Name: J. Good
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Date: 2007-01-31
Customer Rating: -
Summary: Can't go wrong with this one!
Comment: Let me start by saying there is no perfect GPS. I don't care whether you go Garmin, Lowrance, or Magellan, none of them will be perfect. But the 60CSx comes close enough to make me one happy user. I use it while driving as well as for geocaching and hiking in the woods. I use City Navigator North America NT version 8 for street navigation, and it works very well. The basemap that comes with the unit is junk and you won't want to use it for driving, so the City Navigator software is a mandatory purchase if you want to use this for turn-by-turn street navigation. The 64MB MicroSD card included with the 60CSx is way too small. Spend $20 and get a 1GB card; that will hold maps of the whole USA rather than just 1 or 2 states. The unit's reception is outstanding; I've repeatedly had a sat lock in the basement of my ranch-style home. Older GPS units can't do that, but the Sirf III chip in this unit makes it possible. Locking onto the sat signal is fast and reliable with the 60CSx, and tree cover isn't an issue. This unit is pricy, and if you don't need the altimeter and compass the 60Cx might be a better, less expensive choice. The 60CSx won't give spoken directions like dedicated dashboard units will -- it uses "beeps" instead. The sounds that tell you when to turn are sometimes easy to miss if you have the radio cranked up, and one common complaint is that the turn warning beep doesn't always come far enough in advance. Fortunately, if you do overshoot your turn the unit will automatically re-calculate the route to get you back on track. Battery life is very good, about 18 hours on a set of alkalines. One great thing with this unit is that you can create your own POI lists containing literally thousands of waypoints and store them on the MicroSD card. This is in addition to the 1000 waypoints that the unit can store in it's internal memory. For a geocacher on a road trip, this is an awesome feature! Tracks can be stored on the data card too, and dumped to a computer for review later. Overall, this is one of the best handheld units available, and I'm glad I bought it. Whether I'm on a business trip for work or hiking in the Appalachian mountains, the 60CSx does a great job of getting me where I need to go.
Name: Paul J. Smith
Location: Chicago
Date: 2006-05-03
Customer Rating: -
Summary: My 1st GPS and its Great!
Comment: I live in a Chicago suburb and travel on my insurance and financial planning appointments that somehow people constantly give the wrong directions, and Mapquest cant find!
I wanted a GPS that I could use for camping up in the UP of Michigan, go out on the ATV, and use in the car. Finally Garmin came out with this product that can do both well and I bought it.
Why? Because most hand helds have limited memory, which I did not want for traveling because you have to have a computer with you to keep downloading detailed street maps. The unit only comes with a general highway map. The other choice was to buy 2 units, one for the car and one for the outdoors. Not what I wanted to do!
This unit has expandable memory sticks with up to 256mb each that can hold detailed maps of several states. In addition, you can add the TOPO map for hiking and offroading. Just put it on a seperte memory stick if you don't want to delete the street maps on your other memory sticks. When you update the maps the old info is wiped off of the memory stick.
I have been using the unit for about 2 weeks now in the car, and it is awesome. Very accurate, and very, very fast, too.
It can find satellites and work in my basement! It calculates routes in a matter of 3-5 seconds or so for a 350 mile trip. It recalculates a route when you miss a turn in about 2 seconds.
Amazing!
Name: Thomas Mattison
Location: Miami, FL
Date: 2006-10-14
Customer Rating: -
Summary: Great GPS unit for the money
Comment: Rugged design, waterproof, compact, and with a great color screen.... what more could you ask for!
I use this unit for boating and in my car. I recommend the vent mount over the windshield mount for the car.
The unit gets fair-good reception inside my house and perfect reception outside or in the car.
The color screen is top notch. Very clear display when the back light is on. Fair display with it off.
Mapping is super easy and the unit comes packed with so many features, probably more than I've ever use.
The only down side is that you really need to buy city navigator and blue chart to make use of Garmin's units. The maps that come with the unit are 99% useless. So figure in at least another $100 for city navigator maps. If you want to use this unit in the car, you'll also need to pick up the cigarette adaptor, which will conserve the batteries and allow the back light to be left on.
This unit can be used for turn by turn navigation in a car. With it's early turn warning tones, and high accuracy, this unit works like a charm every time.
I picked the 60csx over the slightly more expensive 76csx because it has a much better feel in my hand and the buttons are easier to access.
I also suggest picking up a 1Gig MicroSD card. The 1 gig card can hold 90% of the US map on it. If you backpack, boat, Ski, and love the outdoors like I do, than this unit is for you! I hardly leave home without it and either will you!
