as extract tracks from the 301 using Mapsource. If you want to use it with other software, it will output data in the form of GPX which has become one of the industry standards in data formatting for GPS.

I've found it to be as accurate as my HCx but smaller and much lighter. It doesn't do everything that the HCx does, but it was not designed to do so. The screen is small, but that is necessary due to the overall size of the device and so is expected. Also, due to the 'uses' and design (better power consumption), color dispay is not necessary. Resolution could be slightly better, but again for a simple device it works.

A price of <$140 is very fair for this device. I don't think I would have paid the retail price when it first was introduced (~$200 I think). I considered the 401, but did not feel the features necessary, so saved my money.

The only con is the wrist strap. With the basic wrist strap, it just fits my wrist just right, but if your wrist is anywhere above average, it may be too tight. The unit comes with a wrist strap extender, but when I tried it, it made the wrist strap way too large for most anyone I know. It would be better if it had slightly more adjustment range. However, it is sturdy, seems secure so far (hook and loop) and comfortable for my wrist. Definitely recommended if you need a basic GPS.

As a side note, if you some pictures of soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq, sometimes you will see them with a Foretrex on their wrist or gear.