Stylish but watch you don't drop it... (Garmin Legend GPS)

Member Name: Cleudo

Product:	Garmin Legend GPS
Date:	15/11/01 (1577 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, Good battery life, Downloadable software upgrades

Disadvantages: Not overly robust, Small screen, awkward buttons

The Legend is a small stylish pocket GPS from Garmin.

Performance-wise, you won't find much of a difference between current brands / models of GPS receiver. They all have similar levels of accuracy and will tell you where you are to within a few metres (especially now that the US have removed selective availability). What the Legend *does* have over other models, however, is WAAS - a new system for improving accuracy of GPS receivers down to just a few feet. It's not operational in Europe yet (where it's known as EGNOS), but it's nice to know that this model will use it when it becomes available in 2004.

The Legend has some built-in mapping, showing most major roads and motorways throughout Western Europe - a very useful feature as we found when driving around France last Summer. You can buy extra software for it, which gives a very detailed level of mapping, but we found we didn't need it.

Battery life is quite good at around 12 hours on a couple of AA size batteries. I have a few sets of NiMH batteries (giving around 8 hours usage) which saves money on a long trip.

Build quality is not as good as older Garmin models. I wouldn't like to drop this model on concrete - a soft case might be a very good idea for this reason.

The buttons can be a little awkward to operate - my model is currently away for repair since the joystick control went faulty and wouldn't respond to a click-in - don't know if this is common or not, however.

The Legend looks so much like a small mobile phone that you won't get strange looks as you pore at its screen in the middle of a strange City. It's comfortable to hold as you walk around.

Overall very nice.

Summary: