Customer Reviews

Garmin GPSMAP 60 Personal Navigation Unit

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

 

 

I just can't help but research, research, research any "big" purchases I make. I get almost obsessive about it, to tell the truth. I knew nothing about GPS except that I once had one in a rental car I had and loved it. Had they not been over $1000, I would have bought one immediately. So, after many long nights of meticulous research, I ended up selecting the gpsmap 60.

This is an excellent unit for those who want the ability of the gpsmap 60 color series but can't stomach the high price tag. Basically, you need to think about what you want/need and how much that's worth to you. I bought this unit because I didn't mind the greyscale screen (color is nice, but not worth the price hike) and because I was content with 24 vs 56 MB of memory.

I will be using the unit for a little geocaching, driving around town, cycling, and the occasional long road trip. I won't need more than 24 MB 99% of the time. On a long road trip, I will hook the unit up to my laptop and use the (free) voice navigation software available on the Garmin website.

The basemap is decent and has more large roads/highways than I would have expected. To me, a basemap was vital. I would not scrimp on that feature. One thing to keep in mind is that you will be needing to purchase extra mapping software if you want detailed maps... this can be quite expensive...

Of course, the most important thing to consider is reception. This unit does a phenomenal job. I have been biking in fairly dense tree cover and have always kept a full satellite lock. Remember, too, that the antenna on this unit is the exact same one on the more expensive units. The extra price does nothing to reception - a huge factor for me. If you want to add an external antenna, there is the ability to do this on any of the gpsmap 60 series.

There are numerous ways the unit can be configured display-wise and otherwise, and that's a great feature. Batteries last a long time (although rechargeables would probably be most cost-effective).

The Garmin website and various GPSr forums are great resources to find out more about this and other units. Trust me, though, you won't be disappointed with this unit.

Unless I can gice an item an excellent rating, I do not take the time to write a review. This GPS receiver from Garmin is worth the effort!

I bought the Garmin GPSMAP 60 in October, 2005. It is my first GPS and I did a lot of research to decide what I neeeded and what features and capabilities were important to me. One capability that I decideed was important is good reception. The first unit I got did not live up to my expectations. Could not receive the satellites very well, so I exchenged it for another unit of the same model. This one is outstanding!

We had a heavily overcast day earlier this week in Atlanta, with a good deal of rain. I was amazed that even during the rain with fully overcast skies, I was able to pick up 9 satellites! As many as on a clear day!

Since this is my first GPS, I don't have another model to compare it to. I can just say that it is working extremely well for me and I am very happy with it. The mapping screen is definitely worth having and gives enough additional information to make it worth the extra cost. The base map seems quite good as far as highways are concerned. As I get more into installing topo maps, I might wish for more memory, but so far I see no real need for that. This model will serve my needs quite nicely. I considered getting a system without mapping capability as a first unit, and I am glad that I chose to go with one with mapping.

It comes with the Mapsource PC software for Garmin. After you install it, you should go to the Garmin webswite and download any updates. The version of Mapsource that came with my GPSMAP 60 was over a year old, and did not have the ability to read GPX files, but the newest version does.

I tried to use my GPSMAP 60 with Microsoft Streets and Trips 2004, but found out that Streets and Trips requires an RS-232 serial input and the GPSMAP 60 comes with only a USB serial cable. Fortunately, the GPSMAP 60 has a plug for RS-232 Serial communication, so I can buy or build a cable to interface to Streets and Trips. This is a failing of Streets and Trips 2004 and not the Garmin. I don't know if the 2006 version of Streets and Trips is up to date with USB capability or not.

Battery life is excellent and is to me an important feature. Minimize use of the backlight, because it uses lots of extra power. Battery life is rated at about 28 hours. Someo of the cheaper units have a much shorter battery life. I think the monochrome screen helps on battery life a lot. I find the monochrome screen easy to use, and I don't miss color at all.

If you are considering this GPS receiver, you might want to download a copy of the User's Manual in pdf from the Garmin website. It will show you all the features and capabilities of this unit. Couple those with the excelllent helix antenna and receiver sensitivity and you have a great GPS!

Last year I did a motorcycle trip from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Edwards Air Force Base in California. Along the way I planned stops at every NASA related site I could think of and in preparation for that trip I purchased a Garmin eTrex Legend. After a few days of playing around with it, it quickly became apparent that while the Legend is a nice little unit, it was woefully inadequate for my needs.

So I picked up a GPSmap 60 and never looked back. The ability to load custom maps of certain area's was a very nice perk, but even the base map was very good for what I was doing.

As other reviewers have noted, it gets a good solid lock in the worst conditions (heavy tree cover, clouds, rain, and indoors) though sometimes the accuracy does degrade beyond what it would lead you to believe. As an example, with this unit I can get a four or five satellite lock, with an listed accuracy of under twenty feet, the reality is that the accuracy is closer to fifty or sixty feet...but at least I have a lock when most others don't.

