Legend HCx vs. DeLorme PN-20

[+Hrethgir]

So just got my refurb'd PN-20 from tigergps.com Friday (9/19), and have had my Legend for a few months now. Uploaded all the maps and a PQ, then went out and did a little caching to compare the two. Here are my initial thoughts:

 

The Legend HCx will pick up satelites and get a lock from my sofa, while the PN-20 can't see any satelites, period. Kind of suprising since they both have 12 channel high sensitivity receivers. but outdoors, they both work well, although it take the PN-20 much longer to get a satelite lock. And with a clear sky, the Legend was showing +/-10ft, while the PN-20 was showing +/20ft. Might just be the way they calculate the error, who knows. But when looking for a cache, the PN-20 took me to it fine, and the paperless function is niiiiiice. For the hardware, I like the PN-20s setup a little better, with all the buttons under the screen. on the Legend, I sometimes find myself pushing the wrong side button, especially on the left, and to use the stick with my right hand (I'm right handed), I end up covering the screen and can't see what I'm doing unless I hold my hand at an odd angle. But once i get to navigating around in the units, I find them both pretty easy to use, both very intuitive, and pretty easy to customize page orders and screen info. The PN-20 falls behind with the slow map redraw speed, but the fact that it comes with topo maps and street-level detail and can autoroute out of the box is nice, as it would cost me another $100 or so to add autorouting maps to the Legend. As for the software on the computer, the Garmin mapSource is way easier to use, while the DeLorme Topo 7.0 is, well, not very intuitive... at all. Still fumbling my way around in it, but I'm getting it figured out. Seems really nice once I get it working like I want, anyways!

 

in sumarry, I really like both units, they each have strong and weak points. If I could mash them together into one unit, I would be so happy! And the DeLorme PN-40 coming out soon sounds like it may pretty much be that unit, can't wait till people start getting them, I want to see if they live up to the hype! Might have to upgrade again... once I sell these two, anyways!

[MtnHermit]

Battery Life?

 

Using identical fully charged batteries, set their odometers to zero, and run them dead, then read the odometers. I'd be curious.

[+Hrethgir]

Battery Life?

 

Using identical fully charged batteries, set their odometers to zero, and run them dead, then read the odometers. I'd be curious.

 

Well, resetting the odometers won't reall give an indication of the battery life, since and hour walking and an hour driving will use the same battery life but be a huge difference in mileage. I have tested the Garmin, though, and it made the 24 hour batery life that they claim for it, or close enough as to not make any difference. Haven't had the DeLorme long enough to say anything about the battery life on it, but they claim 14 hours. I should look thru the info on it, maybe there's something that keeps track of that. But once I have an idea of the battery life, I'll post up in here.

[+Hrethgir]

Actually, maybe I can even break these two down to pros and cons.

 

Garmin etrex Legend HCx

 

Pros:

small form factor

great battery life

easy to use PC software

nice screen

 

Cons:

controls cause me to cover the screen when using them (clickstick)

no paperless options

needs another bundle of software purchased to autoroute

 

 

DeLorme Earthmate PN-20

 

Pros:

came with topo and autorouting software

paperless caching capable

nice screen

placement of buttons under the screen

comfortable to hold

 

Cons:

slow map redraw speed

slow satellite acquisition

a little larger size than the Garmin

take a long time to calculate a route

 

 

Those are the main differences, and most of the cons of the PN-20 seem to relate to a slow processor, and there are dual processors in the upcoming PN-40, and from what I've heard from beta testers, those cons have been addressed.

[MtnHermit]

Battery Life?

 

Using identical fully charged batteries, set their odometers to zero, and run them dead, then read the odometers. I'd be curious.

Well, resetting the odometers won't reall give an indication of the battery life, since and hour walking and an hour driving will use the same battery life but be a huge difference in mileage.

The point of the odometer is TIME not distance!!!

[+Team CowboyPapa]

Battery Life?

 

Using identical fully charged batteries, set their odometers to zero, and run them dead, then read the odometers. I'd be curious.

Well, resetting the odometers won't reall give an indication of the battery life, since and hour walking and an hour driving will use the same battery life but be a huge difference in mileage.

The point of the odometer is TIME not distance!!!

