Garmin GPS 76 Handheld GPS Navigator

About the size of a small paperback book and weighing less than 8 ounces, the GPS 76 fits comfortable in the palm of your hand, but is a bit big to carry in a shirt pocket. Using the unit requires almost no setup. Just put in two AA batteries, turn it on, go outside, and wait. In about a minute or so it will determine your location. It's accurate to about three meters, thanks to the unit's support for WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System), which augments GPS signals for even greater accuracy.

Knowing your longitude, latitude, and altitude doesn't mean much without a little context. That's where the GPS 76's backlit LCD display comes in, displaying your location on detailed maps. The unit comes with a built-in basemap that includes major roads, railroads, rivers, and lakes for the U.S. and Canada, as well as a high-level worldwide map. The unit also has 1 MB memory for storing downloaded points of interest data from optional CD-ROMS, like the Roads & Recreation series.

The eight buttons, directional rocker thumbpad, and menu-based interface made it simple to access all of the unit's features and customize the display. For instance, it's a simple matter to use the buttons to set and name waypoints and build planned routes. Extra features include information on tides, sunrise and sunset, and a trip computer for seeing how far you've traveled and your average speed.

To test the GPS 76 we hit the road headed for Muir Beach north of San Francisco. It tracked our progress along Highway 1, and once we reached our destination we found it very simple to use. It showed both the elevation of the hills as well as the paths we could take. The zoom-in and zoom-out function made it simple to plan out and automatically measure the distance of our intended route.

After walking for a while and enjoying the scenery, we used the TracBack mode to guide us back to our car. The unit automatically stores waypoints as you walk along, letting you display the way home clearly on the map. We even used the TracBack capability to guide us on the roads back to the freeway.

The GPS 76 comes in handy almost anywhere, whether you're hiking, driving, boating, or wandering around a city as a tourist. Its easy-to-use interface makes it immediately useful to novices, and as you learn to exploit its programmability and features it can become an extremely powerful navigation tool. --Ken Feinstein

Pros:

• Large backlit LCD
• WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) support
• Automatic TracBack shows you the way back to your start location
• PC connectivity with ability to download points of interest and waypoints

• Only 1 MB built-in memory, which can't be expanded
• Too large to fit comfortably in a shirt pocket

The GPS 76 features 500 waypoints (10 nearest, 10 proximity), 50 reversible routes with up to 50 points each, an automatic track log, and alarms for anchor drag, approach and arrival, off course, proximity waypoint, shallow water, and deep water.

The GPS 76 is also compatible with Garmin's line of downloadable MapSource CD-ROMs and will accepts up to 1 MB of map detail data. Always know just where you're going with preloaded maps of rivers, lakes, worldwide cities, navaids, and tide data. With a detailed base map, users also have the ability to look up address and telephone number information for nearby services and points of interest as well as find map detail for cities, highways, and interstates.

Designed with all types of users in mind, this unit will take you from the car to the hiking trail and beach without missing a beat.