I ran over to Bestbuy this morning to look at a GPS for the truck and there are SEVERAL to choose from. The sales person was helpfull but kept leaning me towards some 400$ touch screen beast that was as big as a lap top.

What have ya'll used that works well for off roading? I'd like something small that I can mount to the dash and not have it cover the entire stereo/heater control area.

Thanks again folks.

 

Stick with Garmin, they're rugged and the there's lots of applications out there for them.

Have you considered a handheld unit? With a vehicle mounting kit, you'd get the best of both worlds; handheld for hiking, hunting, etc and a mounted navagator in your rig.

 

I have a garmin e-trex legend cx (https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=8701# )and I love it! It's color and does what I need. It's a handheld and it works great in my truck or plane or whatever. Plus you can get map upgrades for topo and street and trip stuff. I have one of those cell phone mount things that have a suction cup to hold it. Works great.

 

I have a Quest (original). It has an internal battery if you want to go on foot. The drawback is you need to add/remove maps to it via computer. You don't need to have a computer attached to use the device, just to upload the maps for the area you are going to be.

The remans are as good as new and you can get those for cheap -- http://www.amazon.com/Remanufactured.../dp/B000GE9Z9M

 

i got the garmin 205 and it rocks... simple and has some great features...thats what i recomend

 

I have a garmin rhino 530 and I love it. Does all I need and is handheld. I dont really like the ones that mount to the dash or windshield. it is also a two-way radio if your in to that. just my two cents.

 

i got a magellan 1412 with the 4in touch screen. great for in the car, very easy to see. the only problem is it's not portable per se. there was a posting in misc for sale section on pirate of a handheld recently so be sure and check that. it you want to download offroad/topo maps, or way points for geocaching the handhelds are usually the way to go, but be sure and check the manufacturers website first since only certain models will allow this. as you will probably find out there isn't one that's perfect for everything.

 

here it is:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showt...&highlight=gps

 

get whatever is cheapest, as long as it has a good review

also, check out this site and wait for one to come up on there adn it will be cheaper

 

we've used a magellan for awhile, but it froze up on us right in the middle of a trip to an outer island, and kind of stuck us in the boonies. luckily our phones had gps so we could navigate back to our hotel.

my wife replaced it with a garmin (from BB) and it's lighter, smaller, with a better display. it tells you which way to turn, but not street names (didn't want to pay $$$ more just to hear the street names - the magellan didn't say street names either, and it wasn't a big deal). sorry i dunno the model #, though. i think it was only like $149 or so.

 

With this model, can you create waypoints(breadcrumbs) to follow back out? I am in the market for a good GPS that I can have leave a "marker" so I can follow it back if I get off my path.

 

The Quest does that, dunno about others.

 

I have used the garmin Etrex cx before, its a great GPS, you can upload the street software, and it has names and all, i saw another post on how to make it "traveler friendly", tell you where hotels are and such but i dont know which one it was, it was on here. and it does do waypoints, which is a great thing to have.

 

I just got the garmin etrex vista HCx for Christmas, and its awesome, best of both worlds, because its very portable, very durable and water resistant. it has a color display with tons of features and topo and street maps are available for it. im pretty sure if you get the right maps it will do turn by turn direction. i have the car mount for it with the car charger and it works great. and battery life is like 25 hours of continual use. so id say check it out

 

It automatically leaves a trail and stores it so that you can back track. You can also set waypoints. I like it a lot and have used the heck out of it! The only bad thing is having to buy maps because they are pricy. Of course you could always do a search with utorrent or kaza.