I've owned my garmin etrex Venture HC for about a month. I read all the critiques about the low detail map but tried it anyway. I wasn't looking for an automotive GPS, I wanted a hiking-flying-fishing-traveling GPS. Without the detailed topo maps this thing was very good for my needs. It would show me what was the next exit on the freeway and what services were there. It gave me speed, altitude, and positional awareness when flying in general aviation aircraft. It showed the Canadian border when on Lake Erie. Then I added the MapSource topo maps and it tripled in utility when hiking and driving and flying. I learned that I couldn't load the whole world into the thing because of memory limitations, so I just loaded the areas around Bozeman, and Rocky Mountain National park, and SW Florida, and most of Ohio. It's great! It seems to run a long time on a set of batteries (how long specifically, I don't know...ten to fourteen hours I suppose...I really don't care, I'm not a statistician) and after a few hours of use it's intuitive. And this puppy will lock on to satellites VERY fast and will keep on them even on the first floor of my two story home. This is my third GPS, my first Garmin, and I'm hooked on it. It was $113 from Amazon, shipped! That's about a tank and a half of gas for my Tahoe. I love it when I make a good purchase.

I use the Venture HC only for geocaching and did not purchase the detailed maps for street navigation or hiking. Buttons are not intuitive as they are unmarked. Their functions need to be learned then remembered. It works great, accurate to 9 feet in many places, and is steady where others have complained of reduced signal strength. Downloading waypoints from my PC is seamless.

A great product for the price . I looked at my needs ,bought it and it works fine . If you need just to set way points or use the altitude info(as I did ) This is the one for you. I do not need a "restaurant finder" This is for outdoor use and its waterproof.

This product is great for geocaching - which is what we use this unit for. For those of us that are not GPS experts, the company expects a lot if they think the manual that comes with it explains things well. We are still getting used to using it in the field and I expect that practice will help us to improve. I was hoping that the manual would help us to reduce our time spent with trial and error. As far as its effectiveness as a GPS unit, I have no complaints. It is easy to download caches into the unit from the website. It would be great it the unit would store more info such as cache description or hints but it only stores the title and coordinates. It would be a 5 star rating if not for the instruction manual issue because it really is a cool little GPS unit. Much better than the basic e-trex.

I used this to replace an older basic eTrex model before a camping trip. I work with GPS in airplanes (that cost more than my car) but was not famiar with outdoor models. It should be noted that the "H" part of the Garmin model names refers to a new-generation receiver that is much more sensitive and I found it to be fantastic- it will locate my position indoors and under a thick rainforest canopy it always found its location within 20 seconds. When in a new location I would say it always located itself within 3 minutes. The only trouble it had in locating itself was when it was under the canopy and against a steep mountainside (and also inside the airliner when I didn't keep it against the window).

This is an older model with an upgraded receiver so the battery life is not as good as other Garmins but at around 7 hours with the screen set to dim it never bothered me. It also has less internal memory than more expensive models so you might have to load base maps more frequently (you might have to pay dearly for some good maps). You can easily up/download tracks and waypoints, which I found to be pretty fun. This comes with WAAS capability turned off by default, probably to save power (it can be turned on easily from the settings page); I'm not sure why someone would want it when hiking. My unit got soaked in the rain several times and had no problems. More expesive Garmin handhelds can figure out driving directions but refurbished car models are going for $100.

General advice: I'm very happy with this model but make sure you get a Garmin model with the letter "H," or another brand with a Sirfstar III receiver for higher sensitivity. The free software from topografix doesn't work as well as the Garmin software that comes with this GPS but I suspect the non-free topografix software may be a bargain (don't waste money on the amazingly detail-free Garmin world map software). I found the array of 3rd party software options overwhelming. Google Earth does not require a $20 subscription to display tracks & waypoints from this GPS, just save your stuff in the open *.gpx format from the Garmin software and open it in the free Google Earth - it's fun.

Great unit for geocaching because of the built in geocaching mode. The color screen is very readable in sunlight, and input is easy due to the rocker control. Base Map is readable and surprisingly detailed. The satellite acquisition time is speedy - it only took a couple minutes to acquire and find my position after the initial start, and now it only takes a matter of seconds. I haven't used the Trip & Waypoint manager software yet, but I was able to use the Garmin POI Loader and the Garmin Communicator for sending info straight to the device from my mac without any problems.

