It has arrived - Garmin Fenix watch/GPS

[Ent]

Hi

Well it finally arrived, my new Garmin Fenix watch/GPS. Unpacked and charging. First impression. Very thick. Hope it is easy to setup as it is going walking on Wednesday for a week largely off track. Anyway, hope it is a much better option than the rather useless Suunto Core that I have.

Cheers

[tastrax]

http://www.ja-gps.com.au/garmin/fenix/

For those that want to check it out

[photohiker]

How are you going to recharge it?

Battery Life: 16-50 hours (GPS Mode); 3 weeks (sensor mode); 6 weeks (watch mode)

[ULWalkingPhil]

Garmin generally make very good quality products.

[Wolfix]

I am flirting with the idea of buying the Suunto Ambit. Makes more sense to me than buying the Garmin Etrex 10... I don't need either, really.

[flatfoot]

Hi

Well it finally arrived, my new Garmin Fenix watch/GPS. Unpacked and charging. First impression. Very thick. Hope it is easy to setup as it is going walking on Wednesday for a week largely off track. Anyway, hope it is a much better option than the rather useless Suunto Core that I have.

Cheers

I'm interested in taking one of these to Nepal. I understand you can adjust the resolution of the track logs to conserve battery life. How fine-grained is the control of the recording interval. Is this a value in minutes or seconds? I was hoping that it could be set to 5 or 10 minute intervals.

One returning from the trip, my intent is to load track logs and photos into a photo program (Aperture on Mac) to add the geotag data to the photos.

It will be interesting to see the maximum number of days of runtime you can achieve.

[Ent]

How are you going to recharge it?

Battery Life: 16-50 hours (GPS Mode); 3 weeks (sensor mode); 6 weeks (watch mode)

Ghee? I suppose like I recharge my iPhone

[photohiker]

Sure, but you don't NEED to leave your iPhone on all day for it to be useful when you need it... It was a serious question.

What rev is the firmware in this watch? You do know that Garmin fixes firmware bugs and deficiencies for some time after they release a product, and they expect you to be a beta tester in the field who pays for a potentially deficient product that they may fix later? Just asking, because you seem to be sensitive to this...

Hope it goes well for you.

[Ent]

I'm interested in taking one of these to Nepal. I understand you can adjust the resolution of the track logs to conserve battery life. How fine-grained is the control of the recording interval. Is this a value in minutes or seconds? I was hoping that it could be set to 5 or 10 minute intervals.

One returning from the trip, my intent is to load track logs and photos into a photo program (Aperture on Mac) to add the geotag data to the photos.

It will be interesting to see the maximum number of days of runtime you can achieve.

Still at, um? err? arh! stage. The fine recording level is 1 minute but if like most Garmins the auto mode will do quite a good job, or at least I hope.

Good news is the compass works Well I am use to the useless Suunto compass so a magnetised needle in a cork floating on water is better than a Suunto's electronic compass.

Initial play indicates that the user interface is logical given the limit of five buttons. Instruction booklet almost useless, typical Garmin documentation, but the fourteen page user guide downloaded from the web is not too bad. So have the tones switched off and the datum set to GDA 94 UTM. Reset it and it went back to mummy so had to teach it metric

The recharging cradle is just a cable with a clip on it so no great hassle to recharge and I will be interest how my iPhone 2000 and 1000 mah battery pack chargers go. Actually have a 1000 mah with solar panel so if that works then charging will not be a problem. Trouble is heading out for a week walk on Wednesday so no much time to study up on it. Being a Garmin if it does not manage to annoy me in some way I will be surprised. But first looks and play suggest that someone has given some thought to the design.

Cheers

[photohiker]

Current user-generated bug list for firmware 2.70:

Watchuseek Fenix 2.7 Bugs

[tastrax]

The manual can be downloaded here

http://static.garmincdn.com/pumac/fenix_OM_EN.pdf

Page 9 seems to show a few options for setting track recording options (Auto, distance, time)

[Ent]

The joys of the internet search engines. The battery capacity is 500mah so a 2000mah battery pack should give say two to three charges. Now at high resolution ploting sixteen hours would with careful use give say two days so maybe a week with one battery pack. But at 50 hours then one battery pack would be ok for most walks assuming that you remember to switch of the GPS at night and maybe the little 1000 mah pack with solar panel could keep the electrons up to feed the beast.

The Garmin 62s eats 2 AA batteries every second day assuming it is switched off at night. The lighter my gear the heavier the electronics become

Software version 2.5 on the unit.

Yeap, when setting magnetic variation the instructions were delightfully vague but found out that we have a positive declination and the unit was set to 14 degree positive so appears that units smart enough to figure this out itself once it locks onto a GPS fix but maybe 14 was the default setting? In auto mode it will first use GPS then the magnetic compass. In all a lot better logic than the Garmin 62s. Starting to like it

Now there is a hint that you can load on OSM maps as long as they are less than 20mb. Now if that is the case then OSM maps size for Tassie is around 3MB excluding contours so might be an option. More playing is needed as I was on the understanding that custom maps were not an option so bit wary on saying one thing or another until play time. Definitely would not rush out and buy maps for it but if OSM ones work then very tempting as all you often need is just a track to follow. Fully expecting to crash and burn on this aspect.

It is a small dog that feels it is a big dog with features like waypoint averaging and ability to record points down to 5 metres. That I would think would kill the battery life but nice to know for a day walk survey.

Cheers

[Ent]

O'boy just have to love the internet OSM is a child of the net and like all good kids has a rebellious streak that enables you to stick it to the evil empires. OSM is now on Fenix The trick was to have the OSM img file named gmapsupp.img as you can not select a map to use but this is the file that Garmins go looking for

Ok, the resolution on the screen is not much chop so not a recommended means of primary navigation but possibly good enough to follow a track. Will now go for a wander to see how it works.

Cheers

[Ent]

Hi

As expected the unit is a battery hog on GPS. Tried the power saving ultras track option but only got twelve hours out of it. Not sure if being inside mucks up the power saving feature or if it is because the map is loaded so takes more power to crunch that aspect. O'well time will tell and be interesting to see how it performs in the bush over the next six days.

Cheers

[flatfoot]

Thanks for the updates. Watching (pun intended) with interest.

[justacouch]

Thanks for the updates. Watching (pun intended) with interest.

+1

[wander]

Ent, Would this product be an option if about I only need the GPS to give me a grid location (in ADG66, the areas I am interested in have not quite been revised to GDA94) a couple of times a day (or even less) over week long trip to transfer to my paper map, in Tas? Or would that be too much for the battery without re-charge capacity?

[Nuts]

Well he is out there using it , i'm sure he'll give a complete review..

[wander]

Excellent.

[Ent]

Been absence for about a week due to a long planned and anticipated wander from the Walls to Lake St Clair starting using the Moses Creek Track then the Lake Artemis Track then following your nose to Mount Spurling and then onto Mount Ida and finally to Narcissus Hut. Experienced every season with heavy snows on top of the Traveller Range so with Mount Ida being a wash out we used the extra day to split a leg that with the heavy snow turned out to be the correct decision. Great trip and one to enjoy the best and worst of Tassie conditions to evaluate gear.

In true Strollers style we were heavily over prepared. On the emergency side a Spot and PLB. For navigation, paper maps (two sets), Asus Nexus, two iPhones, Garmin 62s, and the Fenix plus a person that has been in the area before. The Nexus was running multiple mapping programs plus Bing satellite photographs. It proved to be the mainstay of the navigation largely in part to the owner being a navigation wiz. But in true Murphy style decided to change language into Spanish Its owner threaten it with immediate ebay sale but finally learned