What handheld GPS should I buy? PLEASE help me decide A.S.A.P?

Question

Alright I will give you some of the details:

I want a good Garmin Handheld GPS device for Geocaching. I will be buying the Handheld GPS new from Amazon because I can save some money.

The GPS device I want is either a GPSMAP 60CSx or a Colorado 300 (or maybe one of the other Colorado ones.) I will be mostly Geocaching in parks, urban areas, and wooded areas. I think I might buy some sort of mapping software to put on the GPS I buy (I don't know which one, if you have some good advice on a great one that would be greatly appreciated.) Both the GPSMAP 60CSx and The Colorado 300 cost under $500 new on Amazon. I am wiling to spend $550 and maybe more if another GPS device as broought to my attention as being better in some way than the ones I just listed.

The reason I want one of these good GPS's is if I purchase one and when I receive it it doesn't do what I wanted to do, or it doesn't do it well I will be angry.

Please help me decide on which handheld Garmin GPS I should purchase.

Answer 1

The Colorado lets you geocache paperlessly, that is, it will let you download geocache descriptions and previous logs directly to the GPS receiver.  The 60CSx doesn't allow this exactly.  You can create custom POIs with special symbols and you can have the description put into the POI, but there are a few extra steps.

The 60CSx is a proven, well-liked GPS receiver.  The Colorado is still fairly new and getting bugs worked out.  There are also some questions about how waterproof it really is, and how durable the thumbwheel will be.

The question is, do you want the convenience of paperless geocaching (and the new Wherigo game) on the Colorado, or do you want a more proven unit that has fewer capabilities?  These are pretty much the two best units you can get for geocaching right now.  Oh yeah, if you do go the Colorado route, you should know that the 300 does not have maps with it, but the 400t comes with topos.  However, you cannot view those topos on the computer.  You might want to get the 300 and buy the topo maps separately, assuming you want topo maps.  Personally, I have no use for them.