I was falling in a trap like a fool…
My first touch was before 16 years with the 12XL, then pass from II+ to III+, to IV, to 60 and then 60csx. I have work also with etrex, 176C, 276c, 278. And every time I was happy that I was changing to a better and more professional unit for my needs….
Unfortunately after all these years, having just blind trust to the products of Garmin, I was falling in a trap like a fool with the 62s. It was the only unit that I have persuaded with out search, read and test a unit first.
I was having so much trust to Garmin, that when my old – trusty unit of 60csx was died, just stop in a shop and bayed the 62s.
Enough with cries. Now its time to point out some of the worst problems of the 62 series. My mainly job is computer programmer but my second is cartography, route design for off-road races and trips.
1. Low quality - GPS Enclosure possibility of burnt pixels in the screen:
A lot of cracking noises – for sure not the usual professional quality of Garmin.
Also the first unit that I was getting from the shop was having a burned pixel in the screen. I returned the unit back and the guys wanted just to send it for repair and only when the Consumers Union involved, accepted to take it back and give me a new unit.
Unfortunately this it can’t be fixed with an update… A solution it would be for the next customers to open the box and check the unit before persuading it.
2. Opening of the GPS. If the unit is connected to a power source with the USB cable it starting by it self - ok until here. But then it’s displaying a message to ask if I want to go to mass storage!
When? When I connect the gps to the cigarette lighter just for power?
Completely wrong here.
Proposal: If you can’t make out if it’s just power or computer connection, then PUT AT LEAST an option in somewhere in the main menu to choose if I want to have this message in the startup, or to just open the unit.
3. The fast switching screen between pages. It was nice idea but somewhere there have lost the point.
When I am in a page and I want to go to main menu, the usual pressing of menu – menu it going to main menu. But then again when you pressing the quit from main menu, instead of returning in the page where I was before pressing the menu-menu, it just coming to the first page that I have left from the series of selected pages. Why?
Proposal: When I am quitting from the main menu, please return to the last page where I was.
4. Trip Computer. I don’t know from where to start?
A professional unit doesn’t need to have pictures etc. Give more weight to functionality.
When I press menu->Reset, where have they been old the good old check boxes where I could choose what EXACTLY I want to reset?
Who told you that any way I want to reset everything?
How can I reset only lets say the average speed?
Or only the max speed?
Why I can’t reset the trip odometer?
Why you didnt keep at least the functionality of the previous model? (60 series?)
Proposal:
Bring back the good old check boxes as it was on the 60 series or something similar.
You must give the opportunity to reset what ever I want and not all together.
Return the ability to reset also the trip odometer.
The idea of displaying the percentage of used track memory its ok, but (see below) need to be and / or in the track management screen.
5. Map colors: The old color style was clearer to the eye. Now the small street or tracks are shaded and it’s very difficult to distinguishing between the small rivers and trails / tracks.
Sometimes the auto scrolling of the map it’s loosing it. And then is starting to show a moved part of the map and white space in the corners. To get simpler, it’s scrolling without filling the background with the rest of the map data. Seems that for speed reasons you are moving directly the screen memory.
Suggestion: Return to the more clear colors for the maps of the older professional units, or redesign. Debug the auto scrolling of maps.
6. Track handling and recording. The main problem of the unit:
In general if you want to make cartography, like mountain trails and or offroad tracks, you choose to have a unit that it can cope for all the above. Small enough to be in you pocket for the mountain trails, with a lot of memory so to have the ability to store all the new info that you need. A clever system to show, archive, distinguishing the tracks. Also above all that you need to have the full control of the unit.
For this the 60csx was one of the best in its era. But now the 62 series have some good points (they don’t operate very well) and giveaway all the good standards for the older units.
Let’s have it.
Before you where having a screen (easy programmable to be as main page), where from the inside of it, you could to everything. Start – Stop recording of the track, see how much memory you have, archive some track, or having the ability to continue the track recording in the additional memory as a file, when the main memory was full. Now it’s complicated. And I mean a lot.
When you are recording a new trail, track or road usual you want only to record the new parts. So when you are reaching the end of a new part and meet (example) asphalt well know road, you want to stop the recording. You maybe want to start the recording again after a while in a new part.
With the old system, was enough from a main screen, to choose the Off (recording) + enter, and after a while the On (recording). When you cartography a whole new area, this is something that you making it A LOT of times per day.
Now this is not possible.
You have only the ability to have the crappy screen of Current + Archived tracks. If you want to start – stop recording you have to press menu – menu move the cursor to menu, press enter again, move the cursor to tracks (why you have two track pages???), press enter and then in the track log press another enter and then move to the “do not record”, press enter, and then quit, quit, quit, and THEN to move again to the old page that you where…..
Why all this punishment?
Apart from this, even in the screen (track) that you can program to be on the main screens, there is not a percentage of memory used. So to see this you have to go to the trip computer menu, press menu+reset to see…. the memory used!!!!
Also the unit it seems to “wandering” a lot. This I didn’t see it for a lot of years. It’s not acceptable in our days to have the unit stand still and the track recorded to jump right and left and also having big changes in the height!
Finally the unit has decided to loose some parts of tracks. When you are spending two or more days to leave the office, go to mountain, walk or drive in new parts, assuming that you have the unit to record (I check always my track in the screen), and then returning to the office, downloading the tracks and realizing that the track has some lost kms believe me you are getting crazy.
There is some problem, probably when the unit it’s starting to cut some part and archived. Until now after 2000+ km (the trip odometer can’t be reset), I have lost two times data (6+11 kms).
Proposal:
Study again the 60csx and then:
Bring only a screen from where you can control everything (even using from that screen the menu button). This screen has to have the ability to be one of the main screens.
Start / Stopping the track, see the memory that have been used, clearing / archiving the track, control the displaying of uploaded tracks.
The archived / uploaded tracks MUST be sorted at least by name, or better put an option for this.
Add the ability to choosing except from the color of an uploaded track, also the thickness, the opacity and or the priority of displaying.
7. Unit back support: The only straight from the box better solution than the 60csx! Bravo.
Other small stuff: Numerous and not only with the unit but also with the basemap, etc but until the fixing of the above more serious problems, there are just “other small stuff”.
I would like to close with the following:
I someone buys a “TOOL” for a job, and more over, an expensive tool, you are expecting from the tool to have the job done, not to spend ours of writing an endless debugging memo for the tool.
If I wanted a simple “RECREATIONAL” game unit, I could buy an Colorado or something similar. The 60/76 series were considered for the cartographic people, tool units and expected to work as a tools. Not need of funcy menus and game colors that they have nothing to add in the tool value. I am sure that there are other units for this.
Thanks for reading and I would be happy to use the 62s unit again, after the debugging.
Now I am in the search of a good old 60csx unit to have my job done.
Regards from Greece.
