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| Garmin GPSMAP 60CS 56MB Handheld GPS | 
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| Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
List Price: $535.99
Buy Refurbished: $153.95
You Save: $382.04 (71%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  80 reviews
Sales Rank: 3278
Media: Electronics
Number Of Items: 1
Tracks: 20
Batteries: 2
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: 240 x 160
Includes MP3 Player: 0
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.8 x 3.5
Array:
MPN: 010-00322-30
Model: 010-00322-30
UPC: 753759044060
EAN: 0753759044060
ASIN: B000189W8M
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Great GPS! February 1, 2005
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
I use my GPS mainly for Geocaching. My original (Etrex Vista) was a fine gps, but I wanted the external antenna, the extended battery life, and the bigger, color screen.
I have not been disappointed. This GPS is more accurate than my Vista; the Geocaching mode helps keep track of my finds. The accuracy is several feet better, too.
All in all, if you are looking for a gps with more bells and whistles than you'll ever need, but like the high end of gadgetry, this is it. It may be a bit more expensive than the other models, but to me, it was worth it.
Excellent All-Purpose Receiver January 18, 2005
27 out of 28 found this review helpful
Garmin has come pretty close to the ideal all-purpose GPS receiver with the GPSMap 60CS. It is a great receiver for outdoor use AND a great receiver for highway navigation, with only a few compromises in either area.
For outdoor use, the 60CS has just about everything you would want. It can store 1000 waypoints, has a 10,000 point tracklog, and can store 20 tracks (compressed to 500 points each). It also has a dedicated geocaching mode. When you create a waypoint, you can give it a "geocaching" icon. Then, the 60CS allows you to call up only the geocaching waypoints and go from one to the next. When you find a geocache, you can log notes about what you took or left, then it will automatically let you select the next geocache on the list.
The 60CS pushbuttons are much improved over the older eTrex family. It has both a MARK button and a FIND button (like an enhanced version of the old GOTO button) so you don't have to wade through pages of menus to do two of the most basic GPS functions. The 256-color display is outstanding, even in bright sunlight. At night, you can activate a backlight that provides extremely even illumination. The 60CS also comes with a built-in magnetic compass and barometric altimeter, which is a great marketing ploy but probably not all that useful for most people. I still caution serious outdoor navigators to carry a separate magnetic compass.
For highway navigation, the 60CS has the ability to do autorouting when used with optional City Select or City Navigator software from Garmin. Neither is inexpensive, running $100-130, but the built in basemap is not very detailed, so you can't depend on it for highway navigation. I use City Select and have found it to be quite accurate. I've used it to navigate throughout the East Coast without a paper map (probably a bad idea!) and never gotten lost. I would suggest, however, that it should be a two-person task, with one person serving as navigator. Although the 60CS does an excellent job of autorouting, it does not have voice commands. When you get close to having to make a turn, it beeps and displays written driving instructions. At highway speeds, you probably don't want to be reading the screen just when you need to be thinking about taking an exit. While the map screen only tells you the next driving instruction, push the page button and you get a screen with the full list of driving instructions for the trip.
The 60CS comes with a USB cable, which is a much faster connection than the old RS-232 serial port on most receivers. With my old eTrex Vista, it took over an hour to load 24 megs of map data through the serial port. With the 60CS I can transfer 56 megs in under 5 minutes. Many 3rd party software programs like National Geographic Topo! or the software on the geocaching.com website don't work with the USB port. So the 60CS also comes with a standard serial port connector, although you have to buy the cable separately. It uses the same serial port and cigarette lighter cables as the old GPS 12XL, NOT the same ones as the eTrex.
If you are going to do much highway navigation, you really need to invest in an external antenna. That way you can put the antenna on your dashboard (I wrap it around the rear-view mirror so it doesn't slide around) and leave the receiver in a cupholder or on your lap (or buy the dashboard mount). The 60CS comes with an MCX connector that the antenna cable plugs into. Amazon sells a very nice antenna from Gilsson for a very reasonable price. The MCX connector is somewhat fragile, so I recommend you route the cable through the metal D-ring that holds the battery cover before connecting so that you get more strain relief.
The things I don't like about the 60CS? They are pretty few. First, it is a bit larger than I might wish for hiking, but a bit smaller than I might wish for driving, so I guess it is a good balance. The quadrifillar helix antenna sticks out beyond the main body of the unit, but while that makes it larger overall, it also gives it much better sensitivity than the eTrex family. I've seen quite a bit of improvement in side-by-side tests. Surprisingly, the 60CS seems to take longer to acquire a satellite fix than the eTrex Vista in a cold start (i.e. unit had not been turned on for a day or more), but it was much faster in a warm start (unit had been turned off an hour or less).
One thing I can't complain about is Garmin's service and support. While I haven't had any problems with the 60CS, I've worked with Garmin several times on previous models and always found them to be exceptional. I've heard similar stories from many other people.
