Our Garmin Gpsmap 60CSx died recently. We really couldn’t justify spending hundreds of pounds on a Montana or (my preferred choice) a Monterra for those few hours a month that I’d use it. I usually have my Android phone with me anyway so the GPS really is only there because it is more accurate and far more rugged.
So we opted for an cheap Etrex 30 .. I think it only differs with the 10 in that it has a colour screen and a compass.
It has a good, fast GPS lock and the batteries last forever. As with all Garmins the UI (please explain why Garmin’s cannot scroll diagonally!!) and the PC support (Mapsource) is horrid (but that may be a personal thing).
The main thing that really annoys me however is the little joystick at the top, it always gets pushed when you carry it in a pocket, creating waypoints all over the place and I haven’t found the one-button screen/keyboard standby that my CSx had.
The good thing is that you can load colour OS maps for free with a little trickery. You go to Bing and select OS maps. Take a screenshot of the area you like and then load that screenshot in google-earth as an overlay. From there you can export it as a kmz file file that garmin understands as a map – there is a howto somewhere if you search on the internet.
In all – it will do the job well, but it isn’t anything to get excited about.
