I have the Garmin Etrex and it works superb. I never needed the maping, etc bells and whistles, decided to save the money. I think for the money it is really all the GPS I'll need. As far as battery life it is great, I used it for an entire fly in fishing trip this spring, it was on 4-6 hours a day and never had to swap out batteries. I think rated for 24hr in tech. specs on 2 AA's and seems to be accurate from my usage.