Bought one of these recently. Used it hiking on flats and in mountains. Found the accuracy and route following to be excellent, however the learning curve is steep. The interface is like something out of the late 80's and it's complicated to program. If anyone's got any tips/shortcuts on general use they'd be much appreciated.
If anyone has a key for the map that would be much appreciated
How is this better than a phone app?
>captcha: TXGAY
Way better battery life, that's about it. Osmand shits all over its map and navigation functions.
you know you can buy backup batteries for your phone?
Do you know how much they weigh compared to one of those?
>shoulder mounted with bungee cord
>military grade weatherproofing
>multiband satellite support (GLONASS + GPS)
>daylight screen
>one touch operation
>satellite imagery downloads direct to the device
>180 hours battery life (840 hours in expedition mode)
>shoulder mounted with bungee cord
don't care
>military grade weatherproofing
don't care, my phone is safe in my pocket
>multiband satellite support (GLONASS + GPS)
Most modern phones have this
>daylight screen
???
>one touch operation
???
>satellite imagery downloads direct to the device
my phone has this
>180 hours battery life (840 hours in expedition mode)
I can see this being useful for very long expeditions, but then again I have a solar phone charger that does just fine
Do you really want to take your incredibly expensive smartphone up a mountain or through some rugged terrain and have to keep pulling it our of your pocket and unlocking it? How will you protect it from the weather? What happens if you drop it? Can you see the screen under bright sunlight? Is it accurate without reception?
Most smartphones don't have very big antennas, when you have to put it in a case to protect it you will degrade the signal strength and reduce the accuracy.
Can your phone download satellite imagery without a cellular connection?
How accurate is your phone compass?
>Can your phone download satellite imagery without a cellular connection?
No but I have an app where you can pre-download maps and it works without a signal.
Like I said, I can see the value for long expeditions, but for regular PrepHoleings it just seems like a superfluous toy. I would probably buy one if I went on Jim Baird style canoe trips. Unfortunately i'm not on that level yet.
yeah the smartphone works fine it kinda sucks in heavy rain, sure, or in extreme cold but I don't encounter or hike in either of those much.
>Can your phone download satellite imagery without a cellular connection?
You need connection on the Garmin device too. You have to connect it to some kind of internet source.
No touch screen.
Redundancy, glowBlack folk have a harder time tracking you to your hideout, battery life, durability. If you have an extra 600$ to blow a current gen gps is worth the investment. If you're a poor gay doing perfectly legal stuff in the woods, don't worry about it.
I have one of these, I love it so far. Only used it a few times and I agree the learning curve is a little more than a typical app or something, but the fact that it has detailed features and lots of customization is pretty nice. It also pairs to my phone and I can just leave the GPS in my bag and do all the basic functions through the app if I really want to. Because running an app for hours chews through phone battery I rarely do this anyway.
Also the screen is way better than my phone, where even if glaring bright conditions you can read it clearly (kinda like a kindle or something where it looks a lot like paper).
All in all a great little unit with some practice
I like these styled ones. Much sexier than most of garmins other designs.
Tech tards will do anything to avoid using a topographical map. If you must use a screen, just download offline maps from gaia/caltopo/anything and use your phone's gps.
I have used my phone to navigate the back country for a week with around 7 miles of offtrail and I only used 70% of my battery life. I brought a 6 ounce battery pack that could fully charge my phone 2 more times. Along with paper map backups. It is so much better.
>owning a phone
I think you can use a phone just fine usually but I recently got an instinct 2 solar and I love it.
I can navigate trails when hiking or MTB ing without ever pulling out my phone and getting bothered by work messages or some shit.
pretty sure the handheld devices are great especially when shoulder mounted like some anon suggested
you don't need these but I do think it's a bigger QOL improvement then most other outdoor products.
Reddit spacing belongs on reddit.
>If anyone's got any tips/shortcuts on general use they'd be much appreciated.
Same.I don't do any trail hiking,I simply wander around in some huge forested areas in search of mushrooms and places to shoot. So far, I've only used mine for tracking my path in and out,and marking spots of interest along the way. Are there any cool features or ideas I'm missing out on? There seems to be a million options in the menus,and I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something of value.
Was this the thread that sparked all the recent angry posts about GPS?
What posts?
I spend a lot of time in the jungle doing science and own one. The pros vs a phone are:
>you don't even have to give the battery a second thought, you just know it's going to last several days
>one button to put marks on the map
>upload to basecamp just by plugging to computer, easy transfer of coordinates to anywhere
>take it out in rain, doesn't care
>falls on mud, doesn't care
>falls on a swamp, doesn't care
>high humidity, doesn't care
>high salinity, doesn't care
>dusty winds, doesn't care
>satellite SOS in case I have an encounter with the chupacabras and fricks me up, no need to worry about gsm signal
The garmin map sucks tho, at least here in the third world. I loaded it with the Openstreet maps which I can edit too. For normal hikes it has no advantages over a phone unless you are definitely walking away from civilization for an extended period of time. In fact, I almost never use it unless I want to record the hike for whatever reason. I could do that on my phone, but I would rather keep it tucked away than expose it to the jungle