Luke
Observer
I've had this Garmin Foretrex 101 for a few months now so I wanted to do a little write-up on it for anyone else looking for a GPS unit.
For comparison I've also owned a Garmin Legend and Garmin Vista CX. I was looking for a small and simple GPS unit for hiking/hunting and other misc. land navigation. All I really needed was something that gave me my grid, altitude, and track-back/goto features. The Garmin Vista has so many bells and whistles on it, I really did not like using it. One minor annoyance was the Vista had a barometric pressure altimeter by default and varied geatly depending on the current temperature and weather trends. Anyway, on to the Garmin Foretrex 101.
Pros:
Cons:
This is the satellite page. The GPS locks onto satellites quite quickly and is very accurate. I typically have <15ft accuracy in open terrain with multiple satellite locks.
This page has all your primary information on it. You can customize every data field to show the information you need (ETA, Elevation, Altitude, Trip Odometer, speed, etc.) At the top of this page is 4 quadrants of information and as you scroll down this page becomes visible with 2 fields at the top and a large one at the bottom, below this page as you scroll is a full screen field, and then it cycles back to the top. You can see the battery meter (which is empty) at the left side, and below that the satellite lock icon. If the GPS is acquiring the icon blinks.
Here is the navigation page showing your current direction of travel, goto arrow, and 2 info fields.
This is the back of the unit showing the battery cover. Here is also the weakest link on this unit and that is the wrist-strap. It is held on with 2 oversized watch band spring-pins. In Afghanistan one of my buddies had his band break on a mission. We actually fixed this problem quite easily though by taking a U-shaped piece of heavy gauge wire (Hesco barrier wire - for the civilians out there think heavy gauge chain link fence wire) and Gorilla Glued it on to the back of the unit on either side of the battery cover. This little mod worked very well and allowed the GPS to be clipped onto a caribiner on a backpack/chest-rig shoulder strap.
Here is what the backlight looks like. My one complaint about this is that you cannot dim the light. The color is nice and illuminates the screen nicely.
The inside of the battery compartment. You need to use a knife or coin to pop open the battery cover that is held in place by the metal clip. I'm currently using rechageable AAA batteries but have not been very impressed by their life. On a full charge I'm only getting ~5 hours of constant use. I'm sure I would get much better battery life out of non-rechargeables but I have not tested those as of yet. This is actually one big reason I chose the Foretrex 101 over the 201 that has the internal rechargable Li-Ion battery. You can not recharge your GPS in the woods, so I wanted the ability to change out my batteries whenever I need to.
One nice thing about the wrist strap is you can wrap it around your steering wheel if you need it while driving and not worry about a hard mount.
If anybody has any questions feel free to PM me.
For comparison I've also owned a Garmin Legend and Garmin Vista CX. I was looking for a small and simple GPS unit for hiking/hunting and other misc. land navigation. All I really needed was something that gave me my grid, altitude, and track-back/goto features. The Garmin Vista has so many bells and whistles on it, I really did not like using it. One minor annoyance was the Vista had a barometric pressure altimeter by default and varied geatly depending on the current temperature and weather trends. Anyway, on to the Garmin Foretrex 101.
Pros:
- Small and lightweight
- Simple operation
- Replacable AAA batteries
- Fast satellite lock
Cons:
- Weak wrist strap
- Average battery life
- Fixed brightness backlight
- Track log difficult to pan through
This is the satellite page. The GPS locks onto satellites quite quickly and is very accurate. I typically have <15ft accuracy in open terrain with multiple satellite locks.
This page has all your primary information on it. You can customize every data field to show the information you need (ETA, Elevation, Altitude, Trip Odometer, speed, etc.) At the top of this page is 4 quadrants of information and as you scroll down this page becomes visible with 2 fields at the top and a large one at the bottom, below this page as you scroll is a full screen field, and then it cycles back to the top. You can see the battery meter (which is empty) at the left side, and below that the satellite lock icon. If the GPS is acquiring the icon blinks.
Here is the navigation page showing your current direction of travel, goto arrow, and 2 info fields.
This is the back of the unit showing the battery cover. Here is also the weakest link on this unit and that is the wrist-strap. It is held on with 2 oversized watch band spring-pins. In Afghanistan one of my buddies had his band break on a mission. We actually fixed this problem quite easily though by taking a U-shaped piece of heavy gauge wire (Hesco barrier wire - for the civilians out there think heavy gauge chain link fence wire) and Gorilla Glued it on to the back of the unit on either side of the battery cover. This little mod worked very well and allowed the GPS to be clipped onto a caribiner on a backpack/chest-rig shoulder strap.
Here is what the backlight looks like. My one complaint about this is that you cannot dim the light. The color is nice and illuminates the screen nicely.
The inside of the battery compartment. You need to use a knife or coin to pop open the battery cover that is held in place by the metal clip. I'm currently using rechageable AAA batteries but have not been very impressed by their life. On a full charge I'm only getting ~5 hours of constant use. I'm sure I would get much better battery life out of non-rechargeables but I have not tested those as of yet. This is actually one big reason I chose the Foretrex 101 over the 201 that has the internal rechargable Li-Ion battery. You can not recharge your GPS in the woods, so I wanted the ability to change out my batteries whenever I need to.
One nice thing about the wrist strap is you can wrap it around your steering wheel if you need it while driving and not worry about a hard mount.
If anybody has any questions feel free to PM me.