Garmin GPSMAP 62s Review.

[lorenzell]

I have been unhappy with the typical auto GPS units sold. I've owned a Garmin and a TomTom, and both have proven to have questionable reliability. In both cases they have routed me to places that were totally off course. In Florida, I wanted to go to Gainsville and it kept insisting I go to Disney World????

So, I decided to try a Garmin GPSmap 62s. This unit is terrific. It picks up the signal quick, even hiking in the woods. It runs on batteries for many hours, so I can use it without being dependent on a power supply. It comes with a base map, so you need to add the Garmin road map for the USA. I bought it on sale for $300 at Gander MTN., and the road map was an additional $75, but it works great. Its waterproof. It does turn by turn navigation. You can add extra maps or custom maps. It has a compass, altimeter, trip computer, and many other features, some of which I haven't even tried yet. Its full of all kinds of POI's. Garmin sells a motorcycle mount for it, which I will be getting soon. If you want something better than the $100 consumer models at Best Buy, I'd highly suggest you take a look at it.

 

[Phartz]

Thanks for the review. I've been using a GPSMAP 60cs (earlier, similar model) for years now but it's getting long in the tooth and the maps can no longer be updated. I've been looking at and considering the 62s. Glad to hear you like it. Sounds like a good price too.

 

[Phartz]

I too went ahead and bought a GPSMAP 62s. It is quite the upgrade from my 6 year old 60cs. Much faster, slicker, smoother - and not too much of a "difference" shock. Where the old unit wouldn't pick up any satellites while I was still in the garage the 62s almost instantly locks on and gets a position. It calculates routes to waypoints and searches for POIs much quicker than the oldie. And the big plus is being able to load all of City Navigator North America without even installing a memory card (which it also can use). The old unit's 55 megs of internal memory would not quite even hold the parts of SoCal that I routinely travel for work. The 62s's internal memory is 1.7 gigs.

I did write to Garmin support to request a couple of firmware upgrades. One problem I have with the 62s is the list of waypoints comes up by order of distance - near to far. Yow! I've got a list of ~150 waypoints I use for work and I could get around the alphabetical list of the 60cs much easier than this random listing, "laboriously enter the name", search method.

I also requested a way to reset the odometer on the trip computer. This was just another parameter selection in the old unit but is entirely non-existent in the new one AFAIKT. The trip odometer is resettable but not the ODO. Odd.

All in all it's a very good unit if you don't need blue teeth, touch screens, voices in your head, MP3s, and microwave espresso makers in your GPSR. It's waterproof to IEC 529-ICX-7 so it's not bothered by a little rain and it's a nice, compact and ruggedly built unit.