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An essential for any outdoor excursion, the Garmin eTrex Venture HC helps you navigate through the toughest terrain. The unit is equipped with a high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver, which locates your position quickly and precisely and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and deep canyons. The advantage is clear: whether you're traipsing through thick woods or strolling near tall buildings and trees, you can count on the Venture HC to help you find your way when you need it the most. At the same time, the Venture HC's easy-to-use menu lets you create and view waypoints (up to 500), save and view 10 track logs, access setup features, and more. It even offers 24 MB of internal memory and a detailed basemap, so you can load waypoints and routes from the included MapSource Trip & Waypoint Manager software and add map detail from Garmin's entire line of optional MapSource mapping products. Besides appreciating its small size, outdoorsmen will also be happy with the Venture HC's unique button layout, with five buttons located on either side of the unit. The benefits of this design are twofold: First, the Venture HC is a breeze to operate with just one hand, and, second, with the buttons on both sides of the unit, the bulk of the front is dedicated to the 256-color, sunlight-readable TFT display. This makes it easy to distinguish map details regardless of the time of day. The Venture HC's basemap, meanwhile, contains lakes, rivers, cities, interstates, national and state highways, railroads, and coastlines--in short, a host of helpful details for your outdoor adventures. Other details include an IPX7 waterproof housing, a built-in patch antenna, a USB interface, a hunt/fish calendar, sun and moon information, and a geocaching mode. The Venture HC, which runs for up to 14 hours on a pair of AA batteries (not included), measures 2.2 by 4.2 by 1.2 inches (W x H x D) and is backed by a one-year warranty. What's in the Box
eTrex Venture HC, basemap, MapSource Trip & Waypoint Manager software, USB cable, wrist strap, quick start guide, user's manual.
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 An outdoor GPS receiver as revolutionary as the original eTrex |
| Review Date: February 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: ideastoday, Madison, AL |
Before buying this new Venture HC, I had spent many hours trekking with several of the original eTrex models over the years. I think it's fair to say that while the concept of the original eTrex was great, the execution was frequently disappointing.
It disappoints no more. The Venture HC is the eTrex perfected. It remedies almost every shortcoming that plagued the original models. The new high-sensitivity receiver is amazingly effective. Countless times I've stood in wide open spaces cursing my old eTrex because it wouldn't acquire a single satellite. Last night I turned on the Venture HC on the bottom floor of my two story house, and it locked onto 8 satellites...through the roof and the upper floor! No more "need a clear view of the sky" messages. Amazing.
The old monochrome display has become color, and the user interface is now substantially more intuitive, while adding even more functionality. The cable, which was serial on previous models, has been upgraded to USB, another welcome improvement. The case is somewhat wider than before, but the design bears a strong resemblance to the original eTrex.
A basemap is included but it's just that - basic. It shows the largest highways, bodies of water, and has some limited capability to display highway exit services. If you need turn-by-turn street directions, an eTrex is not for you. This is a GPS receiver true to Garmin's outdoor GPS heritage.
Promised battery life (14 hours) is near the bottom of the range when compared to the existing eTrex models, but is still perfectly adequate and has posed no problems.
One weakness that remains is Garmin's waypoint manager PC software. It has the feel and functionality of a software product released circa 1994. Garmin could certainly develop a better PC interface. For $49 you can buy ExpertGPS from Topografix, or download the free version (EasyGPS)from their website. Either is far more functional than the Garmin OEM software.
Still, the software criticism is a quibble. The Venture HC itself is great. It is a market changing product that renders all previous eTrex models (and many competitors) obsolete. Finally, an affordable outdoor GPS receiver that I can wholeheartedly recommend.
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Great for geocaching, astronomy!
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| Review Date: March 10, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Serge van Neck, Phoenix, AZ |
I got this unit after much research into different brands and, after settling on Garmin, different models. It's a great all-around GPS at a great price. It's my first, so I can't comment on the increased sensitivity of the HC chip, but I get plenty of coverage inside my house, and when I step outside the accuracy goes to about 9'. I would have liked the compass and altimeter of the Vista, but really don't have much need for them since I'm not an avid hiker, and didn't need to spend the extra money.
