Garmin eTrex Summit HC Handheld GPS Receiver

In the summer I spend a lot of time on my horse in the Colorado Wilderness Areas. And yes, I have a way of mounting the GPS unit on the dashboard of my gelding. After 4 years hard service, my Garmin Legend quit. Improvements I found in my new Summit are impressive: color, faster satellite acquisition, and map orientation that matches the orientation of the unit. This last is possible only in the Summit which has the electronic compass lacking in other GPS models from Garmin. The commands are more intuitive and it works better in timber. With the new cable and drivers that came with the Summit, I was able to use my old MapSource CD to load contours.

I have always liked garmins but i wanted a new gps that I could put topo maps on so I could truly see where i was and wanted to go without having to carry around a map book. My use of the unit has been for natural resources college classes, work, big game hunting, and for search and rescue. The unit its really easy to setup and use. The map packs are pretty expensive but I got the detailed maps for CO where I live and they are great. The only confusing thing is to mke sure you set the gps datum to the maps you have otherwise it will show you that you are often a few hundred feet from where you actually are but its simple once you figure out the settings. I picked this model for the ability to load maps, the color screen makes it better for viewing multicolored topo maps, and that it has a WAAS enabled reciever. Works great in trees and in bad weather. Very rugged unit. My only recommendation for protection is to get the Invisibleshield screen cover. They dont make a pre cut model so you will have to cut it and apply it yourself but it keeps the screen in great shape I use them on all of my technology with screens. The belt clip is flimsy and the lanyard is cheap. But that is easily fixed with a length of parachute chord. Battery life is good if you keep the backlight use down. I would recommend getting some recharable lithium batteries for it. The reason the product gets 4 stars is that you have to trade the sd card slot for color screen or a bunch of money. I wish it would have had more memory or and sd card slot and the color screen. My other complaint is the screen size. When you put data fields on the screen it makes it a bit to small. Those are the only downfalls I see but its a great unit and I am glad I bought it.

Bought this unit to replace an old Magellan that had been purchased years back with topo maps as part of the deal. Reading the reviews and description of this Garmin eTrex Summit HC lead me to believe that you would be able to use the included "Trip and Waypoint Manager" for hiking. Trust me the included base map is an absolute joke. Yeah it will show an interstate highway but much beyond that is just hype. I called Garmin for support because I thought I just was not understanding how to send the maps to the device. The tech support guy started off by saying that this unit is several years old and not one of their better units. He went on to ask what I intended to do with the device. I explained that we bought it to use for hiking this summer both in the U.S. and in Canada for a six week vacation. Well he says the U.S. topo maps will run you $100 and then another $100 for the Canadian topo maps. He said if only I had bought a better unit that would accept SD cards I could have bought 'slices' of maps for less.Sending this back to Amazon.

This unit is packed with features but does require some learning time. It does not come with maps, which cost an additional $100, and without a memory card, only limited areas of a map can be loaded. If you end up outside of your planned destination, you could be without a map! For some hikers, a $5 phone app may be sufficient.

I bought this unit for use on hikes, bike rides, and other similar outdoor activities. I've had it for a few months now, and overall, I'm only somewhat satisfied. Here's a list of pros and cons that have stuck with me so far:Pros:-easy to read/see color screen (even in bright sunlight)-highly customizable screens (types and amount of data shown on each screen)-fairly easy to learn and operate-many features, including barometric altimeter and electronic compassNow, the cons to this product may not be specific to this unit. It may be more a function of the limitations of GPS:-inaccurate (sometimes highly) "tracking" of horizontal position or trail actually traveled (I've compared to trail maps and Google Earth visible trails, and some of my tracks are inexplicably way off)-inaccurate barometric altimeter (sometimes hundreds of feet off. I've turned it on, and had elevation readings of -200 feet!!) which must be constantly calibrated. Also, if you calibrate at the bottom of a climb, by the time you reach the summit, it may be over 100' off.-very inaccurate odometer data, and inconsistencies in the data. For example, I recently hiked Half Dome, which is 4800' vertical gain...this unit only registered 1500' total ascent, but the begin elevation and end elevation shown were well over 1500' different. Also, on the same Half Dome hike, the odometer read 5 miles hiked, but the track total registered a more accurate 8.3 miles.-very "stiff" buttons.Again, the inaccuracy may be a function of the limitations of GPS, but the odometer inaccuracies in terms of total distance, total ascent, descent, etc. was disppointing. Perhaps Garmin needs to come up with another way of calculating these values. I think a lot of these values are calculated using current horizontal and vertical velocity, which may be inaccurate at any given moment. With inconsistencies at any given moment, it is difficult for the unit to calculate the actual horizontal and vertical distance traveled.In any case, overall, I would recommend this product for simple trail and waypoint marking. But it should be understood you will only get "general" information, and not anything resembling very accurate data.**EDIT** Garmin released a firmware patch in Feb of '08, and it has really helped with the accuracy of certain data. The total ascent data is much more accurate now, often within 100' of actual climbed distance (that may not seem so great, but it was horrible before). Also, the distance measurements are better. When I save a track, the distance per the track is much more close to the odometer reading, usually within a mile for a 10-15 mile hike (which again, is just ok, but better than before).Overall, the unit does seem to be more accurate in all ways now, perhaps due in part to this firmware update. Also, tracks seem to be more accurate in terms of comparing visually to maps. I'm more happy with the unit now, and would probably give it 4 stars if I reviewed it today.