Garmin e. Trex 3. The Garmin e. Trex 3. Garmin Connect Community for tracking, analysis and sharing; Garmin Express Maps and software to manage your devices. So you’re thinking of getting a Garmin Edge 800, probably the best bike computer on the market in 2011/12? There are many different bundles to choose from, and when. GPS Information on Garmin, Lowrance, Magellan and other CONSUMER receivers. Presenta Plaque offers high quality wholesale plaques and plaque kits at the best prices available. Browse our wholesale plaque kit selection and order online. Whether you're dialling in your training regime for competition or just looking to beat your own best times, the Garmin Edge 820 has all the features you'll need to. Garmin Nuvi 265W Review: What's New Homepage Motorcycle News Hayabusa News Hayabusa Pictures Hayabusa Store. General Hayabusa Hayabusa meaning Hayabusa Videos. Garmin eTrex 30 review including comparisons to similar units, links to other reviews, price comparisons, owners manual and more. Trex series, which brings a long- awaited update to this popular line. It offers paperless geocaching, new customization options and Birds. Eye aerial imagery capability. So what can a Sat Nav do? Sat Nav devices share many common features designed to make your journey much less stressful including: Being able to plot a route between. I have a Garmin nuvi 2515LM with maps of the UK and Ireland. Is it possible to add France (and possibly the Low countries). If so, how do I go about it? Today Garmin announced their latest GPS watch to their ever-growing cabinet of such devices – the Garmin Tactix, which is aimed at the military crowd. I’ll get into all the details in a moment, but first let’s look at what separates the e. Trex 3. 0 from the other models in the series. You can change the order of items by pressing the menu button. If you select another screen (e. Garmin e. Trex 3. GLONASSThe one item found on the new e. Trex series missing from all other Garmin units is the ability to use GLONASS as well as GPS satellites. There is an option to use GPS only, but no option for GLONASS only. Theoretically, GLONASS will improve accuracy. This may be especially true at northerly latitudes and in urban (and natural) canyons. I’ll talk about this a bit more in the performance section of this review. More new features for the e. Trex series. Many of the features found on higher- end Garmin handhelds are now available on the e. Trex 3. 0. The e. Trex 3. 0 also allows you to filter caches, letting you search by size, difficulty, terrain, etc. I’ll have more to say about geocaching in the performance section of this review. Some screenshots: Birds. Eye aerial imagery and topo maps. The e. Trex 3. 0 is fully compatible with Garmin’s Birds. Eye products, including their aerial imagery and topo maps of the US and Canada. Each runs $3. 0 for a one- year subscription; imagery you’ve downloaded during that period can still be used, even if you don’t renew. While the images below weren’t captured on an e. Trex, they should give you an idea of the capabilities. I find it less useful under the dense canopy of the eastern US. I absolutely love the Birds. Eye topo product. There is nothing quite like having the map on your device look exactly like the USGS topo in your hand. Advanced track navigation. I have written before about advanced track navigation, but basically it will give you the best of both worlds when it comes to following a track or route. Simply choose a track to navigate and it will construct a route of waypoints along the track, add in high and low points, and give you the actual track mileage to each point, as shown at left. Garmin custom maps. Now that we have Birds. Eye Topo, there isn’t as much need for custom maps, but hey, you can put a PDF park map on your e. Trex, and that’s pretty sweet. Calendar. The Calendar displays dates when waypoints and tracks are saved, and it also displays geocaches that you’ve logged. Profiles. Profiles allow you to save different groups of settings; you can have one for geocaching, one for mountain biking, one for road riding, etc. These are discussed more below under “Customizing the Garmin e. Trex 3. 0.”More e. Trex 3. 0 features of note. Route, Track and Waypoint management. The e. Trex 3. 0 has excellent route, track and waypoint management tools, including: Waypoints – The ability to project a waypoint, average location, set proximity alerts, and to reposition a waypoint at your current location. Tracks – You can choose to hide or show multiple tracks on the map, view an elevation plot, and give them a custom color (1. Routes – You can view a map of the entire route, edit the route, reverse it and view an elevation plot. Ability to add free maps. One of the great things about Garmin handhelds is the ability to add free maps to them, and the e. Trex 3. 0 is no exception. GPS File Depot is an excellent source of maps for the e. Trex. Customizing the Garmin e. Trex 3. 0Main menu item order – You can customize the main menu item order by pressing the Menu button while viewing the Main Menu. Accessing pages via the back button – Use Setup > Page sequence for this, but be aware that these pages will disappear from the main menu. Profiles – The e. Trex 3. 