Strengths: Great GPS. Very good reception and lots of nice features

Weaknesses: Price, and price again for additional mapping software

Summary: I have only had the product for a couple of days but after extensive researching I chose the 60 CSx due to all of the bells and whistles it contains. They are very handy and so far it seems like a great product. I have yet to try out the mapsource software on it but from what I hear it will be very impressive.

Strengths: Great GPS, good reception, sturdy design, lots of nice features, is fairly configurable, comes with a pretty good world map set, is pretty much self documenting and tends to do what you want.

Weaknesses: Price, maybe compute power, documentation, Points Of Interest , registration with the street guide and general information on the unit.

Summary: Finding one of these units is hard. I found one in stock in a high-end marine shop that specialized in navigation equipment. It was expensive and they did not have the maps, which they promised would be direct shipped in a week or two (street guide took 4 months and 6 months later I am still waiting for the marine guide). Also, the shop had no idea what this unit was capable of.I made a cross country trip with this unit and the stock world map and basic street map set. The details of the shore line were pretty crude, but the highways were more than sufficient for travel.There are lots of great features. From a PC you can plan a trip with stops as well as custom Points of interest (like places you may want to go and see along the way). There is a mode where you can pick a point and have the GPS plot a navigation solution that works on the PC as well as in the unit. Once set on the trail, the GPS alerts when approaching a turn, gives a he-haw when you miss and then will compute another solution, given your current direction (great at 3 AM in a labyrinth heading into a city).The unit uses any standard AA battery (NiCd, NiMh, et cetera), but does not allow charging in the unit (probably a safety thing). The NiMh batteris are good for about 30 hours of continuous use (with the backlight used all night ? which the unit can select at dusk and turn off at dawn). When connected to a computer (for up or down loading of maps, tracks and such) the unit takes power from the USB port. There is an optional 12V car adaptor. The connector is a 4 prong arrangement that seems too fragile for a field unit. I?d allow a slow (low risk) trickle charge of the batteries and redesign the external connectors to use more common and less fragile technology, add a mode for Lithium batteries and maybe even a modest sized solar cell in the unit.The case and mechanical design of this unit are great. The ergonomics are a bit clumsy, but there are shortcuts, lots of configurability and it is not that hard to learn the ins and outs of it. I?m a fan of resolution and more dots on the screen would be nice, but not necessary. The screen is great for a hand held unit, but for driving, consider a larger one. Garmin does not seem to be able to put out good information on the performance on the unit (beyond marketing hype). They also do not seem to be able to give straight answers on compatibility with external components, like the memory or even batteries (the unit self describes quite well, thank you). The micro SD devices that are supported is another mystery. The complete North American street guide needs just over 1 GB of memory. There are uSD cards that are 1 GB, but Garmin can not say if it will work. They also do not say if the Ultra interface will be a benefit.When loading a large map set (64 MB) the download was straight forward, but afterward the unit seemed to be busy for a long time (over night). It was probably compiling the map data somehow. I wonder if 64M took hours, what would a Gig or two take?This is a great piece of equipment and you get what you pay for. ;^)

Strengths: Excellent GPS signal Sensitivity, Quick to Lock-On, Good User Interface, PC uploads/downloads a breeze

Weaknesses: Paging between functions can get confusing, Switching between On-Road/Off Road can get buried in drill downs

Summary: Very impressed...strongly recommended...pulled it out of the box and got a lock inside the apartment in about 1 minute...outside and after subsequent power cycles lock-on occurred in seconds...break-locks very rare even in some very heavily wooded areas. Uploaded the Map Source interface on the PC and we were immediately in business for geocaching with uploading caches and downloading tracks. When my iQue 3600 wouldn't resolve better than 96 ft due to conditions the 60 CSx brought the error in to 24 ft. We bought this for easy battery replacement in the field, promised sensitivity, and intuitive PC/geocaching interface...we got it all. Only ?gotcha? we?ve uncovered in the last month was an inadvertent moving of a waypoint when we only wanted to highlight it for bearing and range information.

