Hi all. I'm JustPJ66's husband. Supplemental question to hers, what do you think of Garmin GPS's, specifically the ones with touchscreen. She's not impressed with what we're seeing with the Magellan Triton 400 (neither am I) and she's thinking maybe we should go Garmin. It's her idea for the touch screen. Hey, she's letting me buy a new laptop to go with our new geocaching hobby so I can't complain. :D

Hi all. I'm JustPJ66's husband. Supplemental question to hers, what do you think of Garmin GPS's, specifically the ones with touchscreen. She's not impressed with what we're seeing with the Magellan Triton 400 (neither am I) and she's thinking maybe we should go Garmin. It's her idea for the touch screen. Hey, she's letting me buy a new laptop to go with our new geocaching hobby so I can't complain. :D

I have recently gotten my hands on a Garmin Dakota 20 and I'm very pleased with it. If the higher end Garmin touchscreens perform as well as what I'm familiar with in the Dakota then I would wager that any Garmin touchscreen would be well worth the money.

I would have a hard time going back to my eTrex at this point after caching with the Dakota20.

If I had to point out one con about the unit it would have to be that the backlighting is a little "low." Other than that, I'm very impressed with the touchscreen.

Good luck and Cache On!!

And if you want to kick it up a notch, the Garmin Oregon 400t set the standard for touchscreen caching. Like Steve (TRF) indicated, the screen stays on "bright" for a very brief time in order to save battery power. But all you do is touch it again, and it's back on bright. The 400t comes preloaded with very nice topo maps and of course is paperless, does Wherigo and can take 2000 caches. Deleting caches is a bit more involved but the compass is terrific. We like ours!

well, I'm not a "her" so I'll type in my squeeky voice... :rolleyes:

I have an oregon 300, at first I was really skeptical about the touch screen, especially in cold weather. But all of my concerns have melted away, I love it. (just update it as soon as you take it out of the box, and buy some screen protectors for it) I even left it in the truck overnight a few times to test it out, and the screen didn't seem effected at all by the cold. :D

I even left it in the truck overnight a few times to test it out, and the screen didn't seem effected at all by the cold. :D

Yeah but you haven't left it in the snowbank for months yet either...:D

Yeah but you haven't left it in the snowbank for months yet either...:D

well, we haven't had enough snow for me to do that yet. But that GPS is currently still located over in buckfield (for about the last 2years) I think I have a pretty good idea of where it's at too, I've narrowed it down to about 2 sq miles where it can be.... :rolleyes::D (and I bet it still works too!)

While leaving out all the dirty 'touch' comments :rolleyes: I would also recommend the Oregons. I have a 400t and my wife has a 300. The ability to cache paperless is fantastic and they are a fun gps to use. (I'm a gadget geek) :D

And if you want to kick it up a notch, the Garmin Oregon 400t set the standard for touchscreen caching. Like Steve (TRF) indicated, the screen stays on "bright" for a very brief time in order to save battery power. But all you do is touch it again, and it's back on bright. The 400t comes preloaded with very nice topo maps and of course is paperless, does Wherigo and can take 2000 caches. Deleting caches is a bit more involved but the compass is terrific. We like ours!

Ohhhh, you can put all the geocaches in these units. The unit support upwards of 200 individual GPX files and each GPX file will contain upward of 2000 geocaches. When using GSAK I Load the closest 2000 in 1 GPX file named uniquely enough "closest2000caches.gpx" then I load another filter with my furthest 2000 caches name oddedly enough "furthest2000caches.gpx". The unit parses the two file to give me all the caches in the state. I'm still trying to perfect a filter in Gsak that will allow me to divide the entire database of my unfound caches in to closest with a criteria using distance of "less than or equal to 70 miles" and then another filter that uses similiar criteria except written "greater than or equal to 70.1 miles"

The Whereigo feature is the only thing the Dakota apparently lacks.

If I am reading your post correctly the Dakota will hold more than 2000 caches? If my numbers add up it will hold as much as 400,000 caches. Holy Crap!!! Did that make any sense?

I'm still trying to perfect a filter in Gsak that will allow me to divide the entire database of my unfound caches in to closest with a criteria using distance of "less than or equal to 70 miles" and then another filter that uses similiar criteria except written "greater than or equal to 70.1 miles

You can do any filter in GSAk and then select "reverse filter" to show all the opposite caches if that's what you're trying to do.

A macro could also be made that would center the cache list on a given cache or location and then create both GPX files for you automatically. I'd be happy to take a stab at if if you'd like.

I am also a recent owner of the Oregon 400t and it has worked out well the little time I have had it. If you set the background maps to white it helps out on the dim issue of the screen. That really has not been a real problem to me yet, but some people have mentioned that issue.
The touch screen has worked well.

Hi Kev! Did I create a GeoMainiac when I took JustPJ66 on a hunt last month? Glad to see your both getting into it. Lets get together someday for some Geocaching!

Hi Kev! Did I create a GeoMainiac when I took JustPJ66 on a hunt last month? Glad to see your both getting into it. Lets get together someday for some Geocaching!

Sure, come on over and we'll see if we can get you a FTF like we got!!

:D

Thanks to all the answers. Can't say as we'll be going Garmin any time soon with the prices for the touch screens. Just a tad out of the budget considering we just bought the new Magellan.

Hi all. I'm JustPJ66's husband. Supplemental question to hers, what do you think of Garmin GPS's, specifically the ones with touchscreen. She's not impressed with what we're seeing with the Magellan Triton 400 (neither am I) and she's thinking maybe we should go Garmin. It's her idea for the touch screen. Hey, she's letting me buy a new laptop to go with our new geocaching hobby so I can't complain. :D

Having seen Hiram357's new toy I would say as a long-time Magellan user I was impressed . . . but then again even before I wasn't really blown away with the Tritons . . . seemed like they were trying to be the Swiss army knife of geocaches and unfortunately in my previous experience with products that try to do many things, they end up doing a lot of stuff, but none of that stuff is done particularly well (i.e. the Swiss army knife example). For the time being I'll stick with my older, less flashy Explorist 210 . . . but perhaps some day in the future when I get more active again. . . .

well, we haven't had enough snow for me to do that yet. But that GPS is currently still located over in buckfield (for about the last 2years) I think I have a pretty good idea of where it's at too, I've narrowed it down to about 2 sq miles where it can be.... :rolleyes::D (and I bet it still works too!)

Well it 'tis the season . . . you gonna go hunting for it this Fall?

Well it 'tis the season . . . you gonna go hunting for it this Fall?

probably not, I don't feel too much like driving 3hrs to go hunting... :(

and I didn't plan ahead and find a spot up this way ahead of time... :o

but I've been tryin pretty hard to get em with the truck, but they're to darn fast! :D:D:D