Customer Reviews:
 not user friendly December 11, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This item has great promise but using it is not transparent. Be prepared to shlog through lots of instructions that are not altogether clear.
 Versatile little unit December 4, 2007
I bought this unit in May 07 to geocache with. I also bought a 2GB micro SD card for $25 and City Navigator Ver.8 at the same time.
Pro's:
Small, this unit is tiny.
Incredibly bright crisp display.
Batteries last a long time.
Rugged and waterproof.
All US street maps fit on 2GB with room to spare.
Turn by turn navigation
Con's:
Side mounted buttons take some getting used to.
Becomes inacurate in deep woods. No big deal hunting deer, big
deal hunting caches.
Only holds 500 way points or geocaches.
No internal compass, makes geocaching more difficult.
No good car mount options that I found.
All in all this is an excellent unit. However if you need something very accurate or something you'd like to be able to use in your house or a parking garage get a unit with the SIRF II chip. With no internal compass this unit only shows heading while it is moving. If heading is important, get a unit with a built in compass. I just upgraded to a 76csx unit that does everything and only costs $120 more right now.
Color 24K Maps take GPS out of the Stone Age December 1, 2007
Pros: High Contrast Color LCD - easily readable in sunlight or dark, the GPS position pointer shows where you're at on the map in real time, no transposing. Vast Memory with microSD, Incredible array of odometer functions, Full text editor to mark special points. Multi-day battery life. Surprisingly useful alarm clock.
Cons: Too many confusing buttons, loses signal occasionally even on bare ridges, would like a bigger screen.
This is my first GPS, before color maps they made no sense. Knowing your absolute position as Latitude and Longitude is worthless without context, maps provide the context. Far better to have the maps inside the GPS than a paper map blowing in the wind. I selected the Venture Cx because it is the lowest cost entry into a color mapper with a microSD card.
I loaded my Venture with Above the Timber's 24K Colorado Topo Maps, awesome!!! Being able to navigate with 40-foot contours inside the GPS is far better than a huge paper quad and trying to figure out where on that map you are. With the microSD card, I have the same detail as 1280 - 7.5-minute quads inside the GPS at all times with 600MB to spare. The GPS position pointer is always on the map at my exact location, all the time. If I have the tracklog on, usually do, then I have a "bread crumb" trail of the path I took to get to my present position. The tracklog is particularly useful for off trail bushwhacking.
I took a 4-day backpack into the Weminuche Wilderness in Sept. and all I had were the Venture and Above the Timber's Topos, no paper maps. It logged my trip, allowed me to enter special points with a text descriptor and various position and time parameters. The maps inside the GPS were more current than my Trails Illustrated maps. BTW, my spare batteries went into the camera, the Venture had plenty of power in reserve.
On a least four occasions since I got the Venture, I was able to navigate to distant small lakes, none of which had a trail to it. The lakes were each on the map and with the position pointer, I was able to determine my position relative to the lake. If I needed to, I could quickly determine the distance from me to the lake, using the GPS' distance function.
The only drawback to the Venture is the lack of a barometric altimeter, like the Vista. It's not less accurate than the Vista, it's just that the barometric altimeter is required for elevation logging. Because of the highly variable satellite geometry, satellite derived elevation has too much drift for elevation logging.
If you buy any of these Garmin mappers, be sure it has an "x" in the model name, or it won't have enough memory for color maps. X = microSD.
 50/50 November 28, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased the Garmin eTrex Venture CX after doing a lot of research on hand held GPS units. I picked it because of the batter life, waterproofing, and price. 2 hours after I opened my package I updated the software (firmware) as suggested by Garmin. After the update my unit wouldn't even turn on.
I called Garmin, they were very cool, sent me my new unit next day. I now very much enjoy the unit.
Easy to use, many many many extra features. I would have given it 5 stars if not for the firmware problem. I have no problems getting a signal except in multi level building (duhhh) no problems in the car, outside, etc.
Garmin Etrex Venture CX November 25, 2007
This is a nice system if you like a GPS that is compact, lightweight, has long battery life. Screen may be small for some applications. I wanted this unit mainly for backpacking into remote flyfishing lakes and it was perfect. Computer/map interface works well for planning routes into the backcountry and recording trips after the fact. Newer technology is less susceptible to losing satelite when in deep, narrow valleys.
I've also used it for sea kayaking trips and on the highway.
Great TOY!!!
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