Product Review

Garmin eTrex Venture HC customer reviews

Global Rating: 4.25 from 4 reviews.

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rating	title	date	name	city state/province country
	Nice unit. Docs wheeze (3/5)	Sep 5, 2007	Peter H DuBrule	Garland Texas US
	Primary interest is Geocaching. Some experience with map and compass but totally new to hand held GPS. Have a laptop based system that I use when I travel. Bought the Venture HC and then got the book by Geocaching.com from Amazon. So far I've managed to learn downloading waypoints and I've mastered the absolute basics of the GPS. The unit seems to work fine. Garmin, listen-up, your documentation stinks! I have both the unit and $100.00 worth of Topo US 2008 software. Neither says anything about how to load maps onto the GPS. Both my wife and I have advanced degrees. My wife writes process documentation for manufacturing companies. Trust me, the one size fits all approach to manual writing does not work! (Editor's note: The directions for downloading maps come with the MapSource software at http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/MapSource_MapSourceUsersGuide.pdf beginiing on page 8.) So far we've found 6 of the 8 caches we have looked for. The unit obviously functions fine and is quite accurate. However, prospective buyer beware, unless you already have the knowledge, plan on learning "how" some other way than by the manuals that come with the equipment.
	eTrex Venture HC (5/5)	Aug 24, 2007	Freddy Ray	Spartanburg South Carolina US
	I received my eTrex Venture HC yesterday and immediately went to places my eTrex Venture Cx would not pick up. There is a true difference between the two. The thickly-wooded areas do not pose any problem for the Venture HC. There is clear reception as well as detailed accuracy. I drove into the city this morning, and the Venture HC has excellent reception inside my office. There is no comparison between the two if you're looking for better reception in a GPS. I'm looking forward to some geocaching this weekend to show this off to my buddies.
	My first GPS (4/5)	Feb 5, 2008	Denise Skidmore	Rochester NY US
	I've always navigated the back trails by map and dead reckoning, but was shamed into buying a GPS when a couple things didn't go my way when leading a group hike. I would have sprung for one of the SD card based units if I had realized I could download unofficial 24K topos for it. The official map offerings are not good for county/state park hiking, so I went for the cheaper Venture HC. Pros: I'm very pleased with the reception, quite clear in my house or anywhere in my car, a few satelites even get through the steel building where I work. The unit is very configurable, letting you change data fields, displays, and "pages". I also quickly voided my warranty by loading some maps from another source, and they display great. The software interface (see my comments below about the physical controls) was very easy to use and self-explanitory. I spent little time refering to the manual after I got the batteries in. Cons: The unit is ambidexterous in the sense that it's just as uncomfortable to use with the right hand as with the left. Both hands are needed for extended use. This is especially true of anyone that does not have big man-hands. I agree with the previous review about the manual being rather sparse, I ended up using wikipedia to find out that some of the available data fields relate to aviation, and that's why I don't recognize them. I have yet to look all of them up. Overall the interface is easy enough to use that I didn't need to read much of the manual. I was just disappointed when trying to look up the function of some obscure features. The trip computer does not handle the accuracy issues while sitting still very well. I've had it display my average moving speed higher than my max speed when sitting still. The fact that it records a speed at all is due to the inaccuracies of GPS, so it understandably thinks I moved when I didn't. My complaint is that the two numbers should be self-consistant. I have not yet seen this error while actually in motion. You may want to pencil down your trip computer numbers before a break and reset after the break. Conclusion: Although I listed more cons than pros, I really am happy with the unit. (I was a software tester for four years, I am in the habit of finding and describing flaws.) It meets all my needs, and my unofficial map source rounds out the features I couldn't find elsewhere. (There are cool official maps available for one of the competitor units, but the unit itself is reputed to crash alot and be no good. The Garmin maps were less complete, but the units and customer service sounded rock solid.)
	etrex venture (5/5)	Dec 28, 2009	dave jacka	st. paul minnesota US
	this is my 3rd gps unit. it is by far my best unit. colar screen is so much clear than the old gray screens. the font size is good. i was able to down load the topo map and road map. it makes getting around in the woods very easy.

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