The Venture HC is great for geocaching. I took my family out on our first hunt last weekend, and although we only had about an hour to spare, we had a great time finding caches stashed around a park nearby. I can see this as a fun family activity on road trips as well. The Venture has built-in geocaching features that let you download waypoints directly from geocacher.com (using the free Garmin browser plugin), and even mark caches as found right on the GPS. The color screen is very readable in sunlight. Although the Venture HC doesn't have a proper compass, the "compass" page is very useful for closing in on the target.
The Venture HC is also great for amateur astronomers. My computerized telescope needs to know lat/long/time to accurately slew to and track objects in the sky. I can get coordinates on standard addresses on geocoder.us, but if I just want to set up at a dark site somewhere, a GPS is a must. Rather than pay $200 to get the GPS option on my scope, I can use this general purpose GPS and just plug the numbers into the telescope's controller, or even connect through my laptop. Although any GPS will give you the time and location, not all have as nice a backlit screen as this one, a good thing when you're out in the dark. The customizable color schemes (with automatic night mode) and the variable backlight intensity are also great for astronomy to keep stray light to a minimum.
If I'm disappointed with anything it is with the built-in base map. Again, because this is my first GPS I was somehow expecting more detail, not necessarily in terms of street names, but certainly with respect to canals, mountains, even major cross streets etc. The only features I've been able to distinguish are freeways, lakes and cities. There are many mountains where I live and none of them are shown on the map. More detailed topo maps are available, but cost anywhere from $80-$120. I'm not subtracting any stars for this, because I'm sure all basemaps are pretty much the same. And with 24MB of memory, there's room for decent quality maps.
Garmin updated the firmware for the Venture in February 2008, so one of the first things I did was download their free WebUpdater utility to automatically install updates. I had one scary moment when my GPS lost the USB connection in the middle of the process, and I was worried my unit would be disabled. But after turning it off and back on it came right back up and, after a second try, the new firmware was installed in about 5 minutes.
All in all, I'm very happy with the quality of this unit. It feels sturdy yet light weight, with a nice rubberized feel to it. It's also waterproof, so no trouble using it in the rain. The interface took a little getting used to, but after a while it becomes second nature. The Venture lets you customize almost every screen to your taste; for example, I wanted to have time, elevation and location on the same page for astronomy purposes, so I set one of the screens up to show all these fields. At $130, the price point was perfect: significantly lower than the next model up (sacrificing only the compass/altimeter and microSD slot), and not much higher than plain-vanilla black & white units without geocaching features.
I highly recommend it.
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Excellent GPS
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| Review Date: November 20, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Michael Fletcher, |
| I wanted a GPS primary for hunting and have used Garmins with good success in the past. This model provided all the features I was looking for and more. I never once lost reception while hunting even in the deepest woods. The unit worked equally well in a pocket or inside the truck which wasn't the case with the previous GPS units I've used. I've recently started using my GPS while running to track milage and speed. The Trip Computer will track distance, max speed, average speed, time spent moving and time spent stopped. While you have to reset the data each time it's still a very useful tool. |
Better Reception with the eTrex Venture HC
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| Review Date: October 19, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Horacio F. Olivo, Iowa City, Iowa United States |
| I was very pleased with the purchase of my new eTrex Venture HC. I've used a Garmin Legeng Cx for geocaching for the last year and coords jump off too much under heavy canopy. This is not the case with the new eTrex Venture HC. I was also able to load Topo and City maps without any trouble using my old software. I also had no problems loading waypoints directly using GSAK software. |
I use this for geocaching.
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| Review Date: November 22, 2007 |
| Reviewer: K. Hann, |
The Venture HC is great. Its easy to use and it is pretty accurate. The H in the HC means high sensitivity chip. This wont make it any more accurate but it will help you still receive a signal under tree cover.
If this unit is in your price range but the Vista is not then get it. Otherwise upgrade to the vista as it has better battery life and you can get the removable memory.
For me it was at the right price and has enough features for me. This was my first GPS unit and I havent had any issues with it. It has worked very well for geocaching. |
Great unit for geocaching!
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| Review Date: July 28, 2008 |
| Reviewer: a viewer, USA |
I purchased this unit several weeks ago, have used it a lot so far, and I'm very pleased with its performance.
