Garmin eTrex 22x Outdoor Handheld GPS Unit, Blue

Product Information

The eTrex 32x has an electronic compass that will show you which direction it’s pointing as you rotate it, even while you’re standing still. The 22x can show your current direction, but only by taking measurements as you move and calculating the vector between them. If you can afford the addition of some Ordnance Survey maps, it makes for a great GPS for walking in the UK as this will show you the rights of way. Another major component of any outdoor device is waterproofing. True to its rugged nature, the 22x is waterproof down to 1 meter for up to 30 meters. For this, it receives a waterproof rating of IPX7.

The altimeter will measure your progress up and down regardless if it's calibrated or not, so it's helpful to measure your total ascent. Using the eTrex 32x is straightforward and once you spend a few minutes getting used to it, it become second nature. That got us thinking though, that we’re looking at every possible item from Garmin so it would be good to narrow our search down even further and only look at Garmin branded products within the gps units category. The cost of Garmin gps units The Garmin eTrex 22x and 32x are, again, very similar devices. They are the same physical size and weight with a 2.2-inch transflective screen, and they both sport GPS and GLONASS capabilities for navigational accuracy. When buying gps units, the quality of the product is going to be one of the factors that you really scrutinise before you commit to buying.The 3-axis compass will tell your direction like a normal compass. Otherwise you get a digital compass reading but you need to move. The eTrex map also comes with thousands of waypoints that are called "points of interest" or POIs. POIs include things like public buildings, restaurants, geographic features, and towns. You can navigate to any of these just as you could a waypoint. It's important to update your device (more later) so that the maps and POIs are up to date. Topographical maps or TOPO maps (for short) range are the premium map series from Garmin for exploring and navigating the great outdoors and countryside of Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland to name a few of the available Garmin TOPO map titles. As well as hiking/walking, the Garmin topographic map series are also perfect for mountain biking, skiing, etc and provide high-detailed scale maps of around 1:50K to 1:25K scale. The additional maps that are available provide rich specific map data for different purposes e.g. City Navigator NT maps which provides street-level road maps, perfect when using the eTrex 22x in a car for navigation or for road cycling. In total there are four different types of maps that can be used within the eTrex 22x. Read on to discover more about them.

The nice thing about the eTrex is that it takes AA that you can get anywhere. It's simple to carry spares, and you can get them almost anywhere, including gas stations at 4am when you're driving to your hike and suddenly remember that your batteries are dead. internal memory instead of 1.7gb. But because the 32x uses that memory for its maps, you have much less usable memory (more on that later). A major aspect of any handheld GPS gadget is its screen. As the Garmin eTrex 22x is meant to be your trusty outdoor companion, its transflective screen is easy to read even in the sunlight without washing out the colors and reducing visibility.One of the attractive features of the eTrex 32x is that it comes bundled with Garmin topographic maps. That means you can buy it, put two AA batteries in it, power up, and get going. The onboard maps are Garmin TopoActive, which are based on Open Street Maps (OSM). The amount of coverage depends on the region and what the Garmin map team decided to take or leave from the OSM maps. In general you get about 24k in popular areas (like national parks, urban centers, etc.) and in more remote spots somewhere between 50k and 250k. The eTrex 32x uses the electronic compass to support “Sight ‘N Go” navigation, in which you to point the device at a landmark in the distance and then navigate to it by compass.

The internal 8gb memory is loaded with the Garmin topo maps and doesn't have much space left for additional maps. You will need a microSD card if you plan on loading any more maps or big data onto it.

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Also, while the 22x can give turn-by-turn driving directions, the eTrex 10 does not have this capability. Lastly, the eTrex 10 features a monochrome (non-color) screen with a lower resolution. Comparison has 3.7gb of internal mem and the 22x/32x has 8gb (with only about 90mb usable, see the maps section later). I like that the eTrex uses the GPX file format, which is common and simple. There are, however, a few gotchas with this important process.

To give that price some context we then looked at all of the products available from Cotswold Outdoor in the gps units category. We found 17 items in total. What’s the price of gps units? If you are navigating a route, the compass screen will include an indicator to point you in the right direction. The 32x has the 3-axis internal compass, and will work when you are standing still. If you have the 22x without the internal compass, the unit will calculate your direction based on your last few GPS fixes. Elevation Plot You can open the elevation plot up from the main menu. Includes detailed hydrographic features (coastlines, lake/river shorelines, wetlands and perennial and seasonal streams)

v2.50 March 11th, 2021

The material the product is made from is often a sign of the quality for gps units. Take a look at the product details over at Cotswold Outdoor to get a feel for this. The Garmin eTrex 10 is a more entry-level device with a lower price point. While it also features GPS and GLONASS, a 25-hour battery life, IPX7 waterproofing, a transflective easy-to-read screen, and the same compact size and weight as the 22x, there are some downgrades. The elevation data on the eTrex 32x was marginally helpful. First off, you should calibrate it to a known elevation often, which is not always possible, especially when starting a hike. If you calibrate to a know elevation, you can get an accuracy of +/- 50 feet. If you calibrate it based on your GPS fix, it's +/- 400 feet. That's not so great. See the whole GPS test map on Caltopo. Battery Life The battery meter is only available as this little image with 25% notches. Why don't they give us a numeric percentage?