The most serious deficiency, in my opinion, is the memory. 56 meg is still too small, and Garmin still refuses to design a receiver with removable memory like Compact Flash or Secure Digital (presumably they are woried about people pirating their maps). With 56 megs, I can load in the City Select maps for the San Francisco Bay Area and not much more. For my East Coast trip, I had to hook it up to a laptop every so often to transfuse new maps.
Can you get better GPS receivers for highway navigation? Yes. Can you get smaller and lighter units for outdoor use? Yes again. But all-in-all, I consider the 60CS the best all-purpose GPS receiver out there, and I'm not likely to want to give it up any time soon. But if Garmin doesn't eventually introduce a version with removable memory, my patience will wear thin.
UPDATE 1/15/06: I guess Garmin read my review, because they've just announced the GPSMap 60CSx, which is an updated 60CS with a removable MicroSD memory card. It includes a 64MB card, but at this point, we still don't know exactly what you can save on it and how large a memory card it will accept. They do offer MapSource products directly on MicroSD cards. Looks like a real winner.
 Not THAT great January 3, 2005
29 out of 33 found this review helpful
I bought the Garmin 60CS based on the positive reviews. After using it, I'm less than thrilled. Is it asking too much for a GPS in this price range to include a good up to date base map? The map in the 60CS is out of date, missing major highways in my area that are 3 years old. The land mass depictions for marine use are not accurate. The map has a course look that does not make good use of the display resolution. It's nice that the map supports autorouting, but there are only the largest major highways to autoroute on. To get anything done, you are going to need to buy optional maps from Garmin at $100 or so a pop. The unit has a hard time maintaining satellite lock when carried in a pocket or held in the car. It has to be on the dash to get a good view of the sky to lock on. Inside the house, it would not lock on at all. A Magellan GPS had no trouble locking on in the same scenarios. The altimeter constantly gets out of whack and has to be recalibrated. The Garmin menus, which are lauded as being so intuitive, could be better. It appears they probably started out good, but as features have been added to the operating system, the menus have become cluttered and confused. They are context menus, which is fine, but they are taken too far. Lets see...to find that menu selection for a route do I just highlight the route and press Menu? No, not there...How about if I press enter and open the route's detail screen and then press Menu? Ahhh, there it is. Just try figuring out how to use an advanced feature like routes with both on road and off road segments. Good luck! Physically, the unit is a little too large, too thick and too heavy to comfortably carry in one's pocket. On my scale, it weighs over 7 ounces with batteries. The antenna sticks up; it should be integrated into the package.
Rants covered, if there is one reason to buy this GPS, it's the killer application ability it has to manage and store tracks. Tracks are little breadcrumb trails that record your movements on the GPS map. You have the ability to take whole tracks, or even better cut out portions, and store them. You can name them and recall them for later use. This is a great feature. for instance, on a hike you can delete the portion of a track that was the trip to the restroom, and save just the part that was the walk on the trail.
If you buy this GPS, you will get a pretty decent machine, but not a complete package. Be prepared to contribute to Garmin's pockets as you buy the maps and accessories you need to make it work. Everything you need is not in the box!
Best GPS ever!!! January 2, 2005
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is my fifth GPS unit. I was a die-hard Garmin GPS-V fan before getting the 60CS a few months ago. I can't say enough great things about this unit. From the color screen, to the design (fits perfectly in the palm of your hand for one-handed operation) to the superb (and swift) routing. What's not to love?
This is truly a unit you have to see in person to appreciate. The color screen is simply beautiful. Bright and Sharp.
I recommend you pick up the Dashboard mount. Makes a nice accessory.
If you are even remotely thinking of picking up a GPS you owe it to yourself to consider this one. It may seem a little pricey but the routing feature alone makes it easy to justify if you travel at all. Door to door navigation is priceless.
By the way VPC *DOES* run in OSX. Not sure what the other reviewer was thinking. I use VPC and Mapsource to load maps into my 60CS all the time. (although I do have to use a USB/Serial adapter -- Garmin's USB driver breaks a few rules of convention and isn't OSX friendly). But that's not really a big deal. Everything works as it should -- just a bit slower via the adapter.
Awesome, but no Mac support October 18, 2004
25 out of 32 found this review helpful
This is hands-down the best GPS unit I've ever seen! It's absolutely amazing, and it's fast. No complaints about the hardware at all, and that was the end of the story I'd give this a 5 star rating. Unfortunately, I have to deduct one major point since Garmin units still are not compatible with the Mac / Mac OS X. There's no way to interface with the GPS units and upload maps on a Mac. You can try to use VirtualPC, but it's very flakey, and it only works if you can boot your old Mac into OS 9. On OS X, the connection doesn't work for more than a few seconds. Using a serial to USB converter cable with VirtualPC on OS 9 will work most of the time, however, the transfer speeds are horribly low. It can take 3-10 *hours* to upload map data to your unit, and half of the time it'll get an error a few hours into it, causing you to have to start over. If Garmin would have support for the Mac, this would be a hands-down 5 star product.
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