I began geocaching several months ago and had been using my Nuvi 350 Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text-to-Speech for that. It worked well (and is fantastic for driving), but I was afraid I would damage it or that it would get wet from so much outdoor use. I wanted a unit that was more durable, with an excellent satellite receiver, but economical. Therefore, I ordered a Garmin eTrex Venture HC, just to use for caching. (It would probably also work well for hiking, etc.; I've only used it for geocaching.) This is the current basic eTrex model that has the new receiver (H), color screen (C), USB connection, but no card slot (x).
This little GPSr has all the features I need for geocaching, and a good many that I've still not used.
*Small size, shaped to be handheld, has a lanyard, is lightweight and easy to carry, very convenient to use
*Waterproof and durable for outdoor use
*Easy to read screen in sunlight
*Simple to use, with lots of features
*Locks on satellites quickly and holds signal very well, very accurate
*Has geocaching mode with ability to mark caches as found (not a necessity, but nice)
*Two screen choices to look for waypoint/cache--map screen and compass pointer screen
*Batteries last a long time--I've just now changed out the first set of regular alkaline batteries. I've found a couple dozen caches, placed a couple, and worked with the unit at home a lot to learn its features, usually with the backlight on, on one pair of regular AA's.
*Connects to computer with USB cable, can send brief cache info directly to unit by clicking on "Send to Garmin" on geocaching website. You can also enter the info manually, and there is space for some brief notes.
*Great price--around $115 here the last time I checked.
I really can't think of any cons. I was afraid the screen might be too small on this smaller-size unit, but it's big enough and not a problem at all. I wish it had a setting to automatically turn the backlight on each time, but it's very easy to turn it on so that's no problem.
The maps are very basic without much detail (as on most of the "outdoor" units), but I use the Nuvi if I need driving directions. After parking, I use the eTrex to find the cache and haven't needed maps for that. I haven't loaded any extra maps (I don't do wilderness caching) or used any of the 24 MB of internal memory. Forums have indicated that this is enough space for loading a good many topo maps, but not for many driving navigation maps. If you want to buy & load City Navigator for driving, you'd need a model with a card slot. For me, the Nuvi 350 and Venture HC make a great combo to cover all bases better than a single unit would.
One of the friends that I often cache with has the more expensive 60CSx, and our units usually give almost identical information. I know there are technical differences, but the eTrex performs very well in comparison.
This is the Venture HC, not the older eTrex Venture model. The more expensive eTrex units (Vista HCx, etc.) have features like an additional electronic compass & altimeter and a card slot, but I haven't needed those. I think those are the major differences in the newest eTrex models, they basically work the same and have the same receiver. Garmin's website lets you compare features on different models, and you can read the manuals there.
If you need a great unit for caching, consider the Venture HC.
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Fantastic GPSr for geocaching at the price
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| Review Date: November 5, 2008 |
| Reviewer: L. Lim, SF Bay Area |
I got this unit for geocaching in urban and near urban areas. Garmin has some cheaper units, but they're either in B&W (not a big deal) or has a serial interface. I highly recommend getting a unit with USB interface unless you're running Windows 95 on a really old machine. Not only is the transfer speed much faster, some new machines (and many laptops) no longer has a serial port.
Performance of the unit is very good. It even managed to get a lock in my house, something my Nuvi could not do. Do bear in mind that the position is updated once every second, and the "compass" is only accurate if you're moving for a few seconds in a straight line. This is true for all GPSr that does not have an electronic compass.
The unit is small and fits very well in my hands - much easier than holding a Nuvi which I was using before this arrived. With the black case, it looks vaguely enough like a cell phone that people will not give you a second look when you're out hunting for a cache.
Waypoint names are 14 characters long, and it only holds 500 waypoints. Geocaching feature in this unit mainly consists of the ability to mark a waypoint as "found", after which you're asked if you want to go to the next closest waypoint. Searching for a cache would, by default, filter out found caches. And you can view the calendar to see when you found which cache - useful if you are logging your finds after a few days out hunting without Internet access.
The main limitations of this unit is : very limited basemap, no sensor, no memory expansion capability. There are units that has those features, but none come close to the price of the Venture HC. If you want those features, go for a GPSMap 60CSx - at almost 3 times the price. Or spend even more and get a Colorado or Oregon for paperless caching.
