What is the best, fairly priced, hand-held GPS unit with world maps on it?

Asked by Rob Crotty at 10:26 AM on February 16, 2010

I am going to Peru soon and need a good unit.

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2 Answers

Kevin Anderson | February 16, 2010 6:13 PM

I have had a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx for a while now and absolutely love it. For the $250 price tag, you'll have a hard time finding something more useful.

It has a nice color screen, great features, barometric and GPS altimeters, and has very good accuracy while not employing a bulky quad-helix antenna. I use it for hiking and backcountry exploring, snowshoeing, and several times have used it to follow my digital tracks back to camp or the car in very poor visibility conditions. Use lithium batteries to extend the life to 30-35 hours.

It comes loaded with a worldwide general basemap with major cities and geography, but if you want topographical maps or turn-by-turn driving directions, you have to buy those separately.

Have a great time in Peru! Make sure to try some lomo saltado and aji de gallina...two wonderful local specialties.

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jdw1972 | February 17, 2010 3:22 AM

Agree with Kevin, I work as a geologist and have always had great accurate results while working with Garmins, I have a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx that worked a treat while doing some field work in Sierra Leone and previously had a Garmin eTrex, this was a basic handheld with no real mapping options (discontinued now), but i used that in Oman. The operational systems are pretty intuitive and generally pretty good battery life. Cheers and have a good trip.

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