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Garmin Rino 530HCx customer reviews

Global Rating: 5.00 from 9 reviews.

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rating title date name city state/province country
Huge Improvement (5/5) Jul 28, 2007 Mike Mills Flagstaff AZ US
  I have a Rino 130 and 530. The first thing I noticed with the 530HCx is that it took 30 seconds to acquire 9 satellites in my house, my 530 has been acquiring for 3 minutes and it only has 3 satellites. I have a 2GB Lexar chip and have added almost half the US (138 maps, 752mb) to the chip. I love the Rino's and I'm sure to get lots of service out of the 530HCx.

Thanks GPSNOW.COM for the great price and the exceptionally fast shipping! Another fantastic product by Garmin.
Actual Usage Notes (5/5) Sep 3, 2007 A Espinoza San Jose CA US
  FRS - Impressive. 2 miles loud & clear, 2.5 miles usable w/ crackles even with trees and some buildings. 2 miles or less loud and clear even with some trees and buildings. Tall thick buildings will cut off signals. Able to cut through thick brush, trees and even some ground blockage, not completely dependent on clear line of sight. Excellent FRS capability.

GPS - maintains full satelite signal lock even in ground floor of stucco-wood building. Signal dies off in underground garages and inside heavy cement/steel buildings. Maintains excellent signal lock under thick canopies and in some steep ravines. Signal weakens only in areas with shear walls cutting off one to three sides. Have *not* lost signal once in mountains and forests. Expect signal to cut off in caves or under rock overhang.

User Interface - easy to learn, relatively easy to use in the field.

Loc Tracking - Excellent for tracking other 530HCx units in rough terrains. FRS range makes this extremely effective in gathering everyone together at checkpoints.

Battery Life - Excellent. Easily lasts 16+ hours constant-ON with sporadic FRS transmission to report location and guide to regroup. Heavy usage cuts to 12-14 hours.

Charge-Time - from 33% to 100% takes only about 4 hours.

Compass - Somewhat weak, not better than high quality mil-spec compass. I will still carry a high grade compass and maintain orientation skills.

Altitude - Usable but estimates only and flluctuates too much at times as to be unreliable. Same units placed side by side can read a difference of 10+ ft. I will still carry a topographic map and learn how to use it.

In general, GPS and FRS in combination serve as excellent team coordination tools. Compass and altitude are convenient but cannot yet fully replace plain old compass and topo. Unit is rugged and continue to function as normal even after accidental drop.

An excellent product over all. Very satisfied with its field performance.
Ride Review (5/5) Sep 4, 2007 M. Russell Larkspur CO US
  Pros:
It’s smaller than it appears in the pictures
EXCELLENT display in all light levels
Excellent sound quality on the headset.
Excellent satellite reception!
Excellent Battery Life!

Cons:
Cheap, clip-on adapter required to charge batteries with either the 120 VAC wall charger or the 12V Car Adapter.
On/Off switch is hard to get at and is impossible to use with gloves.
The controls on the front get pressed when the unit is inserted in an enclosed case.
The battery sticks out the back side quite a bit
Menu access required for changing the volume or squelch settings.
Choice of tones not very robust. (Too many useless tones, not enough useful tones. i.e. A Standard “Ring” Tone.)
I miss the Satellite Page and the Navigation Page. (You must now go to the Main Page and select the appropriate Icon.)

I spent four days riding dirt bikes with the Rino 530 HCx in the Rocky Mountains. The unit is shorter and narrower, but is much thicker than it appears in the pictures. The display is excellent and easily adjustable for a variety of lighting conditions and it even switches day/night modes automatically. Satellite reception is phenomenal! I live in a 2-story log home and had up to 8 satellites at once from my basement and I had strong signals from 10 satellites in an area surrounded by trees in the mountains! I never had the opportunity to test the radio range, but the clarity is impressive. After four days of camping and riding, the battery was still half full. I used the GPS about 4 hours each day but only used the FRS/GMRS radio a handful of times. I also love the ability to store Tracks onto the memory card, then clear the track stored in the GPS, itself, before the start of a new ride. I loaded all of the MapSource 24K Topo data for all of Colorado and Utah. All of this data, combined with the stored tracks from 3 days of riding, left 93% of the memory on the 2GB microSD card still free!