Name: J L
Location: USA
Date: 2007-12-10
Customer Rating: -
Summary: Brought it to Iraq and back...
Comment: I am a USMC grunt and have recently returned from Iraq. I brought a Garmin GPSMap 60CSx with me, and needless to say, I have put this unit through it's paces. I believe my experience may be useful to others considering purchasing a rugged, outdoor GPS unit.
First off, the 60CSx is an extremely rugged unit. I have put this unit through more than 200 combat patrols, 130+ degree weather and freezing cold temperatures. It has been dropped, submerged in water, knocked, covered in mud, and crushed against my gear innumerable times. The only evidence from all this wear and tear is that the text on the "QUIT" and "ENTR" keys have worn off, which is more from me taking it in and out of its pouch over and over than a poor design of the unit. Throughout all this abuse, it has performed extremely well. When I wento to Iraq, I brought a Magellan Explorist unit with me as well. The screen cracked on our third patrol, rendering the unit worthless. I am still using my Garmin.
The 60CSx has a fast acquiring time. From a warm start, it will have your location within a few seconds, and a cold start, in about a minute. The sensitivity is significantly above any other GPS unit I have seen. I have yet to see any other unit on the market that can get reception inside an up-armored Humvee. (Not only did it get reception, it was accurate to within a few meters.) This accuracy proved to be extremely useful in country, and a few times it helped my squad find the right house in a packed urban area where otherwise we would have been left scratching our heads. I would assume for someone in the United States, where WAAS is available, the accuracy will be higher. It's battery life is also good, although with the backlight on the battery can drain fairly quickly. Average lifetime without the backlight is about 17 hours. You could probably drain the battery within a few hours if you turned the backlight brightness all the way up and turned off the auto-dimming feature. I also liked how easy the LCD screen is to see in direct sunlight, instead of being washed out. The sun actually seems the help the brightness and contrast of the display.
The 60CSx uses two AA batteries. I found this to be useful, as sometimes I would be away from a power source for weeks at a time so I would just grab some extra AA batteries and I'd be good. Some other units (such as a few of the Rhino series) use lithium batteries. While lithium batteries may last longer, I have found that they are much less convenient as you are tied to an outlet, although you can purchase (often bulky) AA adapters for those units.
For the most part, I have been pleased with the menus and features. It's tracking and mapping abilities came in handy. I was able to generate a map of my location simply by using the tracking feature. It is fairly easy to customize what screens and data you want to display, so you can see what you need, and avoid what you don't.
One thing I do not like is that it does not have the ability to overlay user-generated maps on the screen. Many times I would have to juggle physical maps with the GPS unit. I believe a few devices on the market now offer this feature. So if you are in a situation where you need to consult maps other than the ones available for purchase from Garmin, you will have to bring them with you. Another minor negative, and one relevant primarily only to those in the military, is that the screen cannot be seen with night vision equipment unless the backlight is turned on, meaning you either have to cover up or emit a small amount of light in order to see your location.
Overall, I highly recommend this product. Anybody looking for a rugged outdoor GPS unit that is accurate and light, with fast acquisition times and long battery life need look no further. I can honestly say it is one of the best purchases I have made in my lifetime.
Name: J. B Kraft
Location: Palestine, TX United States
Date: 2007-02-08
Customer Rating: -
Summary: Simply Amazing with the additional software
Comment: I bought this as a tool mainly to measure property, but my wife and I have quickly found it indispensible for travel. (1) It is very easy to use. Both I (a gadget nut) and my wife (gadget averse) found it intuitive and mastered it on our first trip. (2) If you buy the software, AND you buy a one-GB smart card for it (it comes with a small smart card), you can load detail maps of over half of North American into it AND upload found waypoints (that campsite up on the lake) back to your maps on your computer. That is plenty for most of our driving trips. (3) With the included Waypoint software and with the additional mapping software, computer synchronization is a breeze -- at least if you have Windows XP Pro. This is important because it is so easy to lay out a route with multiple waypoints using your computer. (4) It finds satellites quickly and reliably in deep woods and even in most residential buildings. (5) While it is ideal for using in hiking, biking, etc., it does make a decent automobile navigational device. We did not notice a need for any additional antenna. Of course -- it does not TALK to you, but it does give you turn by turn directions and plenty of notice (via beeps) as you approach your turns. (6) We own a couple of other GPS devices, and this one is far more accurate. (7) It is very rugged -- we did not get a case for it, but it doesn't seem to need one by design -- it comes with a belt clip.
If you are using it heavily -- especially with the backlite, it can eat batteries (10 hours or a little less on recharegeables), so I would recommend rechargeable batteries and also getting the auto charger. It will power itself from your computer's USB port as well.
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