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Reviews

I received this as a gift from my wife. The plan was to use it for geocaching. We have been on several outings with this unit as a family and have found it to be accurate and easy to use. The instructions leave a bit to be desired but after playing with it a bit we understand most of the functionality. Mt 9 year old can also use it to find caches.

I really debated over replacing mt Garmin E-trac with an up grade. I decided since it looked like I would have more features at a sale price to go with the up grade. I keep going back to the book over and over, but still have problems getting used to it. It is probably just me but I wish I had my old simpler model back again. WEC

I read many reviews of handheld GPS units and was still confused about some of the features. Garmin makes so many you can still be uncertain. This GPS unit works wonderfully. I pre-plotted many GPS waypoints into the standard Garmin Map download program and then after my download they all appreared in my GPS. Plus, I was able to save them on my PC, so I could share them with other users. When my friend and I used to use his on our ATV trips the joke was "we don't know where we are going, but we'll sure be able to get back". Well not now. With the preloaded way points we can head off towards any one of them and know how far away it is. Adding new way points along the way is easy as well. The other features of the handheld are easy to use and are well described on the Garmin site. For the money spent, about $117.00 it works great. FYI, I an not interested in Topo Maps, but I believe they are available and would work fine as well.

Although the eTrex Venture HC is described as having 24 MB capacity, only 22 MB is available for maps. The difference is not insignificant. Garmin's own Mexico mapset includes a map of Mexico City and environs which requires 23.7 MB and will not load (at all) to the device. Thus, even though the Venture HC is described by Garmin as compatible with the Mexico mapset, it cannot be used in the most important area of Mexico. In all other respects, the unit is satisfactory but be careful what maps you buy and want to use.

I think its a great value for the money. Great for beginning geocahcing and hiking. So far no complaints. No problems with getting a signal to date.