One thing I miss from my eTrex Legend, was the ability to have the Satellite page and the Navigation page as listed “Pages” on the menu. To access either of these on the 530, you must first go to the Main Menu page then click on the desired icon. I used the Ultimate GPS Case tie-wrapped onto the front of my chest protector, but inserting the 530 into the case causes one or more of the controls on the front of the unit to be pressed. The controls need to be a little more recessed or protected. The power switch, on the other hand, (which also functions as the display adjustment) is recessed between the antennas and a little hard to get to. It proved to be impossible to operate with riding gloves on.

The satellite reception capabilities, the display quality, the radio clarity and strength, and the 2GB of memory make this a winner! I will be ordering more of them for the remainder of my family.
Newbie Perspective (5/5) Jul 31, 2007 Tom D'Aprix Auburn New Hampshire US
  I'm new to GPS/Geocaching and when I started looking for my own GPS unit, I chose the 530HCx and waited and waited for its release. Based on my 2 days with it so far, it was worth the wait.

First thing that I noticed was that it got a position fix from 6 satellites from inside my house! Contrast that to my TomTom that can't get any signal inside!

Next thing that impressed me was the fit and finish; It definitely feels solid and durable. And it is; I've already managed to drop it on the kitchen floor without any problems.

Next thing is that so far, I've been able to figure just about everything out without resorting to the manual which is a testament to a well designed user interface.

Overall, I'm happy with my choice to wait for the 530HCx to become available and that I didn't settle for a lesser device.
Another Great Product From Garmin (5/5) Oct 7, 2007 Kerry Shroy Jacksonville OR US
  I own the Rino 120 and 130 and was interested in getting a new GPS that would work in thick cover and have a color screen. This GPS does just what it's supposed to. I used it on a recent deer hunt in areas that the 120 or 130 would not stay locked onto a signal.

The 530HCx locked on fast and stayed locked on the whole time. The color screen is easy to see, bright with good contrast. The electronic compass is also a plus.

The only problem I've had is the compass froze up a couple times but I just recalibrated it and it would start working again.

The radio works well and being able to keep track of my son while hunting keeps me out of trouble at home.
The Best of the Best (5/5) Mar 24, 2008 Randy Benetti Grants Pass Oregon US
  I have used many gps's in the field for search and rescue, hunting, traveling, fires and giving landing locations for rotor craft, the 530HCx is the best gps I have used. The radio works great, the ability to locate other hunts in our group is a real plus (providing they are using a rhino with the radio), and sending messages to other hunters in your group without making a noise is great! As for the gps, I have never had one that would work indoors at my house, and that says something for it's ability to work in heavy brush or under the canopy of trees. If you want a real gps with a live compass and many more features than you will probably ever use, this is the gps you want. I walked around my property to test the area calculator built into the gps, and it works great. Hunting and fishing calculators, sun and moon phases, calendar, stop watch, the list goes on and on! I even bought a mount for the truck and one on the Honda 650 Rhino ATV.
Great Product (5/5) Aug 7, 2007 John Veloza Tiverton RI US
  I waited 2 months for this Radio/GPS from another distributor. After a long wait I decided to get it somewhere else. GPSNOW was the only place that had it in stock at a great proce. The GPS is super fast and the radio is great. I loaded the entire US and Canada street maps on a 2 gig card with room to spare. This was worth the wait.
Thanks Garmin for another great product and Thanks GPSNOW for great customer service.
The Best (5/5) Aug 6, 2007 Steve Nelson 949 West st San Luis Obispo US
  This is a very hard to get product now. I ordered from others and was told their shipment was damaged, I have to wait a few weeks, so cancelled the order. I ordered two from gpsnow and received them the next day. The price was very good too. I traveled a lot of Ukraine and Russia in the last year and could get maps of the state roads and big cities for both countries. At the time I had the Garmin 60cx. While I can not say it saved my life for sure, I would never travel a country again where I did not speak the language or read the road signs with out one. It is very helpful in the U.S. too, but I think for overseas traveling it is the most important thing in the backpack or luggage. For travelers in the U.S or overseas, my recommendation is save a little on the camera and get a Garmin 530 hcx. The Garmin 530 hcx seems to acquire satalittes faster than the 60cx and the 60cx worked excellent. The 530 has a lot more features and is well worth the money
The Perfect Combination (5/5) Jul 31, 2007 William Tobalske Reston VA US
  Finally..."x" series sensitivity, expandable micro-SD, and 5W transmit power. Garmin got it right this time!

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