Garmin e. Trex 2. GPS Tracklog. Hands on with the Garmin e. Trex 2. 0The Garmin e. Trex 2. 0 is the mid- range model of three new units that bring a long- awaited update to the popular e. Trex series, which now offers paperless geocaching, new customization options and Birds. Eye aerial imagery capability. I’ll get into all the details in a moment, but first let’s look at what separates the e. Overview The Garmin Vista HCx, brings a high sensitive receiver to Garmin's popular line of eTrex handheld units. It features a small GPS receiver and navigator with. Trex 2. 0 from the other models in the series. Unlike the Oregon and 6. Here it is with a carabiner clip attached, which I found somewhat difficult to remove. Oddly enough, I had no trouble removing it from the standard Garmin bike mount. Here’s the battery compartment, showing the micro. SD card slot and the mini- USB connector under the top rear flap. You can change the order of items by pressing the menu button. If you select another screen (e. Garmin e. Trex 2. 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 2. 0. These include. The e. Trex 2. 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 2. 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. Garmin Connect Community for tracking, analysis and sharing; Garmin Express Maps and software to manage your devices. Garmin Connect Aktivitäten verfolgen, analysieren und teilen; Garmin Express Geräte und Karten verwalten und. ETrex 30x is our upgraded version of the popular eTrex 30, with enhanced screen resolution for a more readable display and internal memory expanded to hold more maps. Click any location on map to find downloadable maps for Garmin® and compatible navigators. Then click 'show on map' link in search results to see the area covered by. Download free GPS software for your Garmin eTrex Vista HCx GPS! 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 2. 0.”More e. Trex 2. 0 features of note. Route, Track and Waypoint management. The e. Trex 2. 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 2. 0 is no exception. GPS File Depot is an excellent source of maps for the e. Trex. A note about map management. I’m not sure whether this is a bug or not, but the e. Trex handles maps differently than other recent Garmin models. When I loaded multiple maps, renaming them one at a time, they showed up in Map Setup as one combined mapset (shown at right). UPDATE: It appears that this may not have been a Garmin issue. It is possible that a My. Trails update on October 3. I can now upload individual mapsets, although I stil have a corrupted file that I can’t get rid of! Customizing the Garmin e. Trex 2. 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 2. 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 (the elevation dashboard is only available on the e. Trex 3. 0). 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. Garmin e. Trex 2. 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)? I set out to find out, but there is one caveat: I’ve yet to come up with a good way to test geocaching accuracy. 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 2. 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. Garmin e. Trex 2. Small display. Mapsets combined even though renamed from gmapsupp. Distance to destination cycling and tracklog separation (and possibly the mapset issue) point to immature firmware. No electronic compass or barometric altimeter. No wireless data transfer or chirp compatibility. Garmin e. Trex 2. Despite some early bugs, I like the e. Trex 2. 0, and think it will be a good first unit for all sorts of outdoors lovers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
October 2017
Categories |