Reviewed by Ben Lee, http://bestgpsreviewsonline.com editor.

Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx Handheld GPS Navigator
Overall Rating:
 
Retail Price: $535.99
Amazon Price: $589.99
 Buy The Garmin GPS 60 CSX on Amazon for only $302.89 (43% off retail price).

Ease of use – Rating: ★★★★½
Construction quality – Rating: ★★★★½
Portability – Rating: ★★★★☆
Map value – Rating: ★★★½☆
Value for money – Rating: ★★★★½

The Garmin GPS 60 CSX is a GPS of superb quality and feel. This is evident from the moment you take it out of the box – it just feels great in your hand and doesn’t feel like its going to break the first time you use it.

Let it be known straight away, the 60 CSX is a high quality GPS navigator and is the 3rd best selling GPS navigator on Amazon.

It is shockproof and waterproof and has a large, reflective 1.5 x 2.2 inch monitor with 256 high resolution colors. It is a relatively large GPS unit at 2.4 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches so it will be too large for most trouser or short pockets.

Instead there is a handy belt clip apparatus that is included with the GPS allowing you to hook the unit onto your belt when not in use.  I think it’s fair to say that you won’t always be looking at your GPS and sometimes it is not practical to hold it in your hand – especially when scaling hillsides or rock faces.

Of course, anyone who is seriously into orienteering, mountaineering or just general hiking will really appreciate this feature. Furthermore, the fact that it actually comes with the GPS is a huge bonus for me personally as I hate having to spend more money after my main purchase.

As well as the belt clip, the Garmin 60 CSX comes with a 64mb microSD flash card, USB cable, user manual (with quick start guide) and last but not least MapSource Trip & Waypoint Manager software. The only thing it doesn’t come with is 2 x AA batteries but what does come with batteries these days.

So what else does this fantastic GPS navigator have to offer?

  1. fast position acquisition times – even under say a dense forest or inside your own home
  2. altimeter, barometer and trip computer
  3. dedicated geocaching menu with superb functionality
  4. piece of mind when venturing into unfamiliar territory – you can definitely trust the 60 CSX to never lead you down the wrong path
The Good
  • performs admirably in all major categories
  • superb value for money
  • intuitive and easy to use buttons and displsay
  • extremely precise information
  • MapSource software with Google earth compatibility
The Bad
  • batteries not included
  • map software can be unreliable and patchy – you may have detailed map information in one area and very basic in another area

I had to really struggle to find something abhorrently wrong with the Garmin GPS 60 CSX and it is clear to me that its bad points are a mere drop in the ocean compared to the numerous good things about this product

Garmin have been an industry leader in the GPS market for some time now and in 2007 sold more GPS units than all of its competitors combined, so you know you are in safe hands.

The 60 CSX is perfect for anyone who loves the outdoors – be it sailing, climbing, hiking or road tripping. The added feature of planning route overlays with Google Earth is perhaps my favorite aspect of this GPS

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

Read some of the 500+ highly positive Garmin GPS 60 CSX reviews.

*One word of warning however that a lot of customer reviews on Amazon seem to touch on –  while this particular GPS unit does have road navigation functionality, it obviously is not as good as a dedicated “in-car” GPS, so I wonder why people are expecting it to be.

If you want something that sits on your dashboard, then by all means buy a CAR GPS! However, if you really want the best of the both worlds then you can spend a bit of extra money and get the Garmin MapSource City Navigator software which is quite good and will enhance your city navigation capabilities.

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