This is a very solid unit, it feels like it was made for use and abuse. And this is one area where I was slightly disappointed in the unit. It feels rugged, but it only handled about 2000 miles of vibration from being attached to the motorcycle handlebars before the contacts in the batter compartment had to be "adjusted" to remain in contact with the batteries.

Which brings up another point. I don't even bother with rechargeable batteries in this beast anymore. It drains them quickly when compared with non-rechargeable batteries.

Over all I highly recommend this system, even over the color versions that are out. At this price its hard to beat in terms of quality and features.

This is my first GPS unit and although I have no other experience with other devices, this is purely my personal opinion.

Although I have yet to put this unit through its paces with regards to trekking in rough weather, I have no doubt that it will live up to its expectations. Construction is rugged and fits well in my hand.

It gets the job done quite well with easy to use menus. This is not to say don't read the manual. Please do read the manual as it will help you understand the unit better but even without opening the manual, I was able to operate the unit and get it to work for me quite well.

Value for money? I would say yes. If you don't need the color or electronic compass and a few other features that makes little difference but cost an arm and a leg.

Interfacing to the PC is wery easy and I have been able to upload my waypoints and tracks to GoogleEarth as well (if i may sidetrack, this give a whole new perspective to cool!)

I bought this mostly for hiking and also for geocaching. For those uses this GPS does all you need. Sure the base map comes with only the larger highways and basically no landmarks aside from large lakes and points marking towns; but if I do a little planning ahead I don't need the map.

What I do is trace with paths, or mark with points any landmarks that are important for where I will be going in google earth. I export these to a free 3rd party software (GPS Trackmaker) that will allow me to open google earth KML files and save out a GPX file which I can then open with the included software (Mapsource) and transfer to the device. This sounds complicated but it's really a quick operation and allows me to use google earth for everything which is the point.

You can also buy maps for it if this is too much work for you. The great thing about my process though is you learn a lot about where you're going before hand from your exploration in google earth which can be invaluable.

My only complaint(why its 4 stars instead of 5) is it only supports 20 saved paths. I haven't really needed more than that yet but I'm sure at some point I will considering I'm using saved paths to mark roads, rivers, creeks, trails and other landmarks in the area I intend to visit.

Aside from the 20 paths you also get the 10,000 point "track log" which is just one very long path that it makes automatically as you travel. I enjoy this feature a lot and google earth does support loading all the paths and waypoints directly from the GPS so its not an involved process to view your recent exploits in google earth.

If you want something that doesn't require any tinkering you'd better double your price range; otherwise this is a great device.

Great item, used for geochaching and basic nav. nice features, easy to learn and use. Problems I had, gps would not settle down, kept jumping with big variations for distance, from 1.3 miles to 53 miles, recalculating every 2-5sec. wanted me to leave trails to jump on the interstate. The biggest problem is the screen. You cant see a thing, even after adjusting the screen, contrast, brightness, you cant see the screen very well. outdoors, in sunlight, indoors, even in a dark room with the back light on, hard to see. I'm very experianced with using GPS units and this screen is just horriable. I'm returning it for the 60CSx with color screen, should be able to see that. Oh and Garman quit advertizing the units and showing them with the topo mapes that you have to buy seperatly and that you dont mention in the item desription but show on every picture of the product. at least note that the picture show is of an add on map feature not included. I recommend if you plan on using a gps for more than an emergency or back up gps, get the color you'll enjoy it more.

I love this GPS, so much in fact it goes everyplace I do. Bought it for geocaching, now I use it to track my workouts or to give me driving directions. It works better than the Navi I have in my car, I have tested both and the handheld unit beats the car everytime.

I love this unit. It is much easier to use than the old Magellan I own. Satellite acquisition is pretty quick, even in tree cover. When cold, I have consistent acquisition within 45 seconds. I input GPS coordinates from a topographical map as a waypoint, then navigated directly to it through heavy tree cover, and only lost the signal once. The unit menus are easily customized. The only draw back I find to this unit is the battery life. In November I used it for a 5 day hunting trip, and had to replace the batteries twice. In short, if you are looking for a unit to find your way around in an urban setting, this is not the unit for you, but if you want to explore the path less traveled, you could not find a better unit than the Garmin GPS 60.

I am thourghly thrilled with my purchase. This little unit does way more than I hoped for. I am just looking for excuses to do some interesting treasure hunting and exploring with it on my side.

Although the map sourse products are quite expensive and I haven't yet purchased any I am anxious to eventually buy and use them. I am yet a novice with the unit I have, but it is easy to follow the instructions with it and if you don't know a thing about navagiting you will be adding way points and finding them in a couple quick practice sessions.

I am happy I bought the Garmin. I'm sure other units are just as good, but I liked everything I read about this one.

Happy hiking and hunting.

This is a great product. Picks up satellites quickly. It has so many features to master I am no where near using the full capabilities of this unit. I use the tracking feature mostly as I hike a lot, by myself, on mountain trails. It is very easy to get disoriented once you lose sight of civilization. With the tacking feature I can keep track of what direction I am going and a track back to where I started. Very comforting. I can also keep track of mileage and elevation. Would recommend This device for anyone with needing this information.