With an eTrex series GPS is by your side. The eTrex is a basic GPS with a built-in electronic compass and barometric altimeter. These smart little handhelds are tough, waterproof and feature simple, one-hand operation.

8 Mb Of Available Flash Memory

Download From Metroguide Usa Cd-Rom (Not Included), Detailed Street Map Info, Addresses & Points Of Interest With Phone Info

Smallest GPS On Market With North & South America Basemap

WAAS-Enabled

Perfect For Outdoor Person & Adaptable To Be Fully-Functional For Vehicle Use

Average Customer Review: ( 312 customer reviews )
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The base map included in the Legend only shows major highways and major streets. This is similar to the maps you get from a car rental agency. It's perfectly fine for doing rough navigation from city to city. At first, I tried using Rand McNally's StreetFinder and TripMaker Deluxe on my laptop with the Legend. The setup worked, but having to deal with the serial cable and using a laptop in the car was not very practical.

After I've had my Legend a while, I had a chance to borrow and use a Vista. The owner of the Vista upgraded it with detailed street-detail maps from Garmin's MapSource "Metroguide USA" CD .... The detailed street map is a really nice feature -- especially because you can look up addresses. Having such a detailed map in a small portable device is a delight! I decided to get the Metroguide for myself.

From my usage comparison, I found two things missing in the Legend compared to the top-end etrex Vista.

First, the Legend has only 8 MB of expansion memory instead of the 24 MB in the Vista. This turns out to be a big issue for me, as I would like to have a complete metro guide of the greater Los Angeles area. With 8 MB, I could only fit 6 of the 18 MetroGuide map sets that I would have liked. This means, I am missing coverage of a large section stretching roughly from Compton to Long Beach to Lynwood to Cerritos to Irvine that I would have wanted. In contrast, the Vista held all of greater Los Angeles area, plus some San Francisco, San Diego, and Las Vegas.

Second, the Vista has sensors for barometric altitude and magnetic compass heading. The Legend estimates altitude via GPS, and calculated heading based on your travel speed vector. If you are a trail-hiker, these sensors improve your navigation.

Used as-is from the factory (i.e., only the American basemaps), the Legend is perfectly fine, and I was quite happy with it.
I could live without the Vista's sensors;

But, having hit the 8 MB memory limit (trying to load Los Angeles), I would definitely go with the Vista now.

The Metroguide maps sizes of other cities may or may not be an issue for you. Go to the Garmin website and use their MapSourec Map Viewer and count the number of "yellow squares" you'll need to cover you area of interest. Each square roughly represents between 500K to 1.5 MB of data (with the smaller, "dense" squares being toward the 1 MB to 1.5MB size). You'll find that most of the big cities will have enough squares to easily exceed the 8 MB of the Legend.

111 of 112 found the following review helpful:

The best GPS in this price range, with one caveat:Jan 16, 2005
By Smaug "Jeremy"
If you are reading this, you are probably considering the Legend for its combination of price & features, along with the overall user satisfaction. That's why I chose it anyhow. ;)

Before I bought, I too read all of these amazon reviews and decided this GPS would be the best one for the money. ($136 at the time I bought it) I read the reviews of the Magellans, but they were pretty mixed, and their customer service NEVER got any kudos. It seemed like only 50% of their customers were happy out-of-the-box. I was initially attracted to them because they are said to retain satellite lock better than these low-end Garmins. But then I read that they have lower resolution displays, and that they're a lot bigger and heavier. A shame, since some of the medium Magellens had expandable SD memory...

Back to the Garmin Legend, bad news first: reception could be a bit stronger. If you follow Garmin's directions and hold the receiver flat under an unobstructed sky, you will always have excellent reception, a good lock, and good accuracy. (WAAS brings it from 27 ft. down to under 10 ft when you are covered by WAAS enabled satellites) But the signal gets degraded easily. For instance, if you don't hold it flat as you walk around outside, the accuracy generally drops from 10 ft to 50 ft. No big deal really. In the car, mounted to the dash there are never any problems. (check ebay for mounting accessories, unless you want to get gouged for the name-brand ones...)

The features are great, and are pretty easy to learn. The "clik stik' menu navigation is great. The display is very sharp and has great resolution. I can't believe how good it looks. Not that this matters much, but I also like the transluscent blue plastic. I haven't tried any of the external software yet, as it is pricey at around $100. (Garmin is crazy to ask this much for it. Do they think people don't realize how much it is going to cost? If they priced their extra maps at about $20 per country instead of $100+, they would sell a lot more of everything)

I have a friend at work who bought a Legend over a year ago. He just sold it on the bay and got most of his money back and put it towards a Vista C. He says the reception is drastically more reliable. He said that in his bathroom with a roof overhead, he was still able to pick up satellites and get good accuracy. With his Legend, he complained about losing satellite reception when he put it in a chest pocket of his jacket while riding dirtbikes in the desert. He likes that there is 24 MB of memory instead of 8. He likes the display. He also makes about 3X more money than I do, so he can afford a GPS that costs 3X as much as mine! (They're around $360 vs $140)

I went for a 3 mile hike in the forest preserve today and had it hung around my neck with the supplied strap. It worked great, even though it was about 5 degrees Farenheit today. The LCD was getting pretty slow, but everything worked very well.