That could also have been expressed as: "....total elapsed time....", and perhaps without the shouting.

[+Hrethgir]

Ah, I see, I didn't understand that, since odometers measure distance, not time. As soon as I can find a place indoors where the DeLorme can get a lock, I'll put fresh batteries in both of them and park them there with the elaped time counter set to zero, and see what I find.

[+TotemLake]

Ah, I see, I didn't understand that, since odometers measure distance, not time. As soon as I can find a place indoors where the DeLorme can get a lock, I'll put fresh batteries in both of them and park them there with the elaped time counter set to zero, and see what I find.

You're not the only one. I thought the request was a little goofy myself.

[+Team CowboyPapa]

Look at the lower left on the Trip Info page for Total Time, 10-4?

[+TotemLake]

Look at the lower left on the Trip Info page for Total Time, 10-4?

Yup. Got it. It just wasn't an intuitive request.

[+Hrethgir]

Look at the lower left on the Trip Info page for Total Time, 10-4?

Yup. Got it. It just wasn't an intuitive request.

 

That it wasn't, but I have the battery test running right now. When I got home, I tried powering the PN-20 on by an upstairs window, and I got a signal, so I grabbed the Garmin and 2 sets of fresh batteries, swapped the new batteries into both units, powered them on at the same time, rest the total trip time counter, and set them by the window. Both have signals, backlights are off, so Tuesday night, I should have some results on how long they ran before the batteries died

[+Hrethgir]

OK, just checked both units, and the PN-20 is dead, but the Legend is STILL running, just over 27 hours on the trip timer, but still running! I'll post up the final times tomorrow, but for now, I'll just leave them both alone until the Legend is dead, too.

[+Hrethgir]

Alright, here are the results if mt battery life test. Units were given fresh batteries (Energizer Industrial alkaline AAs), powered on at the same time, and left on a windowsill with satellite locks. Backlights were only on for the first 30 seconds or so while I made sure everything was working right, and then I just left them alone until the batteries died. Here's the numbers:

 

Garmin etrex Legend HCx

 

Claimed: 25 hours

Actual: 29.5 hours

 

DeLorme Earthmate PN-20

 

Claimed: 14 hours

Actual: 10.5 hours

 

The Garmin did better than claimed, while the DeLorme came up a little short. Hopefully the PN-40 will have a little better battery life, but you can still get a lot of caching done in 10 hours. And, yes, both units are set for alkalines.

[+TotemLake]

Thanks for taking the time. I'll be happy if the PN-40 has the same level of battery life or better. My MeriPlat is good for 10 hours max with all the bells and whistles off. I suspect the PN-20 rating of 14 hours is with certain features turned off.

Edited September 25, 2008 by TotemLake

[+Hrethgir]

No problem with taking the time, it wasn't that hard to put them on a windowsill and ignore them for a couple days.

 

Yeah, I agree, the 10 hours I got out of the DeLorme is plenty, but I wouldn't mind a little more. I was really surprised that the Garmin got 4 hours MORE than he claimed life, almost 30 hours is great life!

 

Anyways, if anyone has anything else about the two that I didn't mention, go ahead and ask, and I'll see if I can answer your questions.

[+Team DeLorme]

The 14 hour reference for the Earthmate PN-20 was with the device in Power Saving mode. It turns the backlight off and steps down the processor.

 

We've worked hard on the power management for the Earthmate PN-40. Tests are showing performance as good if not better than the PN-20 and that's with the dual processors, electronic compass, barometric altimeter, and accelerometer.

 

Power Saving mode is recommended if you're looking to maximize battery life. The PN "wakes up" when a button is pressed so you don't have to worry about performance when you need to reference the GPS. I use Power Saving when I'm recording tracks and using the device for occasional reference but otherwise just have it clipped to my pack or in my pocket.

 

I also recommend rechargeable batteries. If you use our Li-Ion it can be recharged in the car while you're driving from one cache to the next. I go back and forth between that for most uses and a couple of NiMH sets when I'm camping and can't recharge.

 

Chip Noble

Team DeLorme

[+Hrethgir]

The 14 hour reference for the Earthmate PN-20 was with the device in Power Saving mode. It turns the backlight off and steps down the processor.

