Hand held GPS?

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capt sam

Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jan 14, 2009
Messages
878
Re: Hand held GPS?

Garmin gpsmap 76, floats works great.
 
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xxturbowesxx

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 20, 2008
Messages
491
Re: Hand held GPS?

Garmin colorado 400c or 400i they are on sale for 299 and they include bluecharts or inland lakes.. look up what water you boat on and make sure the maker of the maps supported by the gps you chose support the bodies of water YOU boat on.
 
5150abf

5150abf

Vice Admiral
Joined
Aug 12, 2007
Messages
5,808
Re: Hand held GPS?

Depends what you want to use it for but now days even the cheapest bottom line ones are increadible.

I still use an old Megallan 325 I picked up on Ebay for $35, it leaves a "bread crumb trail'' so you can get back to where you came from, you can mark spots pretty much everything I want it to do but I only use it for fishing.

I can tall you what ever you decide to get poke around on Ebay and you will find it for cheap, alot of times with extras.
 
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kaferhaus

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
250
Re: Hand held GPS?

I think that if you do a little searching outside of this site you'll find that Garmin handhelds are rated excellent by most everyone... but the blue charts are a necessity. None of the "background" maps that come with any but the most expensive GPS units hand held or not show enough detail or accurate enough map position to use for navigation.

I have several boats 3 have Garmin's and 2 have lowrance machines. One of the lowrances is a $2,000 machine and is no better (except screen size of course) than the Garmin 276c handheld that I have.... in fact the handheld will show me passing between two markers that are only 50ft apart. The lowrance with the navionics gold chart may show me being on one side or the other of one of those same markers.... I cannot trust the Lowrance at night for that reason as the difference is I could run aground... With it I have to use a spotlight.... fine unless it's foggy.

And yes the Lowrance has been "calibrated" to the map. I'm not happy with navionics.... for $200 the map detail and positioning should be near spot on.

Other folks that have the lowrance unit with the navionics maps have reported the same problems. And lowrance has a very spotty cutomer service record.... never returned any of my emails and phone support personnel were not properly trained on their products... got several conflicting answers.

Do some google searches on their customer service before you buy.

Garmin on the other hand....superb in every respect.
 
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Moody Blue

Captain
Joined
May 24, 2004
Messages
3,136
Re: Hand held GPS?

Have only had experience with Garmin and Magellan.

I have the Garmin Vista HCx that I use for back country camping, boating and driving. Its fully loaded with marine charts, detailed road maps (auto routing capable) and topo maps. It is waterproof as well and very robust. It goes in my backpack, on the floor of the canoe etc etc and has never let me down. It been in the rain, hot sun and bitter cold out on the lake ice fishing. I have windshield mounts in both the car and boat. Battery life is tremendous at about 30hrs.

My friend just got a Magellan Triton 500 and I loaded some maps for him. In doing so, I played around with it a bunch and found it far inferior to the Garmin. Navigation buttons too small and hard to use, poorer quality maps, limited user configurable options, short battery life (10hrs) etc etc. The other thing I discovered is that there seems to be alot of problems with the operating software in these units. Alot of people unhappy with operating problems and very poor customer service.

Thats my 2 cents based on actual units I have used. Good luck in your search. Do your homework and research research research. Get the unit that has the features and maps that you want, don't buy solely based on others opinions.
 
M

marquette

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Apr 18, 2006
Messages
372
Re: Hand held GPS?

lowrance H2O ifinder is what we use on the water and the ice. bought it because it had the map support for the lakes we fish. i would say it is consistantly accurate to the map. when we are driving across the lake and the map says we are in 12 ft of water half way up drop off and we stop and drill a hole it is usually with in 5 ft of where we need to be. that being said the colorado's are hard to beat with their combination of topo, coastal and lake maps for versitility. my son is a geologist and the colorado is what he uses in the field. i think map support for the area you are going to use it the most is an important factor to consider when buying a GPS. it does seem though that the more detail and bells and whistles the more batttery power it uses. which is a consideration on a week long back packing trip.
 
E

eljeffe

Recruit
Joined
Feb 7, 2009
Messages
1
Re: Hand held GPS?

xxturbowesxx said:
Garmin colorado 400c or 400i they are on sale for 299 and they include bluecharts or inland lakes.. look up what water you boat on and make sure the maker of the maps supported by the gps you chose support the bodies of water YOU boat on.
Click to expand...

