|
Garmin eTrex Venture HC High-Intensity Color Mapping Handheld GPS | 
 enlarge | Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
Buy New: Too low to display
New (60)
Avg. Customer Rating:  50 reviews
Platform: Not Machine Specific
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Tracks: 10
Batteries: 2
Batteries Included: No
Native Resolution: 176x220
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.1
Dimensions (in): 1.2 x 2 x 4.4
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: eTrex Venture HC
Model: eTrex Venture HC
UPC: 753759072872
EAN: 0753759072872
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Features:
| • | Handheld GPS navigator with high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver | | • | Locates position quickly and precisely and maintains GPS location in heavy cover | | • | 24 MB internal memory; detailed basemap with lakes, highways, railroads, and more | | • | 256-color, sunlight-readable TFT display; 500 waypoints with names and symbols | | • | Requires 2 AA batteries; measures 2.2 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches (W x H x D); 1-year warranty |
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
An essential for any outdoor excursion, the Garmin eTrex Venture HC helps you navigate through the toughest terrain. The unit is equipped with a high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver, which locates your position quickly and precisely and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and deep canyons. The advantage is clear: whether you're traipsing through thick woods or strolling near tall buildings and trees, you can count on the Venture HC to help you find your way when you need it the most. At the same time, the Venture HC's easy-to-use menu lets you create and view waypoints (up to 500), save and view 10 track logs, access setup features, and more. It even offers 24 MB of internal memory and a detailed basemap, so you can load waypoints and routes from the included MapSource Trip & Waypoint Manager software and add map detail from Garmin's entire line of optional MapSource mapping products. Besides appreciating its small size, outdoorsmen will also be happy with the Venture HC's unique button layout, with five buttons located on either side of the unit. The benefits of this design are twofold: First, the Venture HC is a breeze to operate with just one hand, and, second, with the buttons on both sides of the unit, the bulk of the front is dedicated to the 256-color, sunlight-readable TFT display. This makes it easy to distinguish map details regardless of the time of day. The Venture HC's basemap, meanwhile, contains lakes, rivers, cities, interstates, national and state highways, railroads, and coastlines--in short, a host of helpful details for your outdoor adventures. Other details include an IPX7 waterproof housing, a built-in patch antenna, a USB interface, a hunt/fish calendar, sun and moon information, and a geocaching mode. The Venture HC, which runs for up to 14 hours on a pair of AA batteries (not included), measures 2.2 by 4.2 by 1.2 inches (W x H x D) and is backed by a one-year warranty. What's in the Box
eTrex Venture HC, basemap, MapSource Trip & Waypoint Manager software, USB cable, wrist strap, quick start guide, user's manual.
Product Description
eTrex Venture HC is an essential for any outdoor excursion. It features a high-sensitivity GPS receiver for peak performance in any environment and includes 24 megabytes (MB) of internal memory, a detailed basemap and crisp color screen.With its high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver, eTrex Venture HC locates your position quickly and precisely and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and deep canyons. The advantage is clear - whether you're in deep woods or just near tall buildings and trees, you can count on Venture HC to help you find your way when you need it the most.eTrex Venture HC's basemap contains lakes, rivers, cities, interstates, national and state highways, railroads and coastlines. Venture HC also includes 24 MB of internal memory, so you can load waypoints and routes from the included MapSource Trip & Waypoint Manager software and add map detail from Garmin's entire line of optional MapSource mapping products. Its 256-color, sunlight-readable display makes it easy to distinguish map details - even in bright sunlight.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 An outdoor GPS receiver as revolutionary as the original eTrex February 4, 2008
72 out of 72 found this review helpful
Before buying this new Venture HC, I had spent many hours trekking with several of the original eTrex models over the years. I think it's fair to say that while the concept of the original eTrex was great, the execution was frequently disappointing.
It disappoints no more. This new Venture HC is the eTrex perfected. It remedies almost every shortcoming that plagued the original models. The new high-sensitivity receiver is amazingly effective. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've stood in wide open spaces cursing my old eTrex because it wouldn't acquire even a single satellite. Last night I turned on the Venture HC on the bottom floor of my two story house, and it locked on to 7 or 8 satellites...through the roof and the upper floor. No more "need a clear view of the sky" messages. Amazing!
