The Garmin eTrex which model

Anyone who loves the outdoors or is into the newish sport of geocaching is going to just love Garmin's eTrex models which are tiny but built for adventure.

Five buttons are within easy reach of your fingertips and if, heaven forbid, you drop it into water it can take a small dunking as it's IPX7 waterproof. You can store 500 waypoints in memory for easy retrieval and it has a TrackBack feature to reverse your track log and help you get back to your starting point. Neat!

There are eight different eTrex models - the eTrex, eTrex Camo, eTrex Summit, eTrex Venture, eTrex Legend, eTrex Vista, eTrex Legend C and the eTrex Vista C. What are the differences?

Well, when you get to the Summit level you get an electronic compass and barometric altimeter; the Legend, Vista, Legend C and Vista C all have built in basemaps; the Vista has an electronic compass as well as a Barometric Altimeter; the Legend C also has a colour display, auto-routing and is USB compatible. The Vista C has the lot!

Memory wise, you have to get to the Venture model and then you get 1MB, the Legend has 8MB, the Vista, Legend C and Vista C all have 24MB.

Battery life varies with each model with the Vista the lowest at 12 hours and the Legend C the longest with 36 hours. The rest hover around the 20 hour mark and all use two AA batteries.

These units, like most GPS units, are accurate to about 6 metres and this can vary of course depending on how many satellites they are picking up. Obstacles like bridges will vary your reception and performance greatly.

There are five buttons with two down the right hand side. One of these turns the unit on/off and controls the backlight while the other selects different pages. On the left hand side there are three other buttons. two of these and up and down buttons and the third is a select button which you use to select the option you have highlighted.

The eTrex also has a PC interface that means you can hook it up to your computer (cable is extra and costs around 30 quid) to download routes to the GPS unit.

There are detractors but not too many that I can find. In June 2008 Queensparker had this to say on a review site:

"This is my first GPS product and I hate it. It has lots of features that I don't need. The three features that I do need; reliability, good battery life and clear mapping, it singularly fails to deliver. (Granted the last is partly down to the OS). Getting the maps onto it requires more passwords and registrations that you can shake a stick at. First time around, after I had spent hours struggling with it, it transpired that the machine was faulty and had to go back. They replaced it but forgot to tell me that this messes up all of those registrations etc. This was a present, otherwise it would be on e bay a.s.a.p. I guess that they are all like this. I am not going to try another. The one saving grace was they they do have possibly the best customer support that I have ever encountered after many years of gadget use."

The Garmin eTrex is one of the world's most popular GPS receivers as evidenced by all the good reviews you see on the internet. Of course, you don't always have to hand hold the eTrex. You can purchase an automotive bracket with suction cup for your windscreen or you can even buy handlebar mounting brackets to use the unit on your bicycle or a marine mount for your boat. For walking, it fits neatly into your hand.