Got the eTrex Legend C

[TheJoker]

Gents,

I'm happy to report that the Legend C (LC)arrived safely from sportextreme.com... However, I'm a bit split on if I like it or not.

I owned, and loved, the eTrex Legend (L) along time ago (until I lost it in a move). What I liked about the L was that it was small, and I could take it with me anywhere. Even with only 8mb memory I had most of London loaded up into it and that did me fine as base map provided showed pretty much any road that's worth going down on a road bike.
What I didn't like was the serial connection.

I chose the LC because:
- It's cheap (I paid £220)
- It's small - I can take it with me anywhere
- It uses normal batteries (i.e not internal rechargeable, or no battery, or proprietary batter)
- It's got USB connection

The choices I had were between the GPSMAP60C and the Quest. I wanted the 60C with nav-kit (i.e maps) but that combination is more expensive than the Quest. I didn't like the Quest because of the landscape screen, buttons on the wrong side, shiny colour and internal non-user-changeable battery.
I did like the 243mb of memory and that the maps are included. But I would have had to justify more than double the price (Quest is currently going for £450ish).
The 2610 was never an option as it doens't have a battery, and it's too big.

So... Legend C it was...

I'm chuffed with what they've managed to stick into this little gadget. It pretty much does everything that I want, but there's one major major major major (you get the pic) drawback!

The basemap that comes with the Legend C is NOWHERE NEAR as comprehensive as the one that comes with the Legend!!!!

How bad? Well the Etrex had railroads, all B-roads etc on it... The Legend C doesn't even have the A5 in it!

This is a really really really sh**y thing done by Garmin!
Why? Well it makes this GPS as useable as the cheap Gecko ones - without a map..
OR I can go buy the maps for £150ish pounds and get it to be a "proper" GPS...
... Either way, I'm loosing out - either the money or the ability to use the GPS!
I'm really disappointed in Garmin over this.

Other than that, Great Product!

I also ordered some RAM mounts from GSPW and they had a very speedy delivery, but again one problem. The GPS holder, see http://www.ram-mount-uk.com/ram-hol-ga5.htm doesn't really fit - maybe the LC is different shape from the "old" eTrex-range... Or I'm, just complaining in vain. BUT the holder has now, after 24miles on the bike, scratched the top of the GPS! If you look at the pictures, you see that the GPS goes into the holder and get's two "ears" over at the top of the GPS. What you can't see is that my cradle had some moulding "left-overs" there and they've now made two prominent scratches on top of my brand new GPS

Other than that Great Stuff!


Split personality...? I think I'm developing one...

 

[TheJoker]

Update...

Righto... a bit of an update... (talking to myself again )

I'm still a bit split, but I'm also a bit happier...

It seems like the battery problem wasn't only a battery problem, but a software problem.
I quickly discovered that when I was pressing any of the LHS buttons (zoom in/out, and menu) the GPS either turned itself off, or showed low-battery (and then occasionally turned itself off).
I also noted that the the device came shipped with v2.0 of the firmware, and that there was a v2.1 available. After the update this behaviour has disappeared. Unfortunately I've had to give the (quite cute) Z1000 back and haven't been able to use the GPS in the same circumstances as prior to the update.
I've also installed the mapsource software (tracks and waypoint manager-thingee-doodah-malarkey), and updated the USB drivers to v2.1 too. This software seems to work just fine on my laptop and my girlfriends machine, strangely it seems to have a bit of an issue with the KVM switch on my workstation (all machines are WinXP)

I'm still annoyed at the marks the RAM mount has done, but I've not done anything about it (yet). Other than that I'm very pleased with the sturdyness of the RAM mount!

When it comes to navigating, I'm still using the basemap which doesn't cover that much, but when it's set to stick to the roads, and the basemap actually thinks I'm on a road, it works remarkably well. Need to get the nav-kit for it at some point...

I've found a few annoying things with the software, the eTrex Legend was much simpler, and more straight forward. One thing that particularily annoys me is that to get the backlight on, I have to:
1) Trurn the GPS on
2) Press the on-button again to get a backlight slider onto the screen - this time the slider is at the bottom
3) Press the on-button again to move the slider up to where there actually is some backligt on
4) Press the enter-button (navi-stick inwards) to select the desired level of backlight.
On the eTrex Legend all I had to do was press the on-button to turn the GPS on, and then once more to toggle the backlight...

I'll keep posting my eTrex Legend C experiences... Might do some good one day...

 

[PanEuropean]

Joker:

To the best of my understanding, the Legend C has exactly the same basemap in it as any other Garmin autorouting GPSR. In other words, it has exactly the same basemap in it as my SP 2650 or my 296. AFIK, Garmin owns the copyright to the autorouting basemap, so there is no advantage or reason of any kind for Garmin to put anything other than the full and complete basemap in every single GPSR. They don't have to pay anyone royalties for use of it.

It is possible that the default choices for level of detail displayed on the Legend C may be such that some basemap detail is suppressed at certain scales, in order to ensure that the display is not cluttered.

Have a second look, perhaps fool around with the settings that control what zoom scale certain map features appear and disappear at, and especially look for a setting called 'Map Detail' - try fooling around with that.

Also, be aware that if you load a "detail map" product into the memory of your GPSR (by detail map, I mean something like CityNavigator, CitySelect, or MetroGuide), it will inhibit the display of any basemap detail below a certain zoom setting - typically about 5 to 8 km scale.

I wish I could give you more specific advice, but I have never seen or used a Legend. This particular model of GPSR is aimed at the hiking and biking crowd, and I'm not interested in either of those two activities.

PanEuropean

 

[bracky]

The autorouting basemaps differ greatly in garmins units. They do not all come with the same basemap. Garmin does this to try and get you to buy a more expensive unit. The legend and vista c come with what is called Atlantic recreational basemap. This is nowhere as good or as comprehensive as the Atlantic autorouting basemap that comes with units such as the streetpilot. This is why I choose getting a garmin 76CS instead of the 60CS. The 60CS comes with the inferior basemap.

 

[PanEuropean]

This is interesting, I was not aware that there were two versions of the basemap. I'll try to find out what the reason behind that is (I'm not quite as cynical or whingy as Bracky).

Below are screenshots from the Garmin website that explain which GPSR model comes with which basemap. It appears that all of the 'common' models that everyone has been using for the last 5 years or so all have the 'Autoroute' basemap - the 'Recreational' basemap seems to be a new development.

Below is the text description for the (original) Autoroute basemap.

 

[PanEuropean]

This is the text description for the new Recreational basemap.