not to change the subject but which one you plan on getting?

I have a garmin vista HCX, its still supposedly garmins top of the line handheld after the new colorado they just came out with turned out to be such a defect...

I dont have any maps for it yet(they're supposed to be coming out with a new topo map shortly, so I'm waiting)but with the city navigator maps it has autorouting, turn by turn, it does pretty muchanything and everything an "on road" specific GPSR will do, and its off road capabilities more than matchits on road abilities, its simply amazing what these things can do, and what you can do with them,its VERY impressive IMO

I held off buying one for a long time because of thefact that they didnt hold a signal well at all in heavy tree cover, around buildings, ect., butwith the new high sensitivity chips they have now I have yet to loose a signal anywhere I've taken it, in fact I have yet to get a WEAK signal...
IMO though, if your going to get one your better off paying a little extra and staying in at least the midrange end of the model line, if not the top end, I bought mine last year right after they came out and I think I paid around $240 just for the GPSR, no maps included, they can be found cheaper than that now though

theres also a world of things you can do with building custom maps, which I'm interested in doing and have been checking into, unfortunately I'm finding out that whats involved is a little out of my computer "knowledge"(quite a little in fact...) so I have some learning to do



youdnever miss one if you've never used one but now that I've used mine enough to know HOW to use it,I wouldnt want to be without it, I take mine with me anytime I'm out in the woods, it works great in the car or mounted on my motorcyle too