camping equipment at target

I have been using a Garmin 195 GPS for flying for the past 4 years and have been really impressed. But when I acquired the Etrex Venture about a month ago (picked up used at Amazon at a great savings!)it is amazing the progress in electronics. When comparing the two units inside the house the Garmin 195 would never even get usable signal to navigate while the Venture would be ready to navigate in less than 30 seconds. The accuracy is incredible including the elevation readout which so far had been very consistent and I have been getting about 20 hours of battery life when in the "Battery Saver" mode which I am in 90 percent of the time. This is one of the easiest GPS to use, very "user friendly" and for people whose eyes are getting older the screen can be set up to show large numbers which is much appreciated even the backlight is bright! The unit works in every car I own with no problems, I wedge the unit in front of the speedometer on the Camry and Dodge pickup. It works on the front seat of a 90'Plymouth Acclaim. Make certain that you go to the Garmin website for the lastest software updates currently (2.29) the version I started out with was 2.20 vast improvements have been made to the unit. The new MapResource "points of interest" CD is a great addition to the versatility of the Venture adding cities, landmark and marine details that are not including in the original database. I thought that 1meg of memory would not be enough (do you ever have enough?)but found that it is sufficient for most needs. Living in the East bay of SF I have loaded the unit with all cities (most of northern and central california), businesses(which includes the address and phone number), landmarks and marine to cover from Richmond, ca to San Jose. I recommend Wolfe PC cable and 12 volt adapters with can be purchased on the net in lieu of the Garmin adapter cables. I highly recommend the Venture, however I would like the Etrex Vista but don't want to spend 3 times the price just for the moving map and 24meg of memory.

This is the 2nd GPS I've purchased, the first being one for someone else back in early 2001. Since taking up geocaching in March of 2003 and purchasing the Venture soon after that, I've had the opportunity to take a look at the old model (which was also a Garmin and looks like it belongs in a museum already), as well as a couple of Magellans and one of the Garmin Gekkos. So far, I like this unit more than any of the others I've seen.

The three things that really stand out in this product are the screen resolution (much clearer than any of the other units), the icon choices (I couldn't believe my friend's Magellan doesn't have a geocache as an option! Let alone a found geocache), and the durability (the other units all had hard plastic bodies that wouldn't bounce or take a fall as well as the rubber-coated Venture).

I only give this a four because I'm sure there is better out there, though perhaps not at this price range. My friend's Magellan, which is priced much higher than the Venture, does have some actual road maps in the device, as opposed to the Venture's city points, but for my purposes, this unit is doing all that I require of it and more. Given the limited research I did, I am thus far not at all disappointed that I paid up from the Gekko models or that I didn't pay up to the even higher priced models.

much too advance for a begenner!