If you want some free street maps, search for ibycus USA. It's very straightforward - install the Garmin software that comes with this unit, then download and install ibycus USA. You need to select the map set on the upper left corner of Mapsource. There's no topo information unfortunately, and it is not routable. By the way, this unit will not do routing no matter what mapset you're using.
The Venture HC (and probably all other Garmin GPSr that takes AA batteries) can be used with rechargable batteries, but the unit itself cannot recharge the battery (you'll need to remove the batteries for recharging). If plugged into a USB port, the Venture HC will draw power from USB, and not draw from the batteries. I use Sanyo Eneloop low self discharge batteries and I haven't had to recharge them after a week of use.
My unit came with firmware 2.7 - updating to the latest (2.8 as I write this) is fairly painless. User interface takes a few minutes to get used to, not difficult at all. Garmin also has an application to make screen captures off the GPSr, and to customize the startup splash screen. A device SDK is also available for application developers.
For a (relatively) low cost entry to geocaching, I highly recommend this unit, with a set of Eneloop NiMH and the protective case.
Oh, and just a note, if you have a Nuvi, search for Nuvi Paperless Geocaching. You'll need the application GSAK and a premium account with geocaching.com, but that will give you the ability to view cache descriptions, hints and logs, together with proximity alerts and driving instructions to the cache, at your fingertip. |
I love this GPS
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| Review Date: November 11, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Peter Iannuzzi, Savannah,GA USA |
| Great GPS for Biking even though it doesn't show all of the streets but it shows and directs to where you are, and Great Service from Amazon when they told me that i had a defected one before this one. Thanks amazon |
Great intro unit for geocaching for the price!
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| Review Date: September 29, 2008 |
| Reviewer: B. Root, Whittier, CA USA |
You wanna do geocaching? Get this. I bought this as my first unit, it was a toss between the eTrex H, the generic unit with no map and only an arrow, and then spending more money on this. I am glad I spent more money on the Venture HC, because I don't think the eTrex H would be useful at all on long hikes in the hills.
The Venture has an easy to see and read color screen and comes pre-installed with a basemap that is basically entirely useless. If you want to do any serious hill and hiking geocaching you need to get the topographic maps that Garmin offers. These are expensive, but are pretty much necessary when navigating terrain and trails with changes in elevation. I can recall several instances when I needed to check elevation levels to make sure I was on the right trail to get to the cache I was chasing.
The topographic maps that Garmin offers also have street data on them, but this device has no turn-by-turn and, but it's great to compare what is on my Garmin to what is in my car's GPS so that I can navigate easily to caches.
I only use this unit for geocaching, however I see no reason it wouldn't work great for regular hiking and out door activities. This is a good unit at a great price. Everything about it is pretty much golden.
Pros:
- Easy to use. I figured out how to use most functions without even reading the manual, but I am a bit of a geek.
- Easy to read the screen
- Battery life is great even on non-rechargables
- Very accurate! Usually if the geocache you're hunting has accurate coordinates, GZ on the unit will be exactly where the cache is. Make sure to turn on WAAS, as it seemed to be off by default.
- Unit is pretty much weather proof and has been banged around by me a fair bit and stays strong!
- Onboard memory is more than enough to have all the topographic maps for Southern California (LA County to SD county and everything in between) in it.
Cons:
- Base map is entirely useless.
- Draw time is a little slow, but nothing that could possibly hold you up.
- Only holds data for 500 geocaches, but, really, who needs more than that really? |
best entry level/budget GPS receiver
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| Review Date: June 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: pluckieduckie, GA |
you get the most bang for your buck with the venture hc. you have to know what this GPSr is for and not for. it's great for geocaching, hiking, and marking waypoints. it is highly accurate and can receive signals in deep cover of trees. buildings can interfere with the signal but not even the top end GPSr will get you better reception. i usually get an accuracy within 8-11 feet. for me, the most important thing in a handheld is getting reception and accuracy.
PROS:
- good battery life, lasts at least 14 hours
- highly accurate
- great reception
- compact size
- downloadable points of interest
CONS:
- no external memory
- if you load maps, refreshing screen is sluggish but not slow
- hard to find maps but if you do a search, you'll find it and it's free
- screen size is on the small side but you'll forgot about it after a few uses
- typing in waypoint names is a pain and cumbersome. |
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