0 comes with recreational, geocaching, automotive, marine and fitness profiles. You can switch profiles by selecting Profile Change from the Main Menu. Or create a new one by going to Main Menu > Setup > Profiles > Create Profile. Select the new profile to edit the name. Any changes you make in menus or other settings will be retained in that profile. So start changing things! Want track up when geocaching and north up when biking? How about a separate profile that just shows USGS topos or aerial imagery? The possibilities are nearly endless. Data fields – You can change data fields on just about any screen that has these; usually you just press Menu > Change Data Fields. Dashboards – Instead of data fields (and in some cases in addition to), you can select a dashboard for the map, compass and trip computer screens. Choices (depending upon page) may include automotive, stopwatch, small or large data field, recreational, compass, geocaching or elevation plot. I’ve included screenshots showing a couple below. For the trip computer and compass pages, you access this via Menu > Change Dashboard. For the map screen, choose Menu > Setup Map > Data Fields > Dashboard. The one downside here is the small screen on the e. Trex series; using a dashboard can significantly reduce map real estate. Unique to the e. Trex 3. Let’s go over the features found on the e. Trex 3. 0, but not on the 2. Triaxial electronic compass – Having an electronic compass means the e. Trex 3. 0 can point to your destination while standing still; triaxial means you don’t have to hold it level like other electronic compass models; the downside is that you will have to calibrate the compass after each battery change. Barometric altimeter – This will give you more accurate elevation readings and allow you to see an elevation plot of your tracks. Wireless data sharing – The e. Trex 3. 0 is capable of wireless data transfer with other compatible Garmin units; you can transfer waypoints, tracks, routes and paperless geocache details. Garmin chirp compatibility – Adds a new dimension to geocaching. Garmin e. Trex 3. I imagine there are more, but here’s a few tips: Use the zoom buttons to jump a full page in a menu. When entering a name, the zoom buttons will switch between keypads. You can create a custom startup message (e. With the backlight set to remain on full, batteries lasted 1. The backlight off test is still running, but I wanted to go ahead and post this. I’ll update that info later today. UPDATE: With the backlight off, the e. Trex 2. 0 ran for an amazing 2. Tracks. Tracklog accuracy was tested with the e. Trex 2. 0, GPSMAP 6. CSx (with Si. RFstar III chipset) and a GPSMAP 6. All units were set to record track points every five seconds. Tracks were collected on out and back runs and then analyzed for track separation errors. The idea here is that, ideally, the track recorded on the way out should match perfectly with the one recorded on the way back to the trailhead. Of course no unit ever meets the ideal. The 6. 0CSx performed best, with less errors in general and a maximum track separation error of about 8. The 6. 2s had significantly more segments with easily visible track separation errors, maxing out at around 1. The e. Trex was worst, with more visible errors that tended to be separated by a greater distance, maxing out at around 1. I find it interesting, but not surprising, that the oldest unit with the most mature firmware performed best, while the newest unit with the least mature firmware performed worst. Here’s an image of an e. Trex 2. 0 track (you should be able to click on it for a larger image). There are just too many variables – accuracy of the cache coordinates, satellite constellation variability, terrain (multipath effects), etc. So having said that, here’s a very unscientific test. After becoming familiar with the unit, towards the end of my testing, I made some cache runs. I set the units down on top of the cache one at a time and recorded the reported distance to cache in feet. The results are shown below. GPSMAP 6. 2s. Oregon 4. Trex 2. 0 with GPS+GLONASSe. Trex 2. 0 with GPS only. Cache 1. 61. 41. 66+Cache 2. Cache 3. 36. 29. 13. Cache 4. 30. 37. 26+4. Average. 23. 32. 2. Not bad, and you can see that GLONASS appears to result in some improvement. The plus signs indicate cycling, where the distance to cache would cycle from a low number to a higher number over a period of a minute or so and then repeat. In this situation, I used the lower number in the charts above. The e. Trex 2. 0 seems to suffer from the malady that affects all new Garmins, where the firmware is far from perfect. This cycling was also seen in early firmware versions of the GPSMAP 6. Oregon series. Lags and redraws. I noticed some slight lags when navigating menus, and a bit of a delay (a second or so) on map redraws when panning the map. I noticed no map redraw delays while mountain biking with the unit though. Some users have reported map redraw delays with raster imagery such as Garmin’s Birds. Eye products, though I believe these reports have been limited to map panning and not delays on the moving map. Garmin e. Trex 3. Bright display. Small size. GLONASS for improved accuracy. Paperless geocaching capability. Birds. Eye aerial imagery and US/Canada topo compatibility. Advanced track navigation. Garmin custom maps capability. Customization options (dashboards, profiles, etc.)Excellent battery life. Triaxial electronic compass. Barometric altimeter. Wireless data sharing. Garmin e. Trex 3. Small display. Distance to destination cycling and tracklog separation point to immature firmware. Garmin e. Trex 3. Despite some early bugs, I like the new e. Trex series, and think it will be a good unit for all sorts of outdoors lovers. My quibbles with it are pretty minor, and Garmin has a good track record of fixing significant issues (although it can often take awhile). The track separation issues aren’t bad enough to cause most folks navigation problems, though the distance to destination cycling could prove frustrating to geocachers. The extensive feature set, including paperless geocaching, GLONASS support and Birds. Eye aerial imagery capability, is very nice.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2018
Categories |