Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver

Pros:

 

Cons:

 

Before buying this new Venture HC, I had spent many hours trekking with several of the original eTrex models over the years. I think it's fair to say that while the concept of the original eTrex was great, the execution was frequently disappointing.

It disappoints no more. The Venture HC is the eTrex perfected. It remedies almost every shortcoming that plagued the original models. The new high-sensitivity receiver is amazingly effective. Countless times I've stood in wide open spaces cursing my old eTrex because it wouldn't acquire a single satellite. Last night I turned on the Venture HC on the bottom floor of my two story house, and it locked onto 8 satellites...through the roof and the upper floor! No more "need a clear view of the sky" messages. Amazing.

The old monochrome display has become color, and the user interface is now substantially more intuitive, while adding even more functionality. The cable, which was serial on previous models, has been upgraded to USB, another welcome improvement. The case is somewhat wider than before, but the design bears a strong resemblance to the original eTrex.

A basemap is included but it's just that - basic. It shows the largest highways, bodies of water, and has some limited capability to display highway exit services. If you need turn-by-turn street directions, an eTrex is not for you. This is a GPS receiver true to Garmin's outdoor GPS heritage.

Promised battery life (14 hours) is near the bottom of the range when compared to the existing eTrex models, but is still perfectly adequate and has posed no problems.

One weakness that remains is Garmin's waypoint manager PC software. It has the feel and functionality of a software product released circa 1994. Garmin could certainly develop a better PC interface. For $49 you can buy ExpertGPS from Topografix, or download the free version (EasyGPS)from their website. Either is far more functional than the Garmin OEM software.

Still, the software criticism is a quibble. The Venture HC itself is great. It is a market changing product that renders all previous eTrex models (and many competitors) obsolete. Finally, an affordable outdoor GPS receiver that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

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Cons:

 

I was totally chessed off at Magellan when my Explorist 100 died under warranty and they refused to support or repair it (this was a new unit!). So I only considered Garmin based on liking my car unit.

Mac Users:
It's a bit tricky, but I am able to use the USB cable and the 'send to Garmin' to automatically load waypoints from geocaching.com. One warning is that they have a Mac firmware web updater and it's very new and froze on my attempt to use it, which blanked my unit. [...]. I did the update for this unit on a friends PC and it went fine.

There are some Mac caching software, but none of them are working for me with this unit. So keep that in mind if you really want to go beyond the web waypoint downloads. That's a bummer, since Maccaching and GeoJournal look like they'd be great.

The included software does not work on a Mac, so ignore that CD. From the Garmin site, you can download the plugin for Mac to make Safari aware of the unit so you can do the "send to Garmin' trick. They also have the Mac version of their WebUpdater (the one that hosed my first unit) on their site. Finally, you don't need any USB drivers for Tiger or Leopard OSX, so don't worry about them only being for Windows on the Garmin site.

Usage:
Crazy fast turn on and acquiring satellites. We are thrilled that we can turn it on in the car and it will start to pick up satellites right away. Our Magellin (an cheap 100 unit) would take awhile even outside in cloudcover.

It also seems to save all the time, as the shutdown is very fast, with no 'saving' note like our Magellin made us wait for.

I guess our only complaint is that we like to use the backlight a lot and that sucks batteries. It's winter now, and so many days and locations are dim, and without the backlight, the unit can be pretty dim to read. It takes 2 AA's. It also has a system pref for the type of battery you use (Alkaline, NiMH or LiOn), why? Maybe to only USB charge when they are NiMH's?? But remember to set that to the correct type.

We really love auto loading the coordinates. And even with the free account on Geocaching.com, we get the cache name, GC# and coordinates. That saves tons of time and mistakes. We find ourselves loading up any cache that interests us, just in case.

Accuracy:
The unit seems right on. Our other unit would usually be more like 20-30 feet accurate in the woods, and this one led us right to the cache and showed 16' accuracy at that point under normal tree cover. It also refreshes more often than our old unit, so it feels more responsive. No more going 20 feet and then seeing that the arrow just didn't update to show we were going the wrong way, or overshot.

Build:
It seems solid and took our last rainy hike well. The back has a bit of a gap, but the seal must lock in fine. It uses the 'D' lock, so just half a twist to lock and unlock, which is fast and appreciated on a cold cache while changing batteries. We always had to dig to get the Magellin's ring out and turning to pop the back.

Thumb toggle:
If you've used the old Garmin's with button input, the toggle on the front is really welcomed. We zip through data entry and you push the toggle in to accept an entry. It's also a shortcut to Mark your current location (holding down the toggle button). Another tip is that holding down the lower left button brings up the 'Find' menu quickly.

Speed:
One thing I noted was that when I went just one setting more on 'detail' for the maps, it really cut the redraw speed (which is a tad slow to begin with), so that was disappointing.

Hope that helps someone and happy caching!
for Team Spiderweb4-2

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Cons:

 

I got this unit after much research into different brands and, after settling on Garmin, different models. It's a great all-around GPS at a great price. It's my first, so I can't comment on the increased sensitivity of the HC chip, but I get plenty of coverage inside my house, and when I step outside the accuracy goes to about 9'. I would have liked the compass and altimeter of the Vista, but really don't have much need for them since I'm not an avid hiker, and didn't need to spend the extra money.

