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350 of 350 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great for both car and foot use, July 8, 2006
I love this GPS.
Previously, I had a Magellan handheld GPS (with dim black and white display). It worked well for about 5 years... getting me from point A to point B while I drove my family around California to visit relatives. Recently, I decided that I wanted more so I bought an eTrex Vista CX.
Important features of this GPS are:
(1) it uses a Micro SD card. This allows for storage of A LOT of maps on the GPS. Buy a larger Micro SD card at Frys or eBay and you will be a happy camper. 128 or 256 megs will do the job. We recently took an Alaskan cruise, and I was able to upload all of California, Oregon, Washington, BC Canada, and Youkon onto the GPS with some room to spare. Having the ability to use a mini-SD card is very valuable if you are a traveler like me.
(2) Turn by turn directions **IF** you buy the correct software to go with it. I bought the MapSource® City Navigator North America DVD to get this feature. The key is to make sure that the map that you buy comes with "fully routable detailed maps" as Garmin likes to say. When you "upload" to the GPS, upload both maps and route info and you are set. By the way, don't bother trying to steal (ie BitTorrent) the maps from the internet. It won't work since maps are sold by Garmin and MATCHED TO THE SERIAL NUMBER OF EACH GPS. Just save some time, and buy the DVD online.
For those that don't know, most GPS come with a "base map" that just has the basics (highways, points of interest). If you want every street and turn by turn directions, then you need to buy a map CD or DVD from the manufacturer. An exception to this are the Magellan Roadmates (and others) which come with a built in hard drive that has maps included. Read the box carefully for whatever you decide to buy.
(3) Legend vs. Vista and C vs. CX. Garmin makes models that are somewhat similar, and somewhat confusing. Here's a quick way to tell them apart. VISTA is the same as the LEGEND, but with an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter. An Electronic compass allows the compass to work well when you ARE NOT moving. This is important for when you are on foot and want to stop and get a good compass reading. The barometric altimeter uses pressure difference to check your altitude. The "C" in all Garmin GPS systems stands for color, "CX" means it is both color AND allows for a Micro SD card beyond the built in memory. This allows you to get more memory in the future as you need it, as maps become more detailed, and as micro SD card prices drop.
Various random thoughts:
(1) This GPS does a great job in the car. It does *NOT* give you the sort of "turn left here" verbal directions. If you need that, get a Magellan Roadmate (or TomTom, etc.) that will speak to you. The Garmin beeps at you in advance of a turn, and beeps again the moment when you should be making the turn. It also changes the display to show you a closeup diagram of what you should do next. It also has a screen which give you turn by turn TEXT instructions (turn left 0.5 miles onto highway 5, etc) very similar to what you get with Google Map driving directions.
(2) The map has a good sized display, assuming you DON'T have vision issues. Mounting the GPS on the windshield helps make it easy to see. The Magellan Roadmates have bigger displays and are designed for road use without looking at the GPS as much. Garmins like this one are "multiuse" designed to do a decent job in the car AND as a handheld for camping and backpacking while on foot. It also works great in a boat, and I've used it on cruise ships, ferries, etc.
(3) This GPS works great as a handheld. If you are on vacation, you can use it in the car AND then get out and walk with it (try that with a not as pocket sized Magellan Roadmate). The eTrex Vista easily fits in a pants pocket or around the neck on an lanyard, a Roadmate might fit in a pocket, but it'd have to be a bigger jacket pocket. Often, people mistake it for a digital camera around my neck.
(4) Battery life is awesome (using rechargable AAs) *IF* you have the backlight off. I would suggest using the backlight only when you have the GPS hooked to car or computer power. The TFT display looks good outside anyway without backlight. So use sunlight when walking.
(5) The user interface is much better than the current Magellan handhelds. It is more logical, and there are many more settings for the geek in us all. Unlike the Roadmate, it doesn't have a touch screen. A small "joystick" and four buttons are used for all actions.
(6) The eTrex Vista CX connects to a computer using a standard usb to mini-usb cable. Transfer speeds are good, and much better than my old serial cable Magellan. Uploading and downloading to/from the GPS is straightforward and logical.
(7) More car info. The car power cable, coupled with the suction windshield mount works great. The backlight is very important while driving (day or night really), so get the car power cord. I have used this GPS 20 or more times with various rental cars. I just attach the suction mount to the car windshield, attach the GPS and power cord, and I'm off and driving. Before a trip, I use the Garmin Mapsource (Garmin Bobcat for Mac) software to set up "waypoints" for the trip. Once on the ground, I just tell the GPS to create a turn by turn driving directions and calculate a route to any waypoint I want. Works like a charm.
