Comments on: Garmin eTrex H Handheld GPS Navigator

By: Alan Schultz

Alan Schultz — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:54:45 +0000

Received the item yesterday, and put some old batteries into it. Batteries showed O.K., so I placed the unit in a West facing window, and left it there for a couple of hours. Nothing happened, no satellites were acquired. Having previously seen comments about original acquisition taking a couple to several hours, I began to wonder.

This afternoon, I put fresh batteries into the eTrex H, found an open parking lot, no trees within 100 or so feet and turned it on. Satellites were acquired within 5 minutes it seemed, probably well within 5 minutes. Given this, and assuming that other features work as described, the eTrex H should certainly serve well enough as a basic hand held unit.

Rating: 4 / 5

By: annielaurie

annielaurie — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:10:17 +0000

Well, after finally getting the hang of this not-very-intuitive unit to do some geocaching with my son, I have become increasingly frustrated with its unreliable accuracy. Sometimes we are 20+ feet from a cache, according to the GPS, when we manage to find the cache on our own. The worst thing that I’ve noticed, though, is that we can be standing completely motionless and the directional arrow will wave in all directions and the distance to destination will change by as much as 10 or 12 feet. Is this common? Why does this happen?

Others’ reviews have been much more positive and I’m wondering whether I’m expecting too much from such an inexpensive GPS. I am returning but not exchanging. Bummer…
Rating: 2 / 5

By: Virginia

Virginia — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:09:46 +0000

I would like to know if this unit will be dependable to get from Point A to Point B and back to Point A on a lake. When it is turned off and back on, will it still remember where Point A was and get me back?
Rating: 3 / 5

By: A. Good

A. Good — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:44:48 +0000

I bought this, as I felt that my Garmin 60CSx was overkill for what I needed, which is essentially backtrack and waypoint abilities in deep forest. With FRESH batteries and a wide open field, I was unable to fix my location. I tried in multiple places. I let the unit ask me if I had moved several hundred miles since my last location (it thought I was at Garmin HQ), and I said “YES.” It would show the satellites in different positions from where my 60CSx indicated they were. I am returning this unit. Don’t count on this GPS receiver for anything.
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Vincent M. Gaudini

Vincent M. Gaudini — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:43:27 +0000

This is a POS!!! Thank God that I knew to just keep climbing the mountain in an upward direction to find the dirt road!!! It was the end of the day and it was getting dark out!!! This POS!!! gps had us going in the wrong direction!!! My adult son was arguing with me insisting the gps was correct, it was NOT!!! Like I said Thank “God” I’m an old-timer with a good backwoods sense of direction and got us both out of a potentially dangerous situation!!!

DON’T BUY THIS PRODUCT IT WILL GET YOU LOST!!!

Rating: 1 / 5