The Venture HC is great for geocaching. I took my family out on our first hunt last weekend, and although we only had about an hour to spare, we had a great time finding caches stashed around a park nearby. I can see this as a fun family activity on road trips as well. The Venture has built-in geocaching features that let you download waypoints directly from geocacher.com (using the free Garmin browser plugin), and even mark caches as found right on the GPS. The color screen is very readable in sunlight. Although the Venture HC doesn't have a proper compass, the "compass" page is very useful for closing in on the target.

The Venture HC is also great for amateur astronomers. My computerized telescope needs to know lat/long/time to accurately slew to and track objects in the sky. I can get coordinates on standard addresses on geocoder.us, but if I just want to set up at a dark site somewhere, a GPS is a must. Rather than pay $200 to get the GPS option on my scope, I can use this general purpose GPS and just plug the numbers into the telescope's controller, or even connect through my laptop. Although any GPS will give you the time and location, not all have as nice a backlit screen as this one, a good thing when you're out in the dark. The customizable color schemes (with automatic night mode) and the variable backlight intensity are also great for astronomy to keep stray light to a minimum.

If I'm disappointed with anything it is with the built-in base map. Again, because this is my first GPS I was somehow expecting more detail, not necessarily in terms of street names, but certainly with respect to canals, mountains, even major cross streets etc. The only features I've been able to distinguish are freeways, lakes and cities. There are many mountains where I live and none of them are shown on the map. More detailed topo maps are available, but cost anywhere from $80-$120. I'm not subtracting any stars for this, because I'm sure all basemaps are pretty much the same. And with 24MB of memory, there's room for decent quality maps.

Garmin updated the firmware for the Venture in February 2008, so one of the first things I did was download their free WebUpdater utility to automatically install updates. I had one scary moment when my GPS lost the USB connection in the middle of the process, and I was worried my unit would be disabled. But after turning it off and back on it came right back up and, after a second try, the new firmware was installed in about 5 minutes.

All in all, I'm very happy with the quality of this unit. It feels sturdy yet light weight, with a nice rubberized feel to it. It's also waterproof, so no trouble using it in the rain. The interface took a little getting used to, but after a while it becomes second nature. The Venture lets you customize almost every screen to your taste; for example, I wanted to have time, elevation and location on the same page for astronomy purposes, so I set one of the screens up to show all these fields. At $130, the price point was perfect: significantly lower than the next model up (sacrificing only the compass/altimeter and microSD slot), and not much higher than plain-vanilla black & white units without geocaching features.

I highly recommend it.

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Cons:

 

The HC model's high-sensitivity antenna really works!! I have an old model without the H-antenna, that really had trouble receiving a 3D signal under cover. The HC was able to maintain a satellite link even under forest canopy (but with pockets of holes in the canopy), and under sheltered walkways (open sides). However, if indoors or under extremely dense canopy the receiver loses all signal; but this is expected. The lock-on after turning-on the system is quick. I was not able to test the WAAS function as my location is not covered. However, without the WAAS, I have verified that the GPS tracking was accurate to within 5-10m, and that was good enough for me.

The colour display is very readable, even under bright sunlight. The controls are intuitive. I can use all the basic functions without reading the manual.

The unit is small, compact, and rugged. Battery life is OK, although the Legend HCx lasts almost twice as long. However, I can't justify the big jump in price to the Legend HCx. It would be good if Garmin decides to increase the batt life of the venture hc.

There is considerable lag when scrolling the map. It takes a while for the unit to redraw the map. This is not a problem with the GPS, but rather, the processor chip that is being used. They should come up with a faster processing chip. If you are in a hurry, the slow redrawing of the map, when you want to quickly scroll-search a new location, can get on your nerves.

Overall, at US$137 from Amazon, this is a good buy. I use it for mountaineering and adventure travels. I bring extra lithium batteries for cold conditions. Not for car use. This model doesn't come with the barometer, altimeter, compass that the Summit has. And this is a GOOD THING. Use your GPS purely for that function: GPS. Carry a separate magnetic compass and topo map. And bring along a dedicated altimeter/barometer/digital compass. This is the only safe way of navigating remote mountains and extreme environments.

Amazon packed my GPS unit very nicely in their cardboard box lined with air bags to protect the unit. I appreciated that. The product arrived flawless.

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Cons:

 

I've had this unit for about a month now, and it's been working fairly well. It seems to be able to get satellites readings pretty easily and accurately. It can even acquire a signal in an jet plane, and it's pretty fun being able to tell what towns you're flying over and how fast the plane is moving. The display is really nice. It can operate with a backlight of varying brightnesses or without, depending on the light level and your concern of battery life. The included software isn't bad. All and all product is basically as described, EXCEPT...
-the "detailed base map" that the Amazon product description talks about is bull. There's only a dozen or 2 roads listed in all of Manhattan. (Other US cities have similar detail.) If you want to do anything interesting, except know the exact coordinates of different points you load, you've got to upgrade the map.

PS - "Beast Hunt", one of the included games on the unit, is more fun than I'd like to admit.

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