(8) COST: For this GPS, I bought the GPS itself, then a car power cable, then the Mapsource DVD, then a bigger mini-SD card, and finally, a suction mount for the car windshield. The GPS was about $300 (2005). The DVD was about $100. The rest, about $50. So I'm about $450 into this GPS. As of June 2008, I've used it for about 3.5 years with no problems. It's still in perfect condition and still going strong. Just added a 2GB Micro SD card to the GPS. Now it holds the ENTIRE North America Map set!
Bottom line:
If you only want to use a GPS in your car, with audible turn by turn directions and a touch screen... get a Roadmate or TomTom or Garmin equivalent. If you want a smaller rugged "pocket sized" multi-use GPS (car, camping, backpacking, walking, boating) this great one and you will be very happy.
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159 of 159 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect for Outdoor User of Any Experience, April 28, 2006
I did my first Geocache at the end of January 2006 as part of a group with a shared GPS. I was hooked. I started looking into units and within two weeks, I had a Garmin Legend. After one outing, I traded it in for the Vista Cx and have not regretted it one bit.
Ignoring the Legend experience, it took about a half hour of going over the manual to take in the details. The manual is well written and properly illustrated. Directions are easy to understand and once you grasp the organization of the menu structure, the unit is easy to master.
While a little on the small side, the display is very crisp and the colors are easy to see in the daylight. If you use this after dark, the screen requires backlighting, something that is built-in to the unit. Using the menus, you can even customize the degree of backlight illumination and the time it stays on.
One downside is the base map, the map burned into the firmware, is pretty sparse. I understand this is fairly standard for hiking GPS units. I strongly urge users to get either the Garmin MapSource Topo map for your country or the Garmin City Navigator appropriate to your area. Now we are getting into what the new "X" series is all about, memory.
The Vista Cx uses MicroSD memory, allowing the users to store large amounts of map info. . . if you get additional memory. The 32 MB that comes standard with the unit will hold a LOT of topo map info, but if you are loading road map info, you will need more memory. I have not had the opportunity to try the new 1 GB MicroSD cards, but the 512 MB is holding all the trip info for my summer vacation plus topo info for most of PA, MD, WV, CT, MA, and NY south of Albany.
One negative is that you can display either the topo info or road map info, but not both at the same time. Personally, I find this not too annoying, but sometimes, I'd like to see both. The two buttons controlling the degree of zoom are well positioned.
I bought this primarily for Geocaching, but I recently had the opportunity to test it as a navigation aid and Geocaching tool. In the car, once navigation satellites had been locked onto, the unit kept me on course. Out in the field, I switched to topo only display and the unit performed flawlessly.
This is only the beginning of all this unit can do. I do not use the barometer / altimeter function too heavily, but I've come to appreciate the electronic compass. The rocker switch makes it easy to enter data, but I prefer to use the optional software and my computer for extensive data entry.
This is a GPS primarily for the outdoor person, not a vehicle navigation aid, although it will function nicely as one. Many people would consider this beyond an entry level GPS. I found it easy enough to use and capable enough for future growth that I would recommend it for the entry level user. Buying this unit at the beginning will help put off that upgrade for quite a while. I do strongly suggest getting the largest addition memory you can find and the software to match your navigation needs. It will be money well spent!
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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A NEWBIE WHO LOVES HER VISTA!, September 29, 2006
This is my first GPS unit that I bought in June 2006 after discovering the wonderful world of geocaching. Having zero experience with GPS, I spent a couple months researching devices and, most importantly, reading what other users were saying about their hand-held units. The short of it was that after all the info I had gathered, I decided on the Vista CX. It's a middle-of-the-road GPS unit-- I didn't want to go too cheap and end up having to update 6 months later, but I couldn't affort 700 or 800 dollars, either. This device fits perfectly.
I use it constantly and have to say that I drive my husband nuts when we're on trips (I now have it with me at all times), but I'm just *amazed*.... it tells you moving speed, moving average, altitude, time stopped, time driving, direction, time of day, sunrise, sunset, best times to fish and hunt, and a hundred other things you'd ever want to know about where you are in the world. We vacationed in Ocean City, MD this spring and I was just in awe-- we took a boat tour of the bay and sure enough, all the channel markers we passed were on the GPS! And that was just using the free built-in software that came with the unit! In short, this is a heck of a lot of fun and I would recommend this to anyone.
I found that I got pretty savvy with it just by using it... I really didn't use the manual all that much after the first hour or so.
I can't think of any reason you'd buy this and wouldn't use it... it's a constant source of amazement. What I'm finding most frustrating, however, is deciding what kind of street-level software to buy-- there seems to be a difference of opinion in the GPS community when it comes to City Navigator or City Select. Well, I'll just keep researching until I make up my mind.
Another really great thing is that standard alkaline batteries last a really long time-- I've had my unit on constantly for over 7 hours and used only one bar on the battery meter... another great selling point in my opinion.
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