Garmin eTrex Legend Cx

(Apparently the HCx has replaced the Cx. It seems to be the same, except more accurate.)

I received this GPSr for Christmas in 2006. I learned to use it shortly thereafter and Ashley and I have been geocaching ever since. While this has been used mostly for caching, we have also tracked some of our travels with the Tracks feature. (Tracks is a breadcrumb-like trail that shows where one has been.) This feature enables us to retrace our footsteps and has helped us return to our vehicle a number of times, extra helpful as we rarely mark it’s position.

Physical – The Legend Cx has a color screen with bright backlight. Backlight has been plenty bright for us (and we’ve never used it higher than the medium setting), and even functions semi-well as a flashlight (tested both searching for caches and for the car).
The Legend has a total of 6 buttons. After some practice, both Ashley and myself are able to do everything with a single hand, using the index finger and thumb to work the controls. We have found the “joystick” located on the front of the GPSr to be fairly intuitive.

Navigation – The Legend comes preloaded with a base map. In the rural region where we live, this included only the main highways and interstates in the area.
Not too long after receiving the GPSr, we got a copy of MapSource (Garmin’s interface) with the US’s topo maps. We have since loaded the topo maps for the areas we most commonly travel (about half of Kentucky) and still have about 50 mb left of the given 64 mb card. A larger (1gb) micro SD card was purchased in order to give us more saving capacity.
We have only used the directions (by road) feature a couple of times. It does a fairly good job of routing our trip.

Signal – The Cx seems to have problems with overhead cover. There are times it will take us right where we want to go, but others it will just get us in the general area.
This works well for us, as our style is to get within about 30 feet and just spread out and start looking. If we set the GPSr down, it will settle fairly quickly and give us more accurate readings.

Pros
• Intuitive (for us, at least) interface, simple with only a few controls
• Rugged – has survived a few drops and bounces
• Water Resistant – haven’t tested more than some rain, but so far so good!

Cons
• Overhead cover can prove frustrating

We definitely enjoy our Legend and would not hesitate to recommend it to others. There are other GPSr’s out there, some cheaper and some more expensive, but for what we need, the Legend is a good compromise between price and features.

If you are interested in purchasing an eTrex Legend for yourself, here’s your chance!