Review on 🌊 Waterproof Hiking GPS: Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx—Discontinued by Manufacturer by Erin Young

There are times when "pretty good" just won't do. Buying a GPS device was one of those occasions for me. I need a portable GPS navigator that is best in class. My research led me to the GPSMap 76CSx. Factors that led to the decision: Honestly, the reviews are here; Garmin's reputation; powerful satellite binding; a large selection of base and add-on cards; expandable memory via microSD card; altimeter; Compass; battery life; transreflective LCD screen. The importance of the transreflective screen should not be underestimated: one of the biggest battery drains is the LCD display: if the backlight is turned on frequently, battery life will be greatly reduced. The transreflective LCD display allows you to turn off the backlight for outdoor use during the day, significantly reducing battery consumption. I like to play with the device before reading the manual and after playing around I figured out the main functions/features. It's not the most *intuitive* module, but I give it 4/5 stars because it's intuitive. The manual isn't great, but it's a project to read in a couple of evenings, and it's on my to-do list for the near future. The initial acquisition of satellites occurs fairly quickly (3-4), during the next 3-4 more satellites are acquired. a few minutes. This is *inside* where I usually fix 9 satellites in a townhouse. In the forest during the hike I also attach and hold at least 9 satellites. The more satellites your device can locate, the more accurate your coordinates will be. I started by just using the built-in basemap, which is in the . Base. The first map I added was Topo 2008 USA. Although the resolution is only 100k, it adds a reasonable level of topographical detail for my purposes (regular light hiking) as well as unrouted local roads. (Streets are shown and marked, but the device cannot calculate turn-by-turn directions using the topo map. This requires the addition of one of the Navigator maps.) The device is light and battery life seems short so far. promised (15-20 hours). I haven't tried batteries yet, but I plan to. If they work well, fine, and if they don't, then fine too. Alkaline ones are quite cheap and are bought in bulk. Loading maps from a computer is a fairly slow process, so I'm assuming USB 1.1 and not 2.0. I downloaded the Mid-Atlantic and New England region, about 700,000 files, which took over 45 minutes. I can't imagine downloading the whole country. Navigator maps can be smaller as I don't think they contain elevation data. Overall I am very satisfied with this device. The main thing that a potential buyer should consider is the need to add: 1) a larger microSD card for storing additional map data; 2) the need to acquire better topographic maps for serious outdoor use; 3) understanding that topographical maps show roads but do not calculate routes along those roads; 4) For routable maps you need to add a map of type Navigator.