Strengths: Size, ruggedness, ability to get a strong signal

Weaknesses: Screen is difficult to read when mounted on a dashboard or motorcycle handlebar (I've done both for long roadtrips)

Summary: This is a great unit for hiking. I've used it all over the Cascade Mountains in western Washington, and don't have any complaints. I've also mounted it on my dashboard and motorcycle handlebar for roadtrips, and it's a little more difficult to use. The screen is difficult to read so I end up pulling over sometimes, especially on my bike, so I can really understand what it's trying to tell me. Overall though, I really like this product. Uploading waypoints and routes from my computer is pretty easy.

Strengths: Great handheld unit packed with features. Very good reception inside and out. Really like the ability to add maps using microSD card.

Weaknesses: Expensive since you really need the Mapsource City Navigator NA software to get the full use (be sure to use the manufacturer $50 rebate); recommend cigarette charge if you are using in your car;

Summary: I'm very impressed with the capabilities of this handheld unit; I intend to take it with me everywhere I travel so I can use the street map and navigating features; I tried using it in my car using batteries. I'm using NiMH recharable batteries yet less then 45 minutes of tracking my drive, the batteries went out. Recommend a charger when used in your car.I will take it while skiing. With the altimeter function, I will track my vertical descent each day.

Strengths: very impressive over the e-trex vista. It locks on satellites quickly. Takes a couple days to explore all the features but easy to use once you know the layout. I would highly recommend this gps.

Weaknesses: High Priced but get get what you pay for

Summary: Very good gps. I would feel comfortable using it for hunting, ATV exploring or on the road. Plenty of features. My rating is 5 star. Be sure to practice with it before needing to use it. Lots of page and setup options.

Strengths: Don't exactly know where to start

Weaknesses: only one I can think of is that you cannot sort your poi's into categories like on my ex-magellan Explorist 400

Summary: I have had both an Explorist 400 and this unit. This unit beats the Explorist 400 hands down. There are some features that this unit has that the Explorist 400 does not, but with the things that they have in common, this is the better unit (but you have to pay for it). This is probably where the Explorist will be in another year or two. Here are a few things that I like about this unit:2 double A batteries are great, Energizer rechargeable last for me about 18 hours. If they go dead, just pop in some new ones.Street routing. The unit gives you the option of street routing for shortest or fastest route. It give you audible prompts to let you know a turn is coming and also an enlarged preview of the turn. If you miss the turn it will automatically give you directions to correct your mistake. Many different ways to find poi?s. By city, intersection, address, type of location, previously found poi?s, and others. Color screen is very bright and even changes to night mode automatically.Reception is excellent. I compared it to my Explorist unit and found that the Garmin unit would pickup satellites faster; it would also pickup stronger signal under heavy cover. According to the units display the Explorist would show a lower degree of error by a couple of feet and I never completely lost signal with the Explorist but have dropped to 2d coverage before. I have never dropped below 3d coverage with the Garmin unit. I could never get a satellite connection inside my house or my office, but I could get one with the Garmin unit no problem. It would get signal almost as fast inside as it does outside. I am sure that some of this is due to the external antenna. If you have the extra money this is the better buy, if you are not able to come up with the extra dollars the Explorist is still a good selection.

Strengths: Lighweight, water resistant, intuitive to use, fast satellite reception, decent screen size.

Weaknesses: Does not come with a city or topo CD, just some major roads. You have to spend more $ to get it to be useful for driving or hiking. Buttons can be a little creaky.

Summary: Despite Garmins high price I like this little hand held. It's rugged and does not appear to eat up batteries. I like the functionality but I was disappointed that for that high price the package did not include a city map or maybe even a discount coupon for topo or water maps. If only they could make an all in one gps, use it in the car with voice and then hit the trail.

