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I’ve been geocaching for about 1 year now, and in that time we’ve tried a variety of GPS equipment. I thought I’d put together a quick run-down, so that if others are in a similar situation they might find it handy to have a quick scan.

We first started geocaching by using a Nokia 6680 mobile phone (with TomTom Mobile 5) combined with a bluetooth GPS. This worked fine at first, however the battery life was disappointing and after an hours walk we would often be getting low and need to switch batteries etc. This brings me to the next downfall of this situation: Rain. A nokia mobile is usually fairly rain-proof, however it certainly isn’t water proof and I wouldn’t trust a chinese imported bluetooth GPS receiver to be rain-proof either. It worked well and got us into geocaching though, but we decided we needed to investigate other solutions.

So my first thought, as a self-confessed computer geek, was to use some sort of PDA contraption with the bluetooth… This would allow for a bigger, brighter screen and the possibility to use specific software with the PDA for geocaching. However, after a bit of messing around I came to realise that although this was an OK idea, it was eventually going to fail due to the fact that a PDA will probably only last for an hour or two on full charge, and once you are in the middle of a geo-trek you probably won’t be able to replace a li-ion HP battery that easily… Then the GF started to moan.
So – I had to do what every self-respecting geo-geek does: Go and buy an etrex…. I searched ebay and found quite a few of the cheap yellow garmin etrex’s, but really liked the look of the GPSMAP 60CS.. It seems plain to me that the yellow etrex is a toy compared to the more expensive GPSMAP Garmins. Anyway – eventually I did a bit more searching on ebay and found a few to put in my snipe list.

Then – SHOCK – I win two at once: An etrex and a GPSMAP 76S. Oh well – a good opportunity to try both, and I can sell the one I don’t like.

We’ve been using the yellow etrex and the GPSMAP 76S for a while now, and although they are both good, they still have their faults: For me the yellow etrex is clumsy to use, and doesn’t have a detailed enough screen. It’s also a bit low on the bells-and-whistles… The GPSMap 76S is a lot better in those respects: A built-in real compass, a barometer, better screen, more buttons (not clumsy to use). It seems from these points that the 76S wins hands-down apart from one thing: They both take AA batteries and the 76S uses them up in about 2 hours, whereas the yellow etrex lasts about 24hours. And I hate throwing batteries away.
So I think it’s back to the drawing board with this one. I’ve had my eye on a GPS enabled phone, but to be honest I always buy Nokia. So I’m hanging on for the Nokia N95, their first phone with built in GPS… It seems to me that the next big thing is going to be navigating using your mobile… And soon enough, when everyone has GPS in their phone, the general population is going to find out about the geeky passtime: geocaching!

Just got to hope that the nokia N95 won’t be really expensive (… and it looks like it will!).