New model yellow eTrex

The improvements over the old model seem to be:

WAAS/EGNOS.

20 routes (someone earlier posted that waypoints per route had been
increased to 125, but I haven't checked that).

Configurable trip parameters page.

Hunting and fishing "good times", which include a display of sunrise,
sunset, moorise, moonset, and moon phase, for a specific waypoint, at
a specified date.

10,000 trackpoints in the tracklog.

Tracking can be turned on and off, can be set for time intervals,
distance intervals, or five different resolutions of auto. The highest
resolution of auto gives a more detailed and more accurate track than
the tracking mode of an old and good model of Summit, and looks as
though it should take about 17 hours to fill the tracklog.

Compared to a good model of Summit it has slightly improved tracking
ability in terms of accuracy, detail, and ability to keep lock in
difficult conditions. It is also more sensible about how it recovers
from lost lock, producing fewer and less extreme jagged artefacts when
doing so.

Looking at Garmin's web pages for software updates, which indicate the
hardware upgrade occurs with the switch to software versions of 3+, I
see that this also seems to apply to the Summit, i.e., looks as though
there's also a new correspondingly upgraded model of Summit.

This new yellow model seems to be intended to sell for the same price
as the old one, because I bought mine by mistake in a cheap UK offer
which I thought was the old version being sold off cheap!

The only desirable upgrades I can now think it lacks are two: waypoint
projection is still limited to whole degrees and tenths of a km, which
is fine for usual field work, but not quite enough when you're
building up a set of waypoints from an ungridded map; and you can't
tell it to correct a waypoint to "here".

But those are minor quibbles. This is a very useful upgrade indeed.
--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/ ]

Chris Malcolm schrieb:

Strange! Why don't we see anything about this model on Garmin's site?
This seems to be a GEKO201 in an eTrex shell, but with increased
runtime. How much did you spend on it?

What does it say on the system setup page?

- Carsten

The Source (the retail chain formerly known as Radio Shack here)
is discounting the Geko201 now.

Speculation was that the geko line would supercede the etrex line.
Maybe that will be reversed.


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There's owner's manuals downloadable for both the old and new versions
on Garmin's web site.


60 UK pounds.


Software version 3.20.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/ ]

Chris Malcolm schrieb:


Not bad. I checked into the manuals. I would think that Garmin
consolidated the hardware of all the eTrex units into a single base, so
this is probably the same as for the Venture, Legend and the other
models, leaving Garmin just the option for more memory and
compass/barometer.

It's not based on GEKO technology (battery runtime would be much longer
from 2 AA cells then).


But this clearly makes this unit an alternative again to the Geko201.

- Carsten