Where exactly might one find this 299 sale?
 
W

WATERHAM

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Sep 22, 2008
Messages
41
Re: Hand held GPS?

I,ve had an I finder H2o for 2 Years. I use w/ LakeMaster Promaps Chips for Great Lake boat and Ice fishing. Unit is bombproof. Last Tuesday accidentally dropped unit down one of my holes at night (7 miles from shore) and it floated right back to the surface. Even better yet, I dried it off turned it on made my way back and have used it every day since without a hitch. Lots of guys Icefishing the Great Lakes will hook these units up w/ a ram mount to there quads or snowmachines. Accurate. Durable. Chip says you are on an 18 foot hump depth finder will read around 18'.
 
Boatist

Boatist

Rear Admiral
Joined
Apr 22, 2002
Messages
4,552
Re: Hand held GPS?

I have two handhelds a Garmin GPSMAP 76, and a Lowrance H2O C.
Both are very accurate.
My Garmin GPSMAP 76 is a older unit and I use the base map that came with the unit. Garmin later downgraded the base map on the unit as new unit have far less navigation aids. Only thing I can figure is they want you to buy the upgrade maps. While the Garmin works perfects the Lowrance H2O C beat it in almost every way.
The Lowrance is faster and has 16 channels for satellites. The Garmin is slower and has 12 channels for satelites. Driving in the car the in the forest the Garmin will keep getting lost satellites while the Lowrance stays lock on and updating. The Garmin display is hard to see inside the car in the daylight unless in direct sunlight and the Lowrance is much brighter.

I had the garmin for several years when I bought the Lowrance and got it home went in our bedroom to show the wife the difference. Put in batteries and turned both units on to show the wife the difference in brightness. While showing her the Lowrance unit beeped. I though that was strange so picked it up to see why and found it had aquired a position inside the house. The Garmin did not see a singal satelite and came up and ask if I wanted to start the simulator.

The Garmin unit is so slow that if your driving a windy mountain road in the track up mode the screen will be blank most of the time as it keeps trying to redraw the screen. Out on the open straight freeway it fine but hard to see.

Lowrance is faster to lock on to satellites and it redraws the screen 4 times as fast and is much brighter.

If you want to change a setting on the garmin the buttons are above the screen so your hand blocks the screen. The Lowrance the buttons are below the screen so when you hit the buttons you can still see the screen and the changes you made.

Only 2 things I like better on the Garmin
The batteries are eaiser to change and the GPS routes works eaiser if you have to miss a waypoint.

The Lowrance H20 C came with a free power cord for the lighter and garmin wants $34 for theirs. The Lowrance unit is also Cheaper.
 
waterinthefuel

waterinthefuel

Commander
Joined
Nov 15, 2003
Messages
2,728
Re: Hand held GPS?

Lowrance Ifinder H20C. The Garmin's can't touch it for what you get with the GPS for free, rather than as an optional 35 dollar accessory. I love it, its waterproof, floats with the right batteries, etc etc. Comes with a ciggy lighter adapter free!

The guy above me said it best. It locks onto those satellites and has a hard time losing them. I even was walking through my home and it was updating, through an window with the blinds open!! :eek:
 
Tacklewasher

Tacklewasher

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Sep 18, 2002
Messages
1,588
Re: Hand held GPS?

I have a Lowrance iFinder Expedition.

Same as the H2O, but with a barometer and an electronic compass.

When I bought, the price for the Expedition was about $10 more than the H2O so I bought it. I doubt I would even spend the extra $10 after using it. I don't use the compass and rarely look at the barometer.

But a very good unit and I would easily recommend the H2O.

And when pricing these out, include the price of some detail mapping. I found it made the Lowrance a fair bit cheaper than the Garmin. The built in maps are next to useless.
 
mthieme

mthieme

Captain
Joined
Oct 6, 2007
Messages
3,270
Re: Hand held GPS?

I have an older Lowrance . It uses Global Map software which they still have.
The software is atrocious and they seem to bounce the price up and down like a yo-yo. I would not recommend going this route.
 
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