Saturday, June 18, 2011

Garmin GPSMAP 60CS Water Resistant Hiking GPS (Electronics)


Garmin GPSMAP 60CS Water Resistant Hiking GPS (Electronics)


First of all i think that this gps is awesome, the display is brilliant, the colour screen is wonderful, the battery life better than expected however the aquision of signals and locking on to signals sucked big time. I am a forest ecologist and i am currently working in two forests in Jamaica. I previously had a magellan 330 map GPS and this baby would remain locked under the canopy of any forest, whether it was clouded or not (of course a few times it could not pick anything up). But i lost the bloody thing (insert crying face here) and had to search for a new gps. I was impressed by what this GPS had to offer but my main concern was it's sensitivity in forested environments because the last garmin i borrowed flaked out as i passed under one (1) tree...and unfortunately this gps (despite having an antenna) lost reception as i hit the edge of the forest..the magellan did not even loose reception in this forest..i was and still am bitterly dissapointed... So i am now faced with the prospect of having to purchase an external antenna to boost its reception...but saying that the base map that came with this baby was good enuff for me to use in Jamaica (considering that other base maps i had only showed Kingston!)...This base map had small and large towns...I have bought the world map cd and can't wait to see how detailed it is....Also compatibility with macs suckx big time..I have a 1.5 GHz powermac g4 (just showing off here!) running virtual PC 7..but the gramin software cannot pick up the gps...bummer so i might have to use a regular PC (oh for shame!)....but all in all it worked really well in my vehicle picked up and remained locked and this is in Jamaica...



Pros: Screen quality is excellent, battery life superb the altitude feature is great the base map is adequate for somewhere like Jamaica (especially since i couldn't get any detail before)...when the signal is lost it can re-aquire the signal pretty quickly if conditions are good..Oh yeah and it's very easy to use....



Cons: Not Mac compatible (big bummer) reception is very poor in real outdoor environments even under a tree with a large canopy (if the canopy is continuous by the time u hit the second canopy the signal is lost)...when there is cloud cover it gets even worst...Oh also it's very difficult to import waypoints from other brands into the garmin software despite having similar file formats (.wpt)..I had to enter them manually (up to 50 points!)....



Conclusion: A great product, the size and weight is fine, the clip that somes with it is a big plus ( i just clip it to my backpack and forget about it)...It is a worth while upgrade.

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Garmin GPSMAP 60CS Water Resistant Hiking GPS (Electronics)





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