Garmin eTrex Venture HC Portable Navigator - ETREXVENTUREHC
Hand Held Receiver

So far, so good. I am very happy with the unit. I have used it for a couple of short hikes, and no problems in the dense woods. We are going to try the geocaching next. Sounds like fun. My only complaint is it didn't include the belt clip, but did include an adapter for the mounting bracket, which is sold separately.
 
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I purchased the Garmin etrex for my husband's birthday. He loves it. It is very user friendly. I would recommend this product.
 
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I am replacing my trusty Garmin eMaps, of which I own two. I like the eMaps because they work great with Map Source. I download way points and tracks and save them to my hard drive. I also can upload Map Source MetroGuide Maps, which I bought. I used the downloaded tracks to geotag my photos using a great free software called "Copiks PhotoMapper". Okay, what was I looking for in the etrex Venture? I wanted a waterproof model; I wanted a screen that was visible in bright sun light; I wanted better visibility of tracks on the screen; I wanted a unit that worked well with Map Source and would receive my MetroGuide detail maps. The etrex Venture fills the bill. The more sun light on the color screen, the more visible it is. Amazing! You have to tilt the unit a bit to catch the sun light just right, but this is not a problem. I wish the screen fonts were a little larger so I didn't have to wear reading glasses, but those with 'young' eyes won't have any problem. When there is no sun light, the back light illuminates the screen vividly. It works with Map Source just like the trusty eMap. And, it is IPX7 waterproof. I figure if I capsize my kayak and I'm wearing a PFD, I won't go deep enough, long enough, to damage the unit (I hope). I am very pleased with it and would recommend it.
 
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I have 2 Garmin GPS units, but have purchaed 4 over the last 4 years. The latest is the Garmin Etrex. I will now begin a new hobby, geocaching. Playing with the new unit I was able to go to the Garmin site and download all the geocach sites in my area (Cave Creek, AZ). Cool.....now I need to convince my wife that the 'cache' is really diamonds and gold. Then she will go with me to seek my fortune!
 
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Wow! This has to be the best value GPS made for hiking/walking on the market. It is perfect for geocaching and works seamlessly with geocaching.com as well as Garmin's geocache site. In the field the unit is small, rugged and easy to use. It's bright color screen is readable in all but the most intense sunlight, and it's water-resistant body fits perfectly in your hand. I can't wait for the next nice day so I can get out and use it again!
 
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This was a Christmas gift for my daughter. She and her family like to hike. She took it out of the box and started using it right away after reading the instruction manual. She is very pleased with it and has been carrying it around with her everywhere. It is small and easy to use.
 
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I have had my Venture HC for almost 2 months now and I can't find any flaws except the very minor annoyance of having to set the backlight at 95% instead of 100% so it remembers where I like it. The receiver is a high-sensitivity one that works from inside cars, in buildings, under heavy tree cover, in canyons, etc. unlike the standard receivers. Satellite acquisition time is about 2 minutes when cold and about 15 seconds if it's been used in the last few hours or so. Lack of a card slot isn't an issue, and I think unless you're wanting to store several states' worth of maps it isn't a problem. The internal memory has enough space to store maps for a car trip spanning several states if you choose them along the actual route. Track point capacity is 10,000, and it'll store 20 separate tracks, not 10 as shown on the Garmin site (typo?). It'll also store 500 waypoints. These can be manually inputted, downloaded from geocaching.com or other sites or applications in the form of a .gpx file. The unit is light, rugged, easy to view the display, and with the addition of good maps like TOPO US 2008 or a variety of free maps out there, the unit is near perfect, but it comes with a basemap built in so that part is optional. It has an excellent compass mode which tells you at a glance what compass direction you're heading, what elevation you're at, what direction the cache (or other waypoint) is in, and how far you are from it. The Trip Computer (odometer) is highly customizable and on one screen tells you your heading, how fast you're going, what your average moving speed is, what your average stopped speed is, how long you've been traveling, what your elevation is, and how far you've traveled. It has waypoint averaging for accurately recording locations - you select "Mark" from the menu, then click the "Average" button and it takes sequential measurements and displays the position error, and does that for as many readings as you like. When you hit "Save" it averages the location and saves it to memory, which like all the memory is non-volatile and won't get erased when your batteries go dead. It doesn't do auto-routing, but this is a handheld, not a car GPS. Car units have routing, turn directions, etc. The buttons aren't ideally suited for car operation anyways. This is a handheld which is close to perfect for geocaching. I HIGHLY recommend buying a case like the Nilsson case seen on E-bay for about $10. It protects the unit when out bushwhacking for caches, although it's rugged and probably would suffer no worse than a few scratches if banged around, the case keeps it looking pretty and comes with a very handy caribiner for clipping onto a backpack strap or a belt loop. It takes Alkaline, NiMH rechargeable and Lithium batteries, and has a setting for each in the setup so the battery condition indicator is accurate. A handy feature is autotracks. It records every step you take from the time it's turned on. If you can't find your way back to the car, you use "TracBack" and it directs you back, like a trail of breadcrumbs. It's also good for recording distance walked, jogged, or bicycled if you're keeping track. The Venture HC has a geocaching mode and the icons show as closed treasure chests until you find them. Then it switches to an open one. It also can record automatically into it's built-in calendar which caches you found on what day. You can set up routes on the included Mapsource and if you're a geocacher, download caches along a route, so if you're traveling it'll keep track of where all the hides are. best of all, it's a Garmin and that means the user interface is the best and most intuitive. The learning curve was very fast with mine. I know I sound like a salesman for this unit, but I can't say enough good things about it. It's stunning that the price is only about $108 new on E-Bay.
 
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I really like this garmin unit. My only complaint is that it lacks a memory expansion slot. I don't understand why I need to pay an extra $75 for the identical unit with a card slot. Other than that the unit performs solid and I thought it was extremely easy to use. The geocache features are wonderful. I downloaded some free software connected it to my computer with the usb cable, loaded geocaches and away I went!
 
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