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Im wanting a new gps to take in the woods with me. Ive been looking at the lowrance endura safari, or the garmin model 78.
Im leaning towards the lowrance model, just because I haven't been to thrilled with my previous garmin handheld or my garmin truck gps...or the customer service with either

Both seem to have similar features and are similar priced. Can any one who has these units provide any insight? Looking for ease of operation, how to add/and use maps..and can you use multiple mapping programs at the same time (from reading the garmin site I think that unit can???)?
Also looking for reliabilty in heavy cover, and battery life.

Thanks in advance

try a garmin 64w/ extrenal antenna. best i ever used in the woods. i think its called a csx or something ill have to look and post back

I favor the Lowrance but like all others they have their issues. We have this model and have not had any problems to date but only been using it a few months. The touchscreen is a must and makes usage much easier.

I have the Garmin Etrex Legend and the Garmin 76Cx. I vote the 76CX all the way

have the 60cx. bad booty!!! have 2 of them. will do anything you need them to do and are very very accuarte in marking locations. also know from experience that they are waterproof

I got a GPSMap 76cs(x) from Amazon a couple years back for, I think 240 shipped (something close), and pretty pleased with it. I saw the identical unit at BPS and they wanted 400 for it. Waterproof and floats.

Got a Garmin 60csx here at work, tough as nails and more accurate than any handheld I've tried (engineering/surveying firm = know what accurate means). Good color display, menu's are a little clunky. You can use an SD card to hold a LOT of maps and data.

Now, about customer service. This one is out of warranty; one of the guys dropped it the other day and smashed the face in, now it won't even power up. Garmin will fix it for flat rate $110 bucks. Not bad.

This one has the highspeed chipset and will lock up under cover better than anything except our Topcon RTK units with the external antenna.

Agua wrote:I got a GPSMap 76cs(x) from Amazon a couple years back for, I think 240 shipped (something close), and pretty pleased with it. I saw the identical unit at BPS and they wanted 400 for it. Waterproof and floats.

+1

60csx and 76csx are the same internals, just different case - 76 has buttons at the top and 60 has buttons at the bottom. i prefer the buttons at the top for easy one handed operation

they have Sirf gps chips which provide a quick acquisition time and good reception/accuracy under canopy cover, and as mfaulkner stated can hold a large amount of data on sd cards

i've worked with mapping grade gps units for 12 years (stand alone topcon gps units in the early days, tds data collectors with dgps connected externally and mapping software packages and now all in one units) and the 76csx was a breeze to learn to use and be able to effectively use in the woods for marking stands, scrapes, rubs, etc....and to get out one night when i got more involved in finding the bloodtrail than keeping an eye on my bearings and how many turns i had made (had to pull it out, crank it up and use it to get me back to a road in the pitch black dark with no moon)