Some notes if you're also considering the entry level (yellow) eTrex: The built-in USA basemap of the Legend is useful, but it doesn't cover down to street level. Realize that the basic etrex doesn't have this, so it will not be very useful for the car. It has major roads. Generally, anything with a state or interstate # will be on it. If you plan to use it only for outdoor activities where you will never need a map (topographic or street), the basic eTrex has the same hardware but with a smaller LCD screen. I know someone who has a yellow eTrex, and I think her main complaint is that it doesn't have the clik stik. She is an avid hiker and geocacher, and when she enters waypoints (manually, since it doesn't have PC interface capabilities) she doesn't bother to name them since it take so much longer without the clik-stik. She just leaves them numbered.

If you want more information, check out the groundspeak forums. Please do an honest search of the posts that are there before asking questions, as newbies show up and ask the same questions week after week. Someone has already asked your question, believe me.

Bottom line, if you have the dough, buy one of the higher-end Garmins for the reception and memory. If not, you will be very happy with this Legend as long as you realize its limitations.

89 of 96 found the following review helpful:

The Best Way To Go For GPSJun 29, 2001
By Jon E. Hanford
The Etrex Line is by far the best handheld GPS for the money and size. There is a model that fits every user's needs and budget. Unless you need a magnetic compass and barometric altimeter, the Etrex Legend is probobly the best option.

In addition to excellent waypoint and track management functions, the Legend features full mapping functions. The Unit includes a fairly detailed basemap of North America, but for more detailed mapping, data can be downloaded from a MapSource CD-ROM. These discs are availible in many flavors, from Waterway Details, to Topographical, to MetroGuide, which features address and business locating functions (Like Handheld Mapquest.com!)Downloading is easy, and thanks to the unit's high resolution LCD display, maps are suprisingly readable. The waterways disc features a complete database of aids to navigation, cataloging every bouy, daymark, and light in US waters.

As far as GPS functions, the unit preforms beutifully, maintaining a good position fix under moderate tree cover, and inside of a car. Heavy foliage can create a problem, but the unit performs better than most handheld GPS do in this situation. WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) increases accuracy to within 9 feet in good reception areas! Although this is at the expense of battery life. To save power, leave WAAS turned off and you will still get accuracy within 20 feet.

Because the unit uses 2 AA batteries instead of four, life is reduced; expect to change batteries at least every 14 hours, with the unit on continuously. Still, this is less often than my old garmin GPS 45, and that used four batts.

The user interface is very friendly, intuitive, and powerful. This is a great achivment, usually powerful interfaces are not user-freindly and vice versa. It bears quite a similarity to Operating Systems such as Windows and Macintosh, so if you know how to use the computer you are reading this with, you should be right at home. Besides the buttons for Page, Power/Light, Find, Zoom In/Out, there is a "Click Stick" as a pointing device. It works like a joystick or the trackpoint on a laptop to control the cursor on the screen. Pusing it in is like a mouse-click. One strage note on this: it is placed on the left side of the unit. This means that operating in with your'e right thumb blocks the screen. Many people think this is a mistake, making one handed operation with the right hand near impossible, but it makes goos sense to me: operate the GPS in your left hand, while steering the boat with your left. It is not that hard to learn to use the GPS with your left hand (if youre righty), so you can have your right hand free for other things.

In All, The Etrex Legend GPS is your best Buy in a handheld mapping GPS. If your'e looking for more features, check out the more expensive Etrex Vista and Garmin Gpsmap 76, or the very expensive handheld cartographic units, but if you just want a very good, inexpensive, handheld mapping GPS, The Legend is the best around.

33 of 33 found the following review helpful:

Etrex LegendSep 01, 2002
By Brian Sniatkowski "BrianSnat"
I purchased the ETrex Legend for the sole purpose of Geocaching (look it up on the web if you don't know what I'm talking about). I soon found it invaluable for driving, finding my way around strange cities, snowshoeing off trail and hiking.

The Legend is a compact, easy to use unit. At its list price, it has a great price/feature ratio. The Vista has more memory and a magnetic compass, but I haven't seen the need for more memory yet and my $10 compass works just fine (and doesn't need batteries).

