Re: GPS 76 very early comments

In article <44AF3C18.6E5BD92@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dan Foster wrote:
It is obvious that the photographer took a poor shot, and that this was
not corrected by image post-processing. In real life, it is clear and
readable.

I checked the manuals for the 5. They have the same tiny itsy bitty font
next to values.

I haven't ever personally seen the II+ so I do not know how much the II+
differs from the III+ and later models. Is it a big difference with the
screen font and rendering? (I doubt it.)

The reason why I ask is because some preliminary measurements seems to
suggest that the III+ and 76CSx seems to be similar.

Note that the 76CSx is the colour model; I have no experience with
recent black and white models.

Perhaps my eyesight is failing, but when the unit turns on, I cannot
male out which key I am supposed to press to get past that stupid
legalese page. I know it is "page" because I used a magnifying glass to
look at it. But against a grey background, it is really hard to tell
what it written in tha tiny box. (on the 76). Perhaps on a colour
display, it is on some red background that really stands out.

It's even simpler than that on at least the 76CSx: you won't have to
fumble around for the ENTER key to dismiss the legal warning dialog box
because it doesn't appear at all!

If I am ditching the 76 because of poor readability os the tiny itsy
bitty fonts, I won't want a unit that uses the same style. I'd much
rather have abbreviations that are bigger (such as AVG intead of
<font=tiny>mov avg speed</font>

That's within reason. I do wish Garmin had allowed for
user-customization edits of these fields.

I bought the 76 beased on my high satisfaction from the II+ and figured
the same high standards of usability would have been maintained with the
new technology. However, this experience has now tought me that I cannot
trust Garmin based on the II+ because they have changed significantly
since then and I really have to see a unit before buying it.

That's within reason, and yes, I do encourage you to look at things
firsthand.

With the 76CSx, you can customize the displays more than you can do with
the III+.

Yes, the 76 also has that customizability. I thiiugh it was pretty cool
to choose how many rows of numbers to have and choice of font size for
the numbers.

Heh... well, I also find it useful for the fact that you can reorder
the sequence in which pages appears (and I *think* you can turn off some
pages entirely??).

That means when I am on the road, I only have to flip back and forth
between two main screens, at best, to find information I need without a
lot of fumbling around or "heads down" time.

It is more than just "ah, cool" stuff. :-)

However, it is because of that customizability that you really need to
see what each value is (average speed or current speed ?). And on the

Yes, do have to review that in advance while making these selections at
customization time.

76, I found that because all the customizable screens looked the same at
the top (same design of boxes with tiny legend font and big number), it
is even harder to have 2 pages displayng different numbers without the
ability to really read the legend to find out what numbers they are.

Point taken.

If, on a long bike ride, I get killed by a car or a pothole because I
was concentrating on trying to decypher some tiny text on the unit, then
that unit shouldn't be used. So in the end, I really cannot use such
units, despite them being more powerful and having more features.

That's reasonable. My needs are a little different from yours, I imagine.

On the 76CSx, the top row of this page gives more information. It tells
you if it's on battery power or external power (AC or USB),

I checked the V's doc, and the battery indicator appears to be just as
small as on the 76. And on the 2+, if you press certain keys on startup,
you can get the actual voltage for the batteries AND the external
source. (when I was cycling with solar panel to feed GPS and radio, I
was able to use the GPS as a digital voltmeter to check any power problems.

Yes, you get the same voltage screen on the III+, which I really
appreciated, too. Did help me troubleshoot batteries once. That's one of
the few things I missed with the 76CSx.

Another thing I missed is the ability to flip orientation between
horizontal and vertical layouts. You can do this quickly/easily with the
III+ but not the 76CSx.

This becomes useful when you are in situations where you might be in a
North-up orientation and driving on a long route east-west and want to
see more of the route ahead/behind.

(I use Track-up orientation sometimes, but still generally prefer
North-up because that better matches the paper maps I am used to
reading.)

The 2+ locked in and quickly went to an EPE of about 4metres. The 74 was
at 20 at first and later went down to 6.

That's impressive (4m) for a non-WAAS-capable unit like the II+. I would
have to honestly question the accuracy of that unit, though. The best
non-WAAS resolution I have gotten with both the III+ and 76CSx (with
WAAS disabled) was 8m.