 

We've worked hard on the power management for the Earthmate PN-40. Tests are showing performance as good if not better than the PN-20 and that's with the dual processors, electronic compass, barometric altimeter, and accelerometer.

 

Power Saving mode is recommended if you're looking to maximize battery life. The PN "wakes up" when a button is pressed so you don't have to worry about performance when you need to reference the GPS. I use Power Saving when I'm recording tracks and using the device for occasional reference but otherwise just have it clipped to my pack or in my pocket.

 

I also recommend rechargeable batteries. If you use our Li-Ion it can be recharged in the car while you're driving from one cache to the next. I go back and forth between that for most uses and a couple of NiMH sets when I'm camping and can't recharge.

 

Chip Noble

Team DeLorme

 

Cool, I kind of figured it was something like that. I just ran the test in the configuration I would use it most in is all. But going from the advertised batter life, I wasn't expecting it to be the same as the Garmins.

I do like the fact that the PN-40 is going to have very similar batter life to the PN-20, but have so much more capability. I think I'm about +/-35 feet error from getting one, and reception is excellent! Almost don't care if the wife gets mad when she sees an orange one sitting next to my yellow and gray ones!

 

In fact, Chip, you're one of the reasons I decided to buy the PN-20 even though I already had my Legend HCx. There's lots of topics about drift issues with the etrex series from Garmin, but I've never seen a post from a "Team Garmin" or something similar, and when people e-mail them about the drift stuff, most of the responses are "Drift? What drift? We don't know anything about that." But then I make a little post about my PN-20, and who pops in to comment but Chip Noble, a (correct me if I'm wrong) Lead Designer from DeLorme. And judging from what I've seen, instead of pretending there aren't problem, you've pretty much taken the PN-20, which is pretty nice, and addressed pretty much all the complaints about it with the PN-40, and I'm willing to bet that all the direct feedback you see here is a big part of that, and that really makes me want a PN-40 even more. Anyways, keep up the great work!

[+Team DeLorme]

Thanks HondaH8er, I appreciate your comment. Your right about the feedback, we started working closely with our forum users back with Topo USA 6.0 and the initial designs of the PN-20. Many of those users were also geocachers and talked quite a bit about this forum. We work hard to keep up with both sites... there's an impressive volume of GPS discussion in both locations and the use cases are very helpful when we design new features. Working with a public forum is an excellent way to learn what people really think about your product... and you can't hide from the facts when users are so good at creating steps to reproduce issues!

 

Here's my favorite improvement from the PN-20 to the PN-40; once I got used to the speed of course...

 

360 degree rotation for aerial imagery and USGS quad maps...

 

Geocaching on high resolution aerial imagery is amazing on both devices but the PN-40 is now fast enough to pin the GPS arrow at the center of the map and rotate the imagery smoothly as you walk to a cache location. It really has changed the way I use the device. Let me know if you have any other questions about your PN-20 or the upcoming release...

 

Chip Noble

Team DeLorme

[DesertRanger]

Regarding the PN-20s battery life.

 

1. It has an onboard RTC in use all the time. The timers are always running and there's a slew of them. I remove the batts when it's not in use.

 

2. Disable the USB port when yur not using it. The default is on whenever you power up. That way the USB circuits are turned off. They draw a lot of power in respect to the device itself.

[+Hrethgir]

Regarding the PN-20s battery life.

 

1. It has an onboard RTC in use all the time. The timers are always running and there's a slew of them. I remove the batts when it's not in use.

 

2. Disable the USB port when yur not using it. The default is on whenever you power up. That way the USB circuits are turned off. They draw a lot of power in respect to the device itself.

 

I knew about the clock, but didn't know about the USB thing, I'll turn that off, thanks! I'll just have to remember to turn it on when I need to trasfer data, but I have it all up to date right now with all my local caches, so I'm set for a while.

[+hogrod]

Units were given fresh batteries (Energizer Industrial alkaline AAs), powered on at the same time:

 

Garmin etrex Legend HCx

 

Claimed: 25 hours

Actual: 29.5 hours

 

DeLorme Earthmate PN-20

 

Claimed: 14 hours

Actual: 10.5 hours

 

The Vista Hcx gets very similar battery life as the Legend Hcx, when I was hiking with a friend who has one I was surprised they get virtually the same battery life as my old with my old legendC or my VistaCx. If I run lithium batteries in those models I would get close to 50hrs battery life.