I Wouldn't recommend this unit for in-car use because of the lack of auto-routing and the price of City Navigator maps from Garmin. Also, the lack of substantial internal memory is almost embarrassing given how cheap (and small) memory is these days. However, Garmin will probably address this in future iterations.

All in all, I'm extremely happy with the quality and features this unit has to offer at this price point, and would highly recommend this unit if you do a lot of recreational hiking and/or geocaching.

This is my first GPS and it is a real joy to use. It takes a little while to get use to what the buttons do and the different functions it has, but once you get the hang of it, it's simple to use. I bought it because I was going hiking in mountainous terrain and I didn't get lost! Just a word of warning, to get the fancy road and topographical maps you need to fork out another ~$100. But if you are technically oriented (or have access to a 5th grader) it's relatively easy to convert and import data from the USGS to make topo maps or crude road maps. Garmin has better road maps, but you can make decent ones for free. I wouldn't recommend using it while driving since it can't give you step by step directions, but is good for the passenger to keep track of you. The 24 MB of memory is plenty at least for me. It's a snap to transfer your hike to your computer at the end of the day and if you save it as a *.gpx file, you can view your journey in Google Earth. Correlate the time with the camera pictures and you know exactly where you took a picture. Too cool. The battery life is good as long as you turn it off when you are done for the day. The only complaint is that the altitude seems to have more error than the long/lat, but is generally good to within 100 ft, but if you want more accuracy a better GPS with altimeter would solve that problem.

This was my first GPS purchase and i spent a lot of time being confused over the terminology and features of GPSr's. In researching a unit to buy, I also looked at what others who were not as confused as me were using. I finally settled on the Venture HC. I have to say I was not disappointed. I use my unit for geocaching and hiking. It took some time to learn to use the Venture partly because it was something new and the instructions were complicated and partly because I was new to GPS's and had to learn the terminology. Once I got the hang of using it, I was impressed with its accuracy. It carries light and is easy to operate.

Things I didn't like were that it always powers up with the screen dimmed. You must always brighten the screen to see it. I would have thought it would come on at a medium brightness. The unit also comes with a strap for carrying and the belt clip is optional. Since the Venture is designed for outdoor uses like hiking, etc., I would rather have had the belt clip as standard and the strap optional. Minor things I would like changed, but that's the only real problem I have with the Venture.

The HC model's high-sensitivity antenna really works!! I have an old model without the H-antenna, that really had trouble receiving a 3D signal under cover. The HC was able to maintain a satellite link even under forest canopy (but with pockets of holes in the canopy), and under sheltered walkways (open sides). However, if indoors or under extremely dense canopy the receiver loses all signal; but this is expected. The lock-on after turning-on the system is quick. I was not able to test the WAAS function as my location is not covered. However, without the WAAS, I have verified that the GPS tracking was accurate to within 5-10m, and that was good enough for me.

The colour display is very readable, even under bright sunlight. The controls are intuitive. I can use all the basic functions without reading the manual.

The unit is small, compact, and rugged. Battery life is OK, although the Legend HCx lasts almost twice as long. However, I can't justify the big jump in price to the Legend HCx. It would be good if Garmin decides to increase the batt life of the venture hc.

There is considerable lag when scrolling the map. It takes a while for the unit to redraw the map. This is not a problem with the GPS, but rather, the processor chip that is being used. They should come up with a faster processing chip. If you are in a hurry, the slow redrawing of the map, when you want to quickly scroll-search a new location, can get on your nerves.

Overall, at US$137 from Amazon, this is a good buy. I use it for mountaineering and adventure travels. I bring extra lithium batteries for cold conditions. Not for car use. This model doesn't come with the barometer, altimeter, compass that the Summit has. And this is a GOOD THING. Use your GPS purely for that function: GPS. Carry a separate magnetic compass and topo map. And bring along a dedicated altimeter/barometer/digital compass. This is the only safe way of navigating remote mountains and extreme environments.

Amazon packed my GPS unit very nicely in their cardboard box lined with air bags to protect the unit. I appreciated that. The product arrived flawless.

i bought this unit as a replacement for my older garmen etrex (origional yellow model). i have tried other brands and definatly like the garmen the best. this model has really quick and solid linking to the satellites (hence the 'HC' in the product description), and i like the features that come standard with it. the reason i only gave it 4 stars is that the base map is extremely dissapointing and petty much worthless. i will have to buy an upgrade for this.