VizmayaTech

I used this in my recent trip to SFO. I was expecting it to lose satellite signal while driving through narrow roads between tall buildings (my earlier GPS – Garmin eMap did not hold a signal in same conditions), but it held up extremely well. The turn by turn directions are pretty good.

The internal memory is a bit less (24 MB) for detailed map, but sufficient for most situations. I think I can load up to 1/3 of California into this. You can always load up new maps easily through the USB interface. The screen is somewhat small, but the navigation text is pretty big, and most of the time that is all I need while driving.

For the price, it is an excellent value for money. I haven’t seen another GPS that is color screen, both hiking and vehicle navigation use, turn by turn directions (no voice, though), excellent satellite signal reception and loads of other features. There are some cool games too.

My favorite is the ‘highway’ page, which shows a 3-D view of the road ahead, and the next turn shows up as a sign post. The 3-D view is not same as the 3-D feature some of the GPS’s offer. It is much simpler in eTrex, but very useful.

The short clip below shows how the GPS shows an upcoming turn. As shown in the clip, the GPS can be configured to ‘zoom in’ on the turn. Note that the vertical color stripes on the screen are due to the artifacts in the video clip, and NOT of the GPS itself.