Great GPS for hiking/geocaching, trips!

Author's Rating:

Pros: SD Card for memory upgrades, easy to use menu system, seems rugged.

Cons: Bulkier than some other GPS units; must remove batteries to change SD card.

The Bottom Line: 
Nice fairly compact GPS unit, accurate and expandable via SD cards.

Author's Review
I purchased this GPS initially just to try out a new "sport" (some would say "hobby"), geocaching (see www.geocaching.com). It exceeded my expectations, the accuracy of this GPS was phenomenal. I purchased this unit, as opposed to other units in the price range, primarily for three reasons: 1. Expandable memory via SD card, 2. Layout of the buttons/size (ergonomics), and 3. Floats if you drop it. Reviews of this unit provided on some geocaching web sites were pretty favorable as well.

I then purchased Magellan MapSend DirectRoute USA, which allows you to create and download detailed map data to your GPS, and enables the "routing" mode on the GPS unit. Street routing allows the GPS unit to calculate the "shortest path" between two street addresses, along with full directions. I've used this feature on several trips recently, and it's worked well.

If you purchase this unit, and plan to use it on trips, I strongly suggest purchasing the car power adapter. The unit will only run for about (est) 6-8 hrs with two new AA batteries. Consider also an SD card reader/writer for your PC, if you don't have one, to download map data very quickly to the SD card vs. downloading it via a serial connection to the GPS unit.

One of the problems that I have with this unit, however, is that there is no way to turn on and off selected waypoints. For geocaching, I downloaded all of the geocache sites in my area (several). They clutter up the screen when they are turned on. You an turn waypoints either on or off (all of them). I wish there was a way to just turn on one waypoint at a time.