Garmin 010-01199 High-Sensitivity GPS and GLONASS Receiver

Been using this unit for over a month. The gps is highly accurate, contrary to what a few other reviews said. The tracks function does wander slightly while standing still but it’s made for people who are on the move. I loaded both purchased and free maps to both the internal hard drive and the SD card without issues. I also created some custom maps for use on a trip. Text notifications work instantly and I like the button versus the touch screen especially in a cold climate for hunting. The screen is small but amazing in both low light and bright light conditions. The battery life is also good with plenty of settings for your needs. I love this unit.

I have owned numerous Garmin GPSs, three different etrex, an Oregon, Dakota, 60csx, 62s and now a 64s. Things I have learned; Garmin does not make a perfect GPS. Garmin does not have the best customer service, for minor issues I have found emails work the best. Update the software right away and check for updates regularly. Learn to delete unwanted files IE pre-loaded geocaches. Use clear finger nail polish on the buttons, especially the 62/64 the paint can wear off pretty quickly. The track logs will wander, meaning sitting still they track while gaining distance. No two GPS units are the same in there track logs or in their coordinate read outs. If you and your friend both go out on a hike and there is a 0.4 of a mile difference always assume your device is the correct one.

In addition to being a nature lover, I am in the Civil Air Patrol (US Air Force Aux), who does inland search and rescue (SAR). I use this GPS for pleasure hiking, SAR, and have also used this in an airplane doing aerial photo missions. It was invaluable to have. Even though the aircraft was equipped with a Garmin G1000 GPS, it was very helpful to have my handheld with pre-progammed waypoint to guide the pilot to the target to take pictures. We were near a military no-fly area, so the pilot had to have the G1000 zoomed out to see the surounding airspace, yet with my 64s, I was able to see the 24k topo in great detail with downloaded birdseye to find my photo targets quickly.

I like a few things better on this compared to my previous GPSMAP60 CSX, but a few things are not so good. The good is the 64 can now store 200 tracks instead of the previous 20. The bad is you cannot type in GPS coordinates and click go to. How weird is that? The new Base Camp which pairs with this on your home computer has also lost some its functionality compared to the previous Mapsource. On Base Camp you can no longer add points to an existing track, split the track, do some editing and rejoin the track. I just don’t understand when useful features are removed in an “upgrade”.