Customer Reviews

Garmin GPS 60 Non-Mapping Personal Navigation Unit

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

 

 

The GARMIN 60 GPS is a nice GPS that is "base" no-frills model. I was able to plug it in, load the software, and start entering waypoints within 5 minutes. The plug and play USB port worked without a hitch.

The unit itself is very accurate -- although it took me 5 minutes to realize that I didn't have to wait and watch it synch with satellites each time I turned it on. The Unit's GUI is somewhat counter-intuitive - with 9 buttons -- some of which you hit all the time, others which are never used.

Entering coordinates does not appear to be possible (except onto the GARMIN software on your computer and transferring to the GPS unit), but this method works reasonably well.

The screen is fine, but not overly large (you should have 20/20 vision) and is black and white -- no color. This is not a complaint as the screen is perfectly read-able.

Battery life was approx 4 hours on 2 AAs. The belt clip and attachable hand-leash were nothing special, but utilitarian.

INSTALL: A
EASE OF USE: A
GUI on GPS: B-
POWER/BATTERIES: C
SCREEN: B

We had an eTrex, which my clumsiness sent to the bottom of a creek, never to be seen again. I like this unit a lot more than the eTrex:
- the screen is much sharper and easier to read
- the device's softwre is more sophisticated; you can store much more information about each waypoint
- the USB connection is really handy. Downloading waypoint information from the computer beats entering it by hand on the eTrex!
- this unit is easier to use
Don't expect much from its built-in basemap; it has dots for cities, and that's it (meaning it's basically useless, unless you have just arrived from another planet).

The biggest disadvantage to this unit is that Garmin has a proprietary interface, so it won't speak to mapping software which is expecting a standard NMEA serial-port interface. Fransom GpsGate handles the translation, though, and it's not particularly expensive.

Note: I am not affiliated with Fransom in any way.

Nice unit, locks on fast and keeps the signal, it even worked inside my house. The base map that is loaded isn't much and only has some cities. The Garmin web sites indicate a "Marine Data Base" is loaded but I can't find it and we have a number of buoys near our house. It does have larger cities loaded. The Trip and Waypoint Manager software is pretty weak and I had problems getting it to load on my XP machine. Good crisp display and many options for the displays. I upgraded from an old Garmin and I would recommend this unit for a non-mapping use.

This will be an oddball review. I own four GPS60 units and use them in amateur surveying. I bought them because they do waypoint averaging and accept an external antenna and external power. I leave all four averaging their waypoints for minutes or hours or even days at a time, typically with external antennas (from Garmin or Gilson). When I'm not out surveying I usually leave one or two doing waypoint averaging using a couple of external antennas on my roof. After a few days the estimated accuracy shown on the display is usually down to 0.3 or 0.2 feet, sometimes down to 0.1. I've analyzed months of data collected this way and found that the accuracy estimate is a good estimate of one standard deviation, and most of the measurements are closer to my overall average antenna position than the estimate on the screen. Most of the ones that say "0.1 feet" are closer than one inch to the overall average. Note, though, Garmin's software insists on rounding the coordinates off to lower resolution than this - I have to use mapping software by Fugawi to get enough digits reported in the coordinates.
Any product that can report your position to an inch, based on satellites, is pretty impressive - even if you have to leave it running a week!
Not sure, but I think all Garmin's 12 channel products, which must be almost all of them, use the same GPS engine.
And another reviewer was wrong to say these can't output NMEA data. They can - you just have to menu over to Setup > Interface and select NMEA instead of the proprietary Garmin. I just checked to make sure!

This is a great gps... very easy to use. I didn't want a complicated interface, and this one is about as simple as it gets. The page key navigates you thru the different functions, and you can mark a spot with two keystrokes. It automatically leaves a trail of where you've been, so as long as it's on you can't get lost, (unless the batteries run down, but one set lasts for five or six trips, at least). I use it on my kayak and it handles getting wet and salty pretty well- I just dunk it in fresh water after every trip.

My only regret is that I didn't buy the next one up- the one with the maps and marine charts. But this is a great unit for the money.

This is a good, but higher level basic GPS. Picks up satelites reasonably well, except in heavier tree cover. Clear and readable display. The unit performs as advertised. What I don't like about it is the 1MB memory limitation. I'm interested in downloading National Park topo maps and the 1MB memory limits me to one quadrant in the typical western US MapSource Western National Parks. If your one day trail spans more than one map grid or if you plan a multiday hike you are out of luck. I'm not a geocacher, so I was looking for the basics -- altitude, direction, track some of my way points. The maps was a nice to have. But once I started playing with them, I liked them and wanted to use them more. That's when I ran into the head room issue. So I upgraded to the GPSMap 60CSx -- more money than I intended to spend, but....
4 Stars because of the memory limitations. If that is not an issue for you, then 4.5 stars.

Nice unit but it's for field use only. No road maps. Works good for GeoCash, or hunting and fishing.

I purchased the Garmin GPS 60 to get the anchor drag alarm, which product advertising and information says it has. The so-called alarm gives one, and only one, barely audible " beep" and that is it. This clearly is not an "anchor drag alarm". An alarm must be continuous until it is shut off. This would never awaken a sleeping individual, and is consequently useless as an "ancor drag alarm". Product advertising and information is very misleading and wrong. Disappointing for a company like Garmin.

I purchased two of these units the first one worked OK. The second one has a problem. In a side by side comparison the signal qualities of the two units vary. I checked there accuracy and tracking with OziExplorer moving map software. The first unit tracks pretty good, but the second units position is off a large percentage of the time and sometimes as much as 400 meters. I sent the faulty unit to Garmin to be repaired. They sent it back with a description of the problem and that it had been fixed. I checked the unit out and it is the same as when I sent it to them. Now I'm stuck with a dud.

This little unit is awsome. Husband and I started geocaching and after reading lots of reviews and getting suggestions from friends we settled on the Garmin 60. It is great. We have had great luck finding caches since we got the unit. It takes us to within a few feet of the hidden cache. Also it has been rained on and dropped several times. It is kind of like a Timex watch, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. I would recommend this unit to anyone.