At first I was concerned about the 8 meg of memory not being enough, but I've downloaded the MapSource topo for northern NJ, southern NY to Albany and much of soutern Vermont with room to spare. On a trip to Sacramento, I was able to download the area around Sac, from San Francisco to Tahoe.

It comes with a base map that is very basic. It shows major roads, rivers, lakes and points of interest. I do recommend eventually getting one of the MapSource maps. If you are an outdoorsperson, you should get the Topo. If you travel often, Roads and Recreation is the one to buy.

There are some issues with reception under heavy leaf cover, but as I understand it, this is a problem with most GPSr's.

The clic-stick is a great feature, making navigating your way around the unit's features a breeze. The Legend is durable (I've dropped it many times) and water resistant (dropped it in water) and I recommend it to anybody who wants a full featured unit with map capability and doesn't want to spend a bundle.

Update 2 years later:
After over a year and a half of use I was still very happy with my Legend. I found that there were no reception issues under heavy leaf cover as long as I held the GPS the way the mfr. recommends, which is flat with the face up to the sky. Admittedly this is fine for a while, but for long hikes it can be a pain, so I purchased the neoprene carrier and I cliped it to the top of my pack's shoulder belt to solve this. Another way to improve reception in the woods is to turn it on well before you enter the woods, so it knows where all the sats are. As long as I hold it correctly, I rarely lose reception even under heavy leaf canopy and the few times I do, I get it back within seconds.
I've used my unit alongside Magellan Meridian and Sportrak users as well as users of other Garmin models and my reception was comparable.

The one problem I had was with the rubber gasket that surrounds the unit. The glue degraded after a while and the gasket would slip. I sent it back to Garmin and they repaired it for free as it was still under warranty. I think leaving the unit on the dashboard of a hot car in the summer may have contributed to this.

I liked the Legend so much, that when I felt it was time to upgrade, I purchased its big brother, the Vista.

Update - July 2008:

This was a good unit it it's day, but GPS technology has passed it by and the newer units are far better and don't cost much more. This is still in Garmin's line which is why I felt it was necessary to post this update. The newer eTrex units (any with an H in the model name) have a high sensitivity receiver that gets great reception under trees and even indoors. Most importantly some of them are just a few bucks more than this dinosaur. If you are considering this unit, take a look at the eTrex Venture HC, or eTrex Legend HCX. They have better reception, a color display, more map memory, fast USB connections and more. This uses the old serial connection that most PC don't even come with any more and the reception doesn't come close to that of the Legend HCX and Venture HC.

30 of 30 found the following review helpful:

My first GPSJan 14, 2003
By Ned K. Wynn "EKW"
I have never owned a GPS unit before. I gave this one to myself for Christmas. I also bought the cigarette lighter DC cable (a huge plus for long car trips) and the case (not absolutely necessary, but handy).

As a neophyte to this whole business, I have nothing against which to compare the Garmin eTrex Legend. I chose it because there was a [$$$] rebate on it at the time, otherwise I was going to get the eTrex Venture. I am glad for the upgrade as this unit has 8MB of memory for map uploading.

I am still discovering things about the unit, and its sophistication and flexibility astound me. I think that these units are as useful and will become as common as cell phones, either in automobiles or on one's person. I recently had to go to Florida (I am from California) and it saved me half-a-dozen times from making wrong turns and creating a lot of frustration and lost time. Florida is flat and I am completely lost there as I do not know East from West nor North from South. I think that there is no directional instinct present in the higher primates. Or I am simply deficient in that area. Either way, the Etrex Legend was the most useful item I had with me (I had no cell phone).

This unit is WAAS enabled which means it can be accurate down to a three meter circle. I learned how to mark a route from the place I was staying to my mother's house. Once I had that route in place, there was no way I could go wrong. On the navigation screen the large course pointer would actually "break" and point when I came to a turn I was supposed to make. If you use the "Track" feature, the unit automatically creates Waypoints along a sort of breadcrumb trail. You can reverse the track and go in the opposite direction.

My only complaint is that you must use only Garmin Mapsource maps and each time you upload a new map the old one is automatically erased (don't be alarmed, however, because the basemap that comes installed with the unit is NEVER erased. Only the user-uploaded maps are erased during the procedure). Nonetheless, given the memory in the unit it would be nice if you could upload several different maps at a time and not lose the previously uploaded data. And the Mapsource maps leave something to be desired in their detail. For instance most of the street names in my hometown are not on the Mapsource map even though the streets themselves are there. But this is a minor quibble because in the end what you are really doing is going from one latitude/longitude position to another, and you can put in the names of streets in the form of Waypoints if you so choose.

Considering the [$$$] rebate I got from Garmin for this unit this thing is a steal. Anywhere around [$$$] is a pretty fair price for something so useful and so much fun.

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