Strengths: In color, multiple satellites used for pinpoint accuracy, durable body, waterproof, unit is user friendly. I picked this unit up without reading instructions and was able to figure out how it works.

Weaknesses: You have to buy street maps separately at a hefty price.

Summary: I would recommend this product hands down. The accuracy of the unit is unbelievable. It has found every mark I have plotted without failure. Even though the unit and accessories are a bit pricey, I would buy it again or another if needed. This unit is being used mostly for Geocaching and it is exceptional.

Strengths: Great reception, good battery life, lightweight, easy to read

Weaknesses: None

Summary: This GPS is a great product. It is compact, easy to use, and capable of everything you would need it to do while backpacking. The electronic compass and barometric altimeter are great features. The Garmin National Parks CDs work great with this GPS.

Strengths: See Comments

Weaknesses: See Comments

Summary: I use it exclusively for geocaching. I can only compare it to my much cheaper, but now discontinued Magellan SporTrak Pro. The advantage over the SporTark is mostly convenience features. I didn?t buy maps and thus don?t use the autorouting.PROS: ?USB is *much* better than Serial Port for sending/receiving data to the unit.?Battery changeout is easier than the SporTrak. ?I find the menus easier to understand/use, but harder to make changes/enter data. The table entry method is tedious/slow compared to the SportTrak's arrow pad right/left increase/decrease method?The popup menus are nice. ?It holds more caches. ?If you're an FTFer (First to Find) Garmin's direct download into the unit from the caching website is nice.?If you use it for maps (I don't) the color screen is easier to read. CONS:?I haven't found it any better than the SporTrak in basic coordinate determination/cache finding?Doesn?t turn itself off automatically ? this runs battery down again and again?It doesn't let cache management software erase/flush the existing waypoints when refreshing them -- you have to do that manually with the units menus. A pain.?If you try to update the same caches, instead of reusing the space it uses a different memory location using up memory unnecessarily. ?It doesn't start coordinate averaging automatically when you stop moving like the SporTrak. I find this inconvenient.?The location updates immediately after sensing a change, even a spurious one, thus the location it points to jumps around a lot. The SporTrak kept a weighted average so one spurious reading didn't have much effect, thus the location it pointed to was more stable. The downside to the weighted average is you need to stop for up to a minute and let the SporTrak settle after getting near the target location. Would I choose it over the SporTrak if I could get either free? Yes. Was the difference worth $350? I'm not sure.

Strengths: It locks position quickly and gives me a 10 digit grid.Positions are really accurate.

Weaknesses: Costs a lot.

Summary: This is my first unit for a field environment except other military GPS's. I found this one to work better than what I have been issued. It is definitely worth the money. I have not had the time to hook it up to my computer and am still waiting on those functions.

Strengths: Accuracy, Ruggedness, Features.

Weaknesses: None.

Summary: This is my first GPS but I compared many before I bought. I've used for it geocaching and with a handlebar mount, taken my motorcycle off the beaten path. The GPSmap 60csx Is the best buy for the money.

Strengths: Receiver much more sensitive then 60csPower over USBLonger Waypoint Names

Weaknesses: Still limited to the number of waypoints because they're stored in internal memory

Summary: Bought this as an upgrade to my 60CS because I'm now bringing this with me on business trips and needed more maps. The unit has been upgraded in many key areas that make it worthwhile. There are still some anoying things that would hopefully be addressed when using for Geocaching (like support for different types of caches), but this is still a great GPSr to take out on the trail and the road.

Strengths: Satellite aquisition speed in Remote Upper Michigan

Weaknesses: Belt clip is flimsey - falls off too easily

Summary: I bought this unit for deer hunting this year in Upper Michigan - November 2007. Excellent aquisition speed, super tracking and waypoint ease, good button use with one hand while walking in the woods.Threw my old Magellen away since it just could not pick up the sats.Great for hunting in remote areas where orientation loss can occur. Great electronic compass