The screen has gone color, and the user interface is now substantially more intuitive, while adding even more functionality. The old serial cable has become USB, another welcome improvement. The case is somewhat redesigned (it's wider), but it remains very similar to the original. If you owned an old eTrex you will find a lot of familiar design elements in the Venture HC.
A basemap is included but it is just that...basic. It shows the largest highways, bodies of water, and has some limited capability to display highway exit services. Still, if you need turn-by-turn street directions, an eTrex is not what you want. This is a GPS receiver true to Garmin's outdoor heritage.
Promised battery life (14 hours) is near the bottom of the range when compared to the existing eTrex models, but is still perfectly adequate and has posed no problems.
One weakness that remains is Garmin's waypoint manager PC software. It has the feel of a product whose version 1.0 was released circa 1992 and has never been updated. Garmin could certainly include a better PC interface. For $59 you can buy ExpertGPS, which is excellent. Or Topografix is giving away EasyGPS for free on its website. Either is superior to the Garmin OEM software. If anyone at Garmin is listening, you guys really should consider licensing the rights to ExpertGPS and throwing your current PC software out.
Still, this criticism is a quibble when third party workarounds are available. The Venture HC itself is great. It is a market changing product, in my opinion. Finally, an outdoor GPS receiver that I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Better Reception with the eTrex Venture HC October 19, 2007
38 out of 41 found this review helpful
I was very pleased with the purchase of my new eTrex Venture HC. I've used a Garmin Legeng Cx for geocaching for the last year and coords jump off too much under heavy canopy. This is not the case with the new eTrex Venture HC. I was also able to load Topo and City maps without any trouble using my old software. I also had no problems loading waypoints directly using GSAK software.
 Vast Improvement over earlier models. October 4, 2007
26 out of 29 found this review helpful
This is my second Garmin GPS. I was the first kid on my block to get their original eTrex and, at the time, it was a super help for someone who spends many days afield each year. Suddenly, wandering around became do-able for someone w/o orienteering training. I bought this unit because I was looking for quicker acquisition of satellites and better reception under the tree canopy. And it does those things well, and more! With 24mb of internal memory, and available topo maps to download, the Venture HC is a powerful tool for the newbie outdoorsperson and more advanced traveller alike. I'm very impressed with the power, size, and price. You can't go wrong with this little GPS!
Great for geocaching, astronomy! March 10, 2008
23 out of 25 found this review helpful
I got this unit after much research into different brands and, after settling on Garmin, different models. It's a great all-around GPS at a great price. It's my first, so I can't comment on the increased sensitivity of the HC chip, but I get plenty of coverage inside my house, and when I step outside the accuracy goes to about 9'. I would have liked the compass and altimeter of the Vista, but really don't have much need for them since I'm not an avid hiker, and didn't need to spend the extra money.
The Venture HC is great for geocaching. I took my family out on our first hunt last weekend, and although we only had about an hour to spare, we had a great time finding caches stashed around a park nearby. I can see this as a fun family activity on road trips as well. The Venture has built-in geocaching features that let you download waypoints directly from geocacher.com (using the free Garmin browser plugin), and even mark caches as found right on the GPS. The color screen is very readable in sunlight. Although the Venture HC doesn't have a proper compass, the "compass" page is very useful for closing in on the target.
The Venture HC is also great for amateur astronomers. My computerized telescope needs to know lat/long/time to accurately slew to and track objects in the sky. I can get coordinates on standard addresses on geocoder.us, but if I just want to set up at a dark site somewhere, a GPS is a must. Rather than pay $200 to get the GPS option on my scope, I can use this general purpose GPS and just plug the numbers into the telescope's controller, or even connect through my laptop. Although any GPS will give you the time and location, not all have as nice a backlit screen as this one, a good thing when you're out in the dark. The customizable color schemes (with automatic night mode) and the variable backlight intensity are also great for astronomy to keep stray light to a minimum.
If I'm disappointed with anything it is with the built-in base map. Again, because this is my first GPS I was somehow expecting more detail, not necessarily in terms of street names, but certainly with respect to canals, mountains, even major cross streets etc. The only features I've been able to distinguish are freeways, lakes and cities. There are many mountains where I live and none of them are shown on the map. More detailed topo maps are available, but cost anywhere from $80-$120. I'm not subtracting any stars for this, because I'm sure all basemaps are pretty much the same. And with 24MB of memory, there's room for decent quality maps.
