My new GPS: to Garmin or not to Garmin

My trusty old GPS device, a Magellan SporTrak Color, that I use for Geocaching, recently started going a bit haywire. After being turned on it would start to go randomly into on-off cycles, making it very difficult to use. I've had this device for about 4 to 5 years now and was pretty satisfied with it. It had all the necessary functions for geocaching such as an electronic compass and map support, but it was starting to show its age a bit, most of all in satellite acquisition speed and accuracy.

So I decided to look for a new device that had to satisfy certain requirements:

• Electronic compass
• Map support (commercial and open source if possible)
• Mac compatible (Magellan has little to no support)
• USB (my SporTrak only supports serial ports, a USB to serial cable helps, but transfer speed is still slow)
• Newest generation GPS chip with WAAS/EGNOS support
• Extendable memory (my SporTrak only had a fixed 32Mb internal memory)
• Run on standard AA size batteries (I bloody hate battery packs)
• Color screen (my SporTrak also had this, but it's just a nice to have)

So I started looking around and came across the newer generation Magellan and Garmin devices. After checking out some tests and reviews for the Magellan Trition series and the Garmin Colorado/Oregon/Dakota series, it seemed like these devices are promising, but still have some teething problems. So I decided to go for the tried and tested Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx as it seems to be the preferred device among geocachers according to the usage numbers and reviews on the geocaching site.

The GPSMAP 60CSx fits all the requirements I'd set, but has one small problem: a recommended selling price of 400 euro. So like I usually do when I don't want to pay full price: I started looking around online. After some searching I found a promising eBay shop: SATNAV24. Here I could buy the device I wanted, including an additional 2Gb MicroSD card and get it shipped to me for only 275 euro.

After ordering it and paying for it via PayPal on sunday evening, it was delivered at work on friday, You've got to love those online retailers. With those prices and service I'm wondering why anybody still buys their stuff in regular shops where they never have what you want, treat you as crap, overcharge you or just plainly annoy you (e.g. pushy sales people).

After receiving the new device and testing it out a bit, I've come to the following preliminary conclusions:

• Startup time and satellite acquisition are really fast
• Position accuracy is much better than my old SporTrak
• Mac support in general is good, but MapSource maps still need to be converted on a Windows PC first before they can be used
• Lots of advanced functionalities (maybe even just a bit too much)
• Certain tasks, such as entering a waypoint are not as easy, clear and quick as on my old SporTrak
• The electronic compass is not as simple to use as the one on my old SporTrak

So we'll have to see what the future brings. After some jiggling around with the battery connectors on my old SporTrak it seems to be working a bit better again. The GPSMAP 60CSx will become my new primary GPS device because I don't want to be geocaching somewhere far away from civilisation and have my GPS die on me, but I'll keep the SporTrak as a backup in case I drop the Garmin off a cliff.