 

The 14 hour reference for the Earthmate PN-20 was with the device in Power Saving mode. It turns the backlight off and steps down the processor.

 

The color Etrex models(at least the older ones) also have a power saving mode. using this mode can 5-10hrs more battery life, though at a HUGE sacrifice in accuracy. I'm sure someone who actually has an HCX can check and see if they still have this mode. I found that just not using the back lighting saved allot of battery power and you wont effect the units accuracy.

 

Another thing to consider, as quick as these newer units get satellite lock you can turn the unit off when not in use. the only reason to leave the unit on all the time is if your trying to record a tracklog. I quite often will turn my gps on at a trail head or parking spot and mark a waypoint. then each time I use the unit along the trail I will mark a new waypoint so when I use the unit to check my position again I always have reference points along my route. one set of batteries can last a week easily this way.

[+Klemmer]

HondaH8er:

 

I believe you're missing a major "Pro" on the PN-20 (and soon PN-40):

The ability to upload USGS Topos or Color / B&W aerial imagery to the GPSr. That was (and is) a very major reason for me. Very few other GPSr's can do that, and those few (Triton, Colorado, Oregon, others?) have many other issues (in my opinion).

 

Yes, Delorme's Topo data is good (and more current), but for Benchmark Hunting, and many other uses, you just can't beat those detailed USGS 7.5 minute Topos. And the aerial imagery on the GPSr, well, it's just too cool!

[+Team CowboyPapa]

HondaH8er:

 

I believe you're missing a major "Pro" on the PN-20 (and soon PN-40):

The ability to upload USGS Topos or Color / B&W aerial imagery to the GPSr. That was (and is) a very major reason for me. Very few other GPSr's can do that, and those few (Triton, Colorado, Oregon, others?) have many other issues (in my opinion).

 

Yes, Delorme's Topo data is good (and more current), but for Benchmark Hunting, and many other uses, you just can't beat those detailed USGS 7.5 minute Topos. And the aerial imagery on the GPSr, well, it's just too cool!

Roger that! With the annual subscription of $29.95 for all the imagery that one can download, the PN-40se with 8GB internal and an external 16GB SDHC card is the ticket. However, when Moore's Law drops the 32GB'ers down to ..............................

Edited October 5, 2008 by Team CowboyPapa

[+Hrethgir]

HondaH8er:

 

I believe you're missing a major "Pro" on the PN-20 (and soon PN-40):

The ability to upload USGS Topos or Color / B&W aerial imagery to the GPSr. That was (and is) a very major reason for me. Very few other GPSr's can do that, and those few (Triton, Colorado, Oregon, others?) have many other issues (in my opinion).

 

Yes, Delorme's Topo data is good (and more current), but for Benchmark Hunting, and many other uses, you just can't beat those detailed USGS 7.5 minute Topos. And the aerial imagery on the GPSr, well, it's just too cool!

Roger that! With the annual subscription of $29.95 for all the imagery that one can download, the PN-40se with 8GB internal and an external 16GB SDHC card is the ticket. However, when Moore's Law drops the 32GB'ers down to ..............................

 

True, that is a big Pro I did miss, guess because I haven't loaded anything but the topo stuff the PN-20 comes with (planning on selling it already to put that money towards a PN-40, so didn't want to use that $100 free certificate, that's a selling point!). But seeing the video of the PN-40 holding the cursor in the middle of the screen and keeping the hi-res aerial images moving along with it in a car doing 30 MPH was freaking AWESOME, can't wait to get a PN-40 now, gonna be a good time! Heck, might even sell my Garmin, too, seems the PN-40 will be the only unit I really need, especially when it comes to navigation on my motorcycle. Although I do like the slightly smaller size of the Garmin, that comes in handy now and then, might keep that one around for some things, and it does fit really well on the motorcycle.... Oh, well, the wife is fine with me selling the 20 and buying a 40, and that's all that really matters!

 

And CowboyPapa, I work at Intel, PLEASE don't make me have to hear about Moore's Law when I'm AWAY from work, too!