As a geologist, I have used a Garmin gps for almost twenty years, first a gps60 and later the gps64. Although these instruments had their quirks, they performed well and kept me safe in the remote locations in which I work. Earlier this year, I felt the need to upgrade to a new gps and purchased a gps66i. I chose the gps66i because Garmins website advertised that the instrument “takes pictures”. After purchase, I found that the gps did NOT take pictures, but it could accept downloads of air photos and satellite imagery. Ok, stupid me. But I did spend about $800 on the instrument, considerably more than the cost of the gps60 and gps64.
So imagine my disappointment when I took the gps66i into the field and started to use it. Following is a list of several complaints.
- It does not take batteries. How is this helpful?
- When I navigate to a waypoint, the gps tells me it is calculating. Normally this does not take long but sometimes it goes on and on trying to do this calculation. Previous Garmin gps did not tell me it was calculating. It just gave me an instantaneous bearing and distance to the selected waypoint.
- When I want to select a target waypoint for navigation, I have to type in the number or name of the waypoint using the cumbersome type writer. But then, having typed in the waypoint and pressed go to, I am taken to the end of the waypoint list, not to the selected waypoint. Instead, I have to scroll back to the waypoint I selected.
- MOST EGREGIOUSLY, after I selected a waypoint that I wanted to revisit, the gps told me it was 6.5 km from my present position and that I should go via “Wongawol Road”. I knew that this road was somewhere in the area but had never been on the road or knowingly viewed the road since I had arrived by helicopter. I knew that the point I wanted to visit was only about 600 metres away, not 6.5 km and reverted to my compass to get there. This sort of misleading response from your product has the potential to put my life in danger, so it made me very cross.
- On several occasions, my attempt to mark a waypoint (Mark, Enter) generated a duplicate of the previous waypoints coordinates, even though I have walked several hundreds of metres from the previous waypoint. This has happened numerous times. Such errors lead to loss of work effort, or having to retrace my steps, leading to lost time.
Finally, Garmin does not appear to offer any help line - telephone or online chat. In fact, it seems to deliberately avoid customer contact. Instead, we are encouraged to view “helpful videos”, none of which address the numerous problems I have outlined. This is why I resorted to leaving a rude message on your Facebook page. I admit to being surprise that you responded.
It is a good thing I took my gps64 to my remote worksite location, as backup. Elsewise, I could have lost a weeks work, or even perished.
Sincerely
Walter Witt
