18 out of 18 people found this review helpful.
Never be lost again!!!
Date of Review: Apr 15, 2004
The Bottom Line: Buy it!!! Becuase it meets and exceeds claims, and is rough, ready and can be counted on to do it's job in any kind of weather!
Okay, so that title covers just about ANY decent GPS you can buy these days...
Why this one? While being only marginally larger than the Garmin Etrex Summit/Vista/Legend/Venture series of devices it has some HUGE advantages over the top of the line Venture with it's Altimiter and Compass. Chief amoung these is it's larger, easier to read screen, external antenna port and cleaner, easier to use control layout. It's also a bit sturdier (imho) than the Extrex series, and the fit (both in hand, and in pocket) is excellent!
I've actually started using mine in a vest pocket with a wireless serial connection to my Sharp SL5600 PDA and qpeGPS for an even larger color screen and additional mapping capabilities, however I digress...
The GPSMAP76s is sold as one of the ultimate portable GPS devices with features, capability and performance rivaled only by much larger, more expensive units! I'm here to say it lives up to those claims in spades and then some!
It would be pointless for me to go into all the features and disect them one by one, they are all published and done to death elsewhere. What I am here to say is that I labored long and hard over which one to buy, and what was going to give me the best "bang for the buck" and I'm please to say this one is it!
I paid 295.00 for mine, well below some of the prices I've seen out there, but EASILY worth every penny! Only slightly more expensive then the Venture at that price it is more than worth the extra money in terms of features... The external antenna jack alone more than covers the slight difference in price!
I'm using mine with some of the Garmin MapSource maps, and National Geographics TOPO! series of state level 1:24k maps to create new trail maps and elevation profiles for several of my hobbies. I also use the GPSMAP76s at work as well, dealing with routing to and from customer locations, and when there, pinpointing the customers EXACT location for our firms database (http://www.partysite.com) to allow people searching out database to find accurate directions and distance calculations.
Would I buy it again? Heck yes! Would I recommend it to others? I already have!
Walgreens
