Like/Dislike about the Garmin GPS 60CSx Handheld GPS Navigator

I've been thinking about buying one of these for a while.

If you own one, I'd like to hear what you really dislike about it or wish it had or any warnings before you get it.

Thanks!!

great as a handheld, pretty good on a dual sport bike. If you are at the reading glasses age, then you probably want something with a bigger screen. The directions for the next turn are kind of small when they come up. I think they suffer from the bouncing battery problem too, but a little bit of foam to hold them in place keeps the unit from shutting off. Or wire it to bike power.

Takes externally created routes. You can load old tracks and follow them. Holds tons of tracklog info if you store it on the sd card. That's what comes to mind for me. You know Trailrider77 (clayton), he has one and can give you his thoughts.

If you were thinking of using it in the car too, then I'd consider the nuvi 500 or 550 instead.

I have the 76CSx, which I believe is very similier to the 60 with the one exception that the antenna is enclosed which helps keep it from being broken off if a clumsy person drops it. When I purchased mine, the rep from Garmin talked me into going with the 76 over the 60 for that reason only. I have been happy with mine for the past 4 or 5 years that I have had it. I switch it from my bikes to my work vehicle and it does everything I want. It would be nice to have a larger screen. I do need to upgrade my maps though, because they are still the original ones that I got when I purchased it.

+1, mine is hot wired to my battery. Water proof, tuff as a boot.

old tech, can only take tracks of <500 points, must merge additional maps in order to load to sd card, sd card limit of 2gb, low resolution screen, usb 1(very slow to load maps), Garmin will probably not release any more firmware updates

The 60csx is a still a good gps for trail bike use, don't pay more than $200 for it. I would get a 62 or an Oregon 450.

Biggest plus over zumo it will run on batterys a few days so no need for goofy charging cradle or hard wire

I recently bought the 62st and I love it:



The fact that the 60 and 62 series of GPS units take 2 AA batteries is a big plus, since I use them on and off the bike in a lot of different applications. For dual sport riding, being able to pop the GPS out of its mount and go hiking, geocaching, hunting, or just plain exploring, is a fantastic capability.

The 62ST comes pre-loaded with topo U.S., I added North America NT via Garmin's website. That combo is all I need.

Mounts for the 62 series are supposed to be out in December. I already have base mounts for the motos and bicycles. Meanwhile, with just a little imagination, I adapted the 62 to the 60 mount that I have and I've been using the 62 on everything I have.

Over Thanksgiving, I took the 62ST and the 60Cs out for a geocaching experiment. The 62 locked on to satellites in just a few seconds, the 60 took much longer. According to My Garmin, I couldn't find map updates for the 60Cs, which is another reason I bought the 62ST. Make sure if you go with the 60 series that you can get map updates if that is important to you.

I'm very happy with the 62 series - whether or not someone needs the compass and/or the topo may determine what type of 62 model they consider, and they're priced accordingly.

As a side note for any GPS use for the bifocal crowd, for around 12 bucks you can get DeWalts impact resistant lenses with bifocal lenses built in. I use them on the moto and they work perfectly:

I was wrong, the 60csx can now load a 16gb data card, but it is still limited to a 4gb merged map and limited to 2024 map tiles so the 4gb limit is probably unreachable anyway.

http://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/g_60csx.html

I find topo maps very difficult to see and distinguish detail, so I tend to use city navigator most of the time on the gps. I have the free topo maps from gpsfiledepot.com and they are very good for times when topos are called for. It is fairly simple to switch maps when necessary. If I were to purchase any of the mentioned units, I would buy it without any maps then buy city navigator on dvd, load it and the free topos on the gps. This way you have a legal version to load on your computer as well. I am not sure you can load the map on the computer if you buy as a download, and I know you can not load to the computer if bought preloaded on a sd card.

Thanks for all the input!!

WoodButcher said:

I think they suffer from the bouncing battery problem too, but a little bit of foam to hold them in place keeps the unit from shutting off. Or wire it to bike power.

Click to expand...

I absolutely love mine. Would not leave home without it if I travelled out of town. I've never experienced the above issue. I have the car mount and I bought the RAM GPS mount to mount it on my bike and it has been bounced around a bunch and I have never had a problem with going on and off. I also use the Lithium AA batteries and I have used it all day for a complete week and did not have to change the battery. I also purchased the UK version to use when I went there for a work trip. Had to go around 75 roundabouts to get to my destination. Being my first time in the UK it would have taken me forever to find the destination on my own. This GPS unit was a life saver. The way-point feature is what I use the most.

The only thing I did not like is that I had to buy the US City Navigator software to get all of the maps separately. The standard maps that come with the unit were not acceptable for use in residential areas.

I looked at buying one but got the Nuvi 500 instead after reading about the likes and dislikes on the two units. Screen size was the biggest drawback I saw on the 60CSx, I'm in the reading glasses age. But the major reason I bought the Nuvi was I found it on sale and it was too good of a deal to pass up.