A Great Little Unit for a Little Price

Author's Rating:

Pros: great battery life, easy to use, great value for features

Cons: some reception problems with heavy tree cover or obstructions

The Bottom Line: 
I highly recommend this product. It offers great value for features and will not let you down.

Author's Review
The Garmin Etrex Venture has definitely served me well since I bought it. My original purpose for purchasing it was for backpacking trips as a supplement to my maps. So far, it has served this purpose well, along with being great for geocaching. Because I feel that Garmin and Magellan are both so similar in features and quality, I will not compare it to Magellan units. I will make comparisons, however, to the basic Etrex.

There are two primary reasons that I purchased the Etrex Venture instead of the basic Etrex. These include the PC link cable, which is included with each Venture, and the click stick. The PC link adds a lot to your unit such as the ability to upgrade your firmware (visit www.garmin.com) to the newest version and to communicate with various types of software available for the PC. The click stick increases the ease of use of the Venture by acting in a manner similar to a mouse. My only complaint about the click stick is that it is not textured. If your hands have much oil on them (natural or hand lotion), they will slip when you use the click stick. This, however hasn't proven to be too much of a problem.

Other advantages over the basic Etrex include increased memory, higher resolution, worldwide city database, and WAAS compatibility. The memory is 1 megabyte, which is a large improvement over the basic Etrex, however the main advantage to this is just the use of Garmin's Point of Interest database (sold separately) to upload addresses to your GPS unit. The higher resolution makes the display easier to read and allows more information to be displayed on the screen at one time. The worldwide city database is very convenient for travelling to know your approximate time to your destination. Finally, the WAAS compatibility is a nice feature to have, although it may not provide any advantage to you depending on what part of the country you are in.

The mapping capability of the Venture is limited to only waypoints and cities. This will likely not be a problem for most people since a GPS is only meant to be a supplement to a map. The Venture also does not have a compass or a barometric altimeter (it does have an altimeter that works via satellites), however this has not yet posed a problem for me.

The battery life is also excellent (up to 20 hours), however you should not use rechargeable alkaline batteries as they are drained extremely quickly. I would recommend using Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) AA batteries, or regular alkaline AA batteries. I use NiMH batteries in order to save money, to be environmentally safe, and because using the backlight has little effect on their life.

Reception can sometimes be a concern with this unit. If you are under extremely heavy tree cover, you will often times have trouble getting a satellite lock. However, I would not worry about this unless you will always be using it under extremely heavy tree cover. In that case, you may want to look for a unit with a quadrifilar or double helix antenna.

Overall, these extra features make this unit worth the extra $50 more than the basic Etrex and outweigh the cons of this unit. This GPS unit could be sold for as more as $100 more than the basic Etrex and it would still be worthwhile. If you're looking for a moderately priced GPS unit with good performance and value, you've found the right unit.