See new vistas with the Vista Cx!

Explore new worlds, see new vistas, and experience new adventures

This unit is Garmin's high-end handheld GPS receiver. I'll start by saying that I do regret buying it and that I wish I had bought one of the Magellan units instead. However that is not to say the Garmin is not an excellent product, only that I think the Magellan eXplorists look even better in some ways.

Okay... hold up, wait a minute, what is a GPS receiver? [feel free to skip this section]

GPS means Global Positioning System. Specifically refering the the US Department of Defense's NAVSTAR GPS system. The system consists of at least 24 (there are currently 30) satellites orbiting above the earth. [Oversimplification ahead] these satellites are constantly broadcasting the time from their on board atomic clocks. The receiver has a constantly updated normal clock that is almost as accurate due to the updates. It measures how long the signal took to arrive from each satellite, and therefore how far it's distance is from us using the simple triangluation techniques learned in middle school. It's a little more complex because we're in 3D space, not a 2D map but it's made simple because the receiver knows you're somewhere on the surface of the earth so it can throw out impossible possible calculations for your location. This results in a system accurate to within about 3-15 meters depending on conditions

Okay, so what is the Vista Cx good for?

Do you drive a car, ride a bike, walk, hunt, fish, hike, or pretty much do anything that involves leaving your house? If so, the eTrex Vista Cx has a use for you. This device has it all. More than a toy that merely tells you where you're at, it has an incredible array of features to help you on your way, such as:

Full color screen - This may seem worthless on a device bought for it's utility value, but I assure you that it is far from being worthless

Electronic compass - GPS technology does a wonderful job of telling you where you are at. Unfortunately, what it does not tell you is where you are headed. Cheaper GPS units have a compass screen that shows you the direction the unit is moving, but this is useless when you need it most - when you want to stop and see what direction you need to go!

Barometric altimeter - To me this is one of the least useful attributes of this device because unless you know the exact altitude you are at or the exact current barometric pressure, the barometric altimeter will calibrate itself to the GPS altitude averaged over time. The accuracy benefit is negligible in this case I would guess, and it has one huge disadvantage. You *cannot* program the unit to use GPS altitude, there is only one screen you can even see GPS altitude on. The barometric altimeter won't work properly in a pressurized environment, such as on an airplane. So you have no altitude readings in these cases :(

MicroSD card slot and auto-routing ability - A function that is more useful every day as MicroSD cards get cheaper. I have the entire MapSource City Navigator North America DVD loaded on one 2GB MicroSD card. Combined with the unit's auto-routing ability to give you turn by turn driving directions based on a street address, coorinates, waypoint, or point of interest, this is an *extremely useful* function!

Dozens more features - This unit includes dozens more features such as a bright screen, proximity alarms, hunting & fishing calendar, moon information, sunrise/sunset times, the ability to clearly display detailed maps, a highway view that shows what the road ahead will look like, and much much more.

Some samples of my usage

There are hundreds of potential uses for this product, and I'm sure you could even think of some new ones, I'm just going to list my main uses here in case there are any you haven't thought of:

Geocaching - Consider this to be a GPS aided worldwide treasure hunt. The concept is simple, visit geocaching.com and register. People have already hid things out in the world, you just need to find them and log them, maybe move some travel bugs to a new location, etc. Watch out for muggles... (a Harry Potter phrase for non-witches, in this case used to refer to non-geocachers who view your behavior as suspicious).

Geotagging - Using the track log feature and waypoint feature, especially when combined with specialized software available online (search for it so I'm not advertising for anyone...)

Driving - Going to an unfamiliar house? Going to a new city? Need to find somewhere you haven't been in years? With the right map set (City Navigator) and this units built-in autorouting you're good to go whereever you feel like (as long as it's not a new road...)

Exploring - Not being much of a hiker, I like to find places that are cool within a few miles of the road, but I still sometimes forget where they are... until my eTrex Vista Cx and the ability to set waypoints everywhere :)

Games - Kids love the built in games, specifically the virtual maze. It tosses a maze up on the screen and you go out in a big empty field and navigate your way through the maze. Fun exercise in virtual reality.

Product quality

This is a reasonable quality product. The battery and USB port waterseals seem rather mediocre, I wouldn't want to submerge it myself, but it should do fine in even heavy rain. It picks up a GPS signal alright, but sometimes acquisition is slow and reception iffy in dense trees. This unit has been replaced with the HCx, H being for high sensitivity receiver. The rest of my review should be applicable to the new model, but the high sensitivity receiver should be better in this regard.

My Vista Cx has been only lightly bumped around and it still looks like new, it's designed to handle the abuse of hiking. But perhaps not swimming... It should hold up better than any other advanced electronic device you'll ever buy!

Conclusion

Any GPS receiver will tell you where you're at, the Garmin eTrex Vista Cx will do it with style, convenience, and enough extras to allow you to make hundreds of uses of that information. Extras such as the electronic compass will give you more detail on where you're going, and the advanced auto-routing will help you figure out how to get where you're going.

I wish I'd bought a Magellan unit because they're more stylish (yeah, I'm really vain...) and Magellan's maps are cheaper! The Garmin units cost a little less but they make up with it in pricier maps...

I'd still recommend this unit, but only after you look at the Magellans as well, and be sure to compare cost including any maps you want!