Garmin eTrex Vista HCx - 2.4 in. Handheld GPS Receiver

Introduction
I am a big fan of GPS devices. I started out with Loran-C navigation for use on a boat back before GPS was available. I love the great outdoors and do lots of hiking, skiing, hunting & fishing. This unit is my third Garmin device. I have the Street Pilot for use in my car and I have the basic yellow eTrex. Each has its place and use in my world. While I am very good at reading maps, I have a poor inherent sense of direction. I believe this to be hereditary and is not learned. I have one son and a daughter who are also easily disorientated and another son who is excellent at navigating and remembers/orients himself very well. You can either do it or you can't. The GPS is a godsend to those of us who just don't have it.

I would say that any GPS is a very sophisticated piece of equipment and needs to be learned and understood before relying on it in a wilderness situation. They are not click it on and go. You need to understand that they need to have a clear view of the sky to function and if you are deep in a canyon (natural or skyscrapers) or under a thick leafy canopy in the dense forest, they are not going to work very well and reception will be intermittent. Practice and learn with your device before you come to rely on it.

Features
The Vista GPS is a very full featured and comprehensive unit (complex?, yes). I am glad that I had used the Yellow (basic) eTrex extensively prior to owning the Vista. That said, the Vista offers some fantastic capabilities: Built In Basemap, Electronic Compass, Barometric Altimeter, 1000 Waypoints. It is ergonomic, with easy one handed operation, and waterproof with a crisp backlit screen.

Basemap and 24 Meg Memory
While this unit is not really designed to be an around town or long trip driving navigator it can certainly help out in a pinch. Be careful and don't use the GPS if you are the driver. That screen is too small to use while driving. The Vista does not do route calculation so you will need to figure out which roads will get you to where you need to be. But knowing what roads are available can certainly aid in that process. (There is an AutoNav accessory kit available that I have not bought since I also own a Street Pilot). It can also be great when navigating in the backcountry to know where the roads are in case you need to get out to assistance in a hurry.

In order to soup up the capability of the mapping for your specific area, it is necessary and worthwhile to buy the Mapsource companion product and download into your 24 Meg of memory the details you want for your local area. I downloaded the details of my state in mine and that has worked out very well for my purposes.


Electronic Compass
This can be a considerably valuable feature while navigating the wilderness under a canopy of leaves. Here's the deal... A GPS can pinpoint exactly where you are when it has good satellite reception. In order to determine which specific direction you are heading (toward or away from camp), it needs to have multiple places of reception (in other words two or more pinpointed locations). When it locates you it cannot determine which direction you are headed until you move and it locates another point. If reception is spotty (in a forest)this can be frustrating because the orientation on the screen will flip around quite a bit as it takes satellite readings. The electronic compass fixes all that. The compass will keep the screen properly oriented at all times even if the device does not have a fix on exactly where you are at that moment.

This has been a great feature in saving steps for me. I was out in the wilderness in WA state (think 15 miles of wilderness in every direction) and a heavy fog rolled in quite unexpectedly. I always mark the car's position upon getting out of it. I could have walked a while and let the GPS find a few points and get me back but turning on the electronic compass allowed me to head straight to the car the first time and reduce the steps required. Very nice and very comforting in a time of need. (Incidentally, fog does not detract from satellite visibility. This makes it particularly useful on a boat in the Puget Sound on a foggy day!)

Barometric Altimeter

For my purposes, this is an interesting feature more so than a useful feature. I have watched the pressure drop as a storm front moved in but I was made aware of the front by looking up at the sky rather than by the device. It is interesting to note how much elevation you have hiked but I typically study topo maps before entering an area to know what I am up against. Knowing your position's elevation will help to locate yourself more precisely on a topo map. I expect that climbers and moutaineers would get more benefit from this feature than I do, but it is cool to know your elevation too.

1,000 Waypoints

OK, now we are getting to the heart of the matter. Here's where the value of the GPS really comes into play. When you get out of the car, mark the car's location! When you cross a stream, mark it so when you need water you can get back to it. When you catch a fish, mark the location because where there is one, there are likely more. Find a path that is not traversable due to a rock slide, mark it! Great view from here, mark it! Spot some elk in deer season, mark it! Spot turkey in elk season, mark it! These will all be useful to you in the future and will help to map out an area.

When I am out hunting, I am usually in an area that is about 7 miles by 3 miles of wilderness. 21 square miles is quite a bit to learn! There are several water holes, several peaks and ridges, some deep thickets and some nice open meadows. By naming and marking all these over time on my GPS, it can really help to understand an area and get a better handle on where the game might be hanging out. It is also a good idea to study topos before heading out so you can mark water locations in the GPS in advance!

Here's another great use: when your hunting buddy calls you on the radio at noon wanting to get together for lunch, you can actually find each other if you radio coordinates over and enter them into each other's GPS. Also useful to help meet to carry game out to a road!

As you can see, the waypoint feature is right at the heart of a GPS. Having 1,000 of them with 10 characters each is great and don't discount that feature.

Usability

As an extensive user of GPS devices, I get a lot out of the features in the Vista. It may be a bit much for the novice or weekend park hiker. Choose the eTrex device that best meets your needs and try to estimate how your needs may advance over time.

The screen on the eTrex devices is small - which helps portability, but is a trade off and a limiting factor for use in the car. The nice big color screen on my Street Pilot would be a bit much to carry around in the woods but sure is great for in the car.

There is a bike mount adaptor available from Garmin. I have mounted this on my bicycle's handlebars and get great value from the map features, trip odometer and speedometer capabilities.

The joystick on the Vista makes it very nice and easy to enter waypoints and to navigate the many screens of the Vista. The screens and menu layout become intuitive after a while.

The backlit screen is sure handy for heading out before dawn or for when the hike back to the car took a bit longer than expected and lasted beyond dusk.

Precision
Accuracy of the compass is +/- 2 degrees, altimeter is +/- 10 feet, and GPS can get as good as +/- 14 feet with good visibility of the sky.

Customer Service
Both my basic (yellow) eTrex and my Vista have had screen failures once. In each case, I sent it in to Garmin (long after the warranty period was over) and they returned it fixed for free with all my data still intact. Fantastic!

A Few Common Sense Precautions

Bring extra batteries: if you are out for an extended period of time, a backup set of batteries is essential.

Have a Plan B: if you are in the big wilderness or on the open water, it is essential to realize that just like any piece of electronics equipment, it can fail. Have a backup plan (map, compass, extra GPS, etc.) available to you just in case.

Understand how to use every feature of the device before heading out to big country.

Save your data onto your computer via the interface cables so that your valuable data is never lost. Just like backing up your important computer data, right?

In reading other reviews, I have noticed that people who rate a device low appear to not have had much GPS experience. GPS capabilities need to be understood and you may not get that from the manual. Use the device for awhile and understand its capabilities and limitations before relying on it.

The Bottom Line

For me, I won't go out without a GPS. I have one in my survival pack (with a compass and spare batteries) and it goes with me whenever I venture out. I highly recommend the Garmin Vista units as they are the top of the line eTrex devices. Learn to use it before you head out! It's not a one hour learning process to understand GPS.