Love it. Use it for several outdoor activites. Main use is for hunting. Have the Mapsource topomaps and use them as well as the Delorne Map products. Use it to identify hunting and fishing locations and return sometimes even in the dark to the same location. Used it this year with the Delorne topo maps to identify and walk into natural deer funnels that I had never been to. Had a high rate of success. The battery life was very close to the 30 hours projected on the power saver setting. I only wish that Garmin would provide more detailed maps to download into the units.

Similar Products Used:

Eagle Explorer

An energy hog. For backpackers who desire lightweight and energy efficiency, there are better choices out there. The map features of this unit are better suited to car campers and vehicle travlers in roaded areas. A backpacker in desolate terrain or hiking game trails would be much better off with a simple Garmin eTrex or the new Brunton MNS. Both of these two units offer more advanced energy saving technology and last much longer on only 2 'AA' batteries.

Similar Products Used:

Brunton MNS
Garmin eTrex
All Garmin 12 Products

The map feature of this GPS make it a lot of fun to use as well as very helpful when you can't see the trail. We were day hiking to Nellie lake and lost the trail in the snow. With the map display, I could see the mountain we were on and an easy cross country route to another trail - very comforting if you're not real experienced. I outfitted the unit with the topo map software from Garmin (Mapsource) - It has the entire US Topo features on 3 cd's - not as detailed as USGS Topos but very close!- It works flawlessly with a PC and the GPS. You can download to the GPS detailed topos of the areas you want. After the trip you can upload to your PC the "snali trail" of your trips. This is great for documenting your hikes for future reference. I also have DeLorme 3D TopoQuads software - this stuff is great - it's the real thing (USGS topo)combined with their vector mapping technology. You can construct 3D Topo maps of your trip and do fly-by's on the PC - very cool - it also communicates with the GPS unit very nicely.
The GPS unit is small, light weight and appears to be very rugged. I have run the device for 3 days in-a-row, all day long on one set of batteries - 4 AA's with about 25% remaining.

Customer Service

I bought the GPS from 4x4Books.com - great price and very fast service.

The Garmin website is good. I was able to download the latest firmware for the GPS and reprogram it without a hitch. Most manufacturers wouldn't want the customer to do this kind of thing for fear of the customer screwing it up... This thing is so well designed an idiot could do it - I'm living proof!

Similar Products Used:

None