Garmin updated the firmware for the Venture in February 2008, so one of the first things I did was download their free WebUpdater utility to automatically install updates. I had one scary moment when my GPS lost the USB connection in the middle of the process, and I was worried my unit would be disabled. But after turning it off and back on it came right back up and, after a second try, the new firmware was installed in about 5 minutes.
All in all, I'm very happy with the quality of this unit. It feels sturdy yet light weight, with a nice rubberized feel to it. It's also waterproof, so no trouble using it in the rain. The interface took a little getting used to, but after a while it becomes second nature. The Venture lets you customize almost every screen to your taste; for example, I wanted to have time, elevation and location on the same page for astronomy purposes, so I set one of the screens up to show all these fields. At $130, the price point was perfect: significantly lower than the next model up (sacrificing only the compass/altimeter and microSD slot), and not much higher than plain-vanilla black & white units without geocaching features.
I highly recommend it.
Great geocaching unit at a good price (with notes for Mac users) February 11, 2008
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
I was totally chessed off at Magellan when my Explorist 100 died under warranty and they refused to support or repair it (this was a new unit!). So I only considered Garmin based on liking my car unit.
Mac Users:
It's a bit tricky, but I am able to use the USB cable and the 'send to Garmin' to automatically load waypoints from geocaching.com. One warning is that they have a Mac firmware web updater and it's very new and froze on my attempt to use it, which blanked my unit. [...]. I did the update for this unit on a friends PC and it went fine.
There are some Mac caching software, but none of them are working for me with this unit. So keep that in mind if you really want to go beyond the web waypoint downloads. That's a bummer, since Maccaching and GeoJournal look like they'd be great.
The included software does not work on a Mac, so ignore that CD. From the Garmin site, you can download the plugin for Mac to make Safari aware of the unit so you can do the "send to Garmin' trick. They also have the Mac version of their WebUpdater (the one that hosed my first unit) on their site. Finally, you don't need any USB drivers for Tiger or Leopard OSX, so don't worry about them only being for Windows on the Garmin site.
Usage:
Crazy fast turn on and acquiring satellites. We are thrilled that we can turn it on in the car and it will start to pick up satellites right away. Our Magellin (an cheap 100 unit) would take awhile even outside in cloudcover.
It also seems to save all the time, as the shutdown is very fast, with no 'saving' note like our Magellin made us wait for.
I guess our only complaint is that we like to use the backlight a lot and that sucks batteries. It's winter now, and so many days and locations are dim, and without the backlight, the unit can be pretty dim to read. It takes 2 AA's. It also has a system pref for the type of battery you use (Alkaline, NiMH or LiOn), why? Maybe to only USB charge when they are NiMH's?? But remember to set that to the correct type.
We really love auto loading the coordinates. And even with the free account on Geocaching.com, we get the cache name, GC# and coordinates. That saves tons of time and mistakes. We find ourselves loading up any cache that interests us, just in case.
Accuracy:
The unit seems right on. Our other unit would usually be more like 20-30 feet accurate in the woods, and this one led us right to the cache and showed 16' accuracy at that point under normal tree cover. It also refreshes more often than our old unit, so it feels more responsive. No more going 20 feet and then seeing that the arrow just didn't update to show we were going the wrong way, or overshot.
Build:
It seems solid and took our last rainy hike well. The back has a bit of a gap, but the seal must lock in fine. It uses the 'D' lock, so just half a twist to lock and unlock, which is fast and appreciated on a cold cache while changing batteries. We always had to dig to get the Magellin's ring out and turning to pop the back.
Thumb toggle:
If you've used the old Garmin's with button input, the toggle on the front is really welcomed. We zip through data entry and you push the toggle in to accept an entry. It's also a shortcut to Mark your current location (holding down the toggle button). Another tip is that holding down the lower left button brings up the 'Find' menu quickly.
Speed:
One thing I noted was that when I went just one setting more on 'detail' for the maps, it really cut the redraw speed (which is a tad slow to begin with), so that was disappointing.
Hope that helps someone and happy caching!
for Team Spiderweb4-2
|
|
|
|
2005-2007 Zone1electronics All rights reserved.
| |