For you to get 4m with a non-WAAS unit, the atmosphere would have to be
free of ionospheric errors amongst other types of errors. This is
extremely rare.

The Wikipedia page has an excellent table showing detailed breakdowns of
errors that affects GPS precision (assuming SA is disabled):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS

See the 'Accuracy' section, under 'Best case'. (Alas, the French version
does not have this table, or I would have given that URL instead.)

When the 74 acquired WAAS signal, it went down to 3 metres. (one WASS
(51) acquired. But it also knows of 48. (this is very hard to read on
the satellite page because the satellite numbers are so tiny. But my
old 2+ would give me 4 metres, not bad compared to a much more modern
unit with more bells and whistles.

Note that with the III+, it is hard to read the satellite numbers along
the bottom row of the satellites page because they do not have
sufficient spacing between each number. It looks like one huge run-on
large number.

So I cannot tell which satellite number it is quickly without careful
scrutiny. The 76CSx fixes this.

With the 2+ (and III and V), the antenna protrudes more and vcan be
oriented. So on a bicycle, it is easier to get the antenna out of the
shade generaged by the body. I could rig up a new bike support for the
76 that would move the 76 forwards so that it woudl at least be held
under its centre of gavity. But een then, I am not sure it would perform
as well as the II+ (or III or 5 whcih save same cabinet/antenna design)
on a bike.

I am not familiar with the II+ but I think the III+ and V uses the same
type of Garmin-supplied antenna (which can be clipped on or removed).

There may also be other third party antennas that may be suitable for
your needs, too.

USB is not an issue for me until they have PDAs that can act as both
master and slave (or the GOS acts as both master or slave).

That's reasonable.

Battery life is about half the time on the 76CSx, which is not bad
considering it is colour based and a higher resolution. Keep in mind it
also has half the number of batteries, too. So this is within reason.

On the 76, the quoted battery life is just over half that of the II+,
but you have to dig into the manual to find that thsi value only applies
if you run it in battery saver mode.

Ahh, yes, I had forgotten about that.

That isn't a show stopper. However, since I do not know what the real
battery life is for the 76, I would have to experiement with it beyond
the period where I can return the unit for refund. If Garmin had

Hm? What you do is:

Turn on the GPS. Enable WAAS. (Or leave it disabled if you don't plan on
ordinarily using WAAS.) Turn off the 15 or 30 sec power saving mode;
leave it to run continuously.

Note the time you started this. Note the time it finally runs out of
juice. (If you are not around to observe end time, you can get this
information from the stored track log.)

You probably need a little over 1/2 day to run this test.

This will not approximate actual battery usage out in the field, but it
will seek out a worst case scenario.

And if the unit were to issue a "battery power is low" message instead
of randomly flickerng the screen, perhaps I would have more respect for it.

When battery power is low on my 76CSx, it does indeed give that warning.
It doesn't flicker the screen at random for me.

Consider that Garmin has not updated the firmware for older units like
the III+ or V in years. So you are not likely going to get bug fixes for
possibly significant new issues.

But for the II+, it is a fairly robust unit in terms of software. I know
it works. Althouigh I haven't had it with the citypoints database,
perhaps that version has bugs.

Robust, yes, but have you ever looked at the firmware changelog list for
even the III+? They fix a huge amount of things in each version.

Someone here said a few days ago that this is not relevant. The receiver
listends to the GPS frequency and will see any WAAS satellite whose
signal reaches you and will get its orbit data etc.

Ah! That's good to know, thanks.

And now that my loyalty to Garmin is no longer so strong, I may start
looking at other manufacturers to see if they have units that do fit
my needs.

Well, that's reasonable. Magellan also makes reputable units. I am less
familiar with Lowrance. And, naturally, there are other manufacturers.

Here's some suggestions:

1. Find a good GPS dealer or two (one Garmin, one Magellan) near your
home, and go visit them in person to evaluate various units.

2. Ask in a bicycling newsgroup what unit they use and have found to be
rugged for the kind of rides you do. They may have suggestions for
current units by various manufacturers that will better support your
needs.

Depending on if you regularly ride through tree cover or urban canyons
(tall buildings), you might benefit from an unit with a SiRFstar III
chipset if you really want to maintain lock on under difficult
conditions. Otherwise, if that is not as a pressing need, then
disregard.

-Dan
.

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