I have 3 garmins, the oregon that I got on sale, the astro 350 I use to track my doggies, and a vista. They all have the new high sensitivity recievers. The astro is based upon the 62SX.

The oregon is touch screen, which is nice for putting in notes but can be a pain sometimes. The vista has a nice long battery life but does not have paperless geocaching like the other two, that's kinda fun. I have subscribed the oregon to the garmin service where you can put sat images on your gps. I downloaded some but truth be told, they aren't very usefull. I prefer the free topo maps I get from gpsfilesdepot.com.

I don't live in a mountainous area so I can't give an opinion on that aspect. I always have a compass and whatever passes as a map as well. There are no landmarks where I am either so maps are of limited use. I frequently use the compass though, the electronic compass's on gps's need frequent calibration. It's possible for them to be off and you not know it. It's easy to do, it just makes sense to have a compass.

If you look around something is bound to go on sale in the next few months, I would hold out for one of the upper end models. Now that the 62 is out you might be able to get a 60 on sale.

Once you get it don't be like those people that never learn how to use one. Practice around the block and use the different features. It's seems like a lot at first but the garmen interface is very intuitive once you get used to it.

the geocaching forum has a gear folder, here's a link:

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=11

here is a link to the gps folder on gpsfilesdepot. You'll need to become familier with this site so you can get free topo maps.

http://forums.gpsfiledepot.com/index.php/board,4.0.html