I've been quite happy with mine, for the way I use it. As we've discussed here before, most of the handheld GPS units have a pretty small screen for vehicle use. It's pretty tough to see a 2" screen in a bouncing truck. But, the GPS is excellent for giving you position, which you can then transfer to a paper map and plot/confirm your route. You can preload a track to follow with waypoints, but I've never used that function. They're also handy for recording your track, so you have a "back door" if you end up uncertain of your surroundings (i.e. lost). Also, I've found the Garmin software to be pretty good with road/trail/goat path names and numbers for cross reference to a map. Of course, the nice thing about a handheld is that it is useful many places other than in your truck.
The 60CSx has the SiRF III chipset and is WAAS enabled, and it has a really good ability to get you connected to satellites even in tree cover. I had an external antenna on my truck for a while, but it died, and now I just run off the integrated antenna in the unit. I can't say I've missed the external antenna, the unit seems better able to get the location accuracy down into the teens without it.
Others will certainly point out that the Garmin maps are not at the 1:24k level of detail of USGS maps and tools like Craig's Overland Navigator, but neither are my DeLorme Gazetteers, and so far that hasn't left me seriously off course. But then, I've done all my wandering in Oregon, Washington and Northern California, and I find that once I'm outside of the urban area, I never feel lost... I don't know what's in the car kit, but for a mount, you can't go wrong with a RAM. I have mine on the dash on a RAM, with a hard wired power cord. |