Garmin eTrex Vista C Review

UPDATE: The Vista C has been discontinued. You might want to check out its successor, the Vista Cx; or even better, the Vista HCx, which has greatly improved reception under canopy and in natural or urban canyons.

The Garmin eTrex Vista C has a compact design that belies its feature-rich3 nature; it includes an electronic compass, barometric altimeter, and automatic routing capability. With 24 MB of memory, it can handle a good amount of City Select maps for highway navigation, though probably not enough for multi-day trips. You'll need a unit with more memory for that, like the newer Vista Cx.

At Amazon, the unit has garnered an average 4 star rating (out of 5) from dozens of customers in their Vista C reviews.  Amazon's staff has this to say:

"Garmin's pocket-sized eTrex Vista C handheld GPS unit combines Garmin's popular eTrex Vista with a color screen, automatic routing, and longer battery life, making it one of the smallest, least expensive waterproof products to combine a color TFT display and advanced GPS auto-routing abilities. You won't miss a thing when you take this lightweight, easy-to-use handheld out hiking, biking, boating, or geocaching.

Compare prices on the Garmin eTrex Vista C

The unit offers a bright, transflective color TFT display with daylight viewability, automatic route generation, off-route recalculation, turn-by-turn directions with alert tones, and icon-driven menus for finding points of interest (when combined with Garmin's optional MapSource CDs). And you'll get up to 20 hours of use on two AA batteries. The unit offers 24 MB of internal memory, and its mini-USB port lets you download map data rapidly from Garmin's library of MapSource CDs (not included) using your PC..."

Here's what others are saying about the Vista C:

• GPSInformation.net has this eTrex Vista C review, along with some pretty incredible screen shots.
• At ZDNet, 12 readers gave the Garmin Vista C an average rating of 7.9 out of 10.
• TheBackpacker.com gives a five star review to the eTrex VistaC .

For additional resources, check out:

• A PDF version of the Gamin eTrex Vista C manual.
• Yahoo's eTrex Legend and Vista discussion group.

Compare prices on the Garmin eTrex Vista C at these merchants:

• Check the current Garmin eTrex Vista C price at Amazon.com.
• Get the Garmin eTrex Vista C for an amazing price on eBay.

From the official Garmin VistaC website:

The eTrex Vista® C is Garmin's exciting, new, pocket-sized handheld that brings color, automatic routing, longer battery life, plus more to our popular-selling eTrex Vista. You won’t miss a thing when you take this colorful, lightweight, easy-to-use handheld out hiking, biking, boating or even geocaching. The eTrex Vista C along with the eTrex Legend C are Garmin's smallest, least expensive products to combine a color TFT display and advanced GPS routing capabilities in a waterproof design.

Outdoor enthusiasts will love the latest improvements made to the eTrex Vista C:

• Barometric altimeter provides extremely accurate elevation for hikers and climbers
• Electronic compass so you can get a heading when standing still
• 256-color, sunlight-readable display makes it easy to distinguish map details and see where you’re going
• Automatic route generation, off-route recalculation, turn-by-turn directions with alert tones, and icon-driven menus for finding points of interest (when combined with Garmin’s optional MapSource® CDs) navigate you safely to your destination
• Longer battery life  for more hours of outdoor enjoyment
• Mini-USB port for fast, convenient download of map data  from Garmin’s entire library of optional MapSource CDs using a PC

Of course the eTrex Vista C still includes those popular features that users have come to love and expect in the eTrex product line, such as a compact, lightweight, waterproof design and user-friendly interface. It is WAAS-enabled, and like all eTrex units, the primary controls are oriented on the side of the unit, so the user can conveniently operate it with one hand. Also, an innovative rocker switch is located on the face of the unit that enables the user to input data easily, scroll through menus, or pan the map page.