Just Bought A eTrex Legend, Anything I Should Know About It?

[unity007]

So I recently bought a used old Garmin eTrex Legend off ebay (still waiting for it in the mail.) I never owned a handheld gps device (all my previous finds were with a hacked Mio Moov 200 I had).

 

Is there anything I should do to make caching easier/more fun/etc with the etrex? Upload maps, anything paperless, etc. Is the Legend accurate? My Mio Moov was sort of a pain.

[+Croesgadwr]

Is it the original Legend or the Legend H? I had the latter, and found it lovely to use. Just replaced it with an Etrex 20.

 

Snap...so did I!!

I had the Legend HCx, and just replaced it with the Etrex 20.

No problems as regards functionality with it, it proved to be an excellent product. The only issue I had was the rubber surround seal started to come off, leaving a brown gungy mess. Garmin were incredible (in my opinion), they replaced the whole unit free of charge even though mine was out of warranty. When the new one arrived I was just a bit wary of it happening again, so thought 'Why not sell it and buy an Etrex 20'. Potential future problem solved!!

Back to the practical side of the Legend... loading caches was a doddle - done in seconds. The menu system was also dead easy to use. Battery life was well over 24hrs on decent rechargeables. It was also capable of taking a few knocks.

One point worth mentioning (could be a bit late in this instance), if its the latter model, make sure it comes with its USB cable, they're not cheap if you have to buy one!

Finally, (again if its the latter model), you can get free UK map downloads at talkytoaster.info

Worth having a look whilst waiting for your GPS to arrive.

Good luck with it in any case.

Edited to add:- Disregard the part about free UK maps, I've just noticed that you're US based.

Edited February 19, 2012 by Croesgadwr

[+gpsblake]

I'm assuming you mean the original Etrex Legend, not the current Legend H.

 

People have found millions of caches using the old Etrex Legend. But in saying that, it is not as accurate as the more modern units when it goes under trees, valley's etc.. But it will almost always lead you to the general area, and that's really all you can ask for. As far as mapping, it only has 8mb of mapping memory so you won't get much, I only could get 3 counties in South Carolina on my Legend, two of them rural counties. It won't have any of the bells of the modern units of today. It also only has a serial port (no USB) for transferring caches and a lot of computers don't have serial ports anymore.

 

My Etrex Legend survived several falls off my bicycle and performed well on a 2,000 mile bike trip from South Carolina to Texas.

[unity007]

Aw man, yeah it is definitely the older one. I guess it's still a step up from my Mio Moov I was using (had like a half hour of battery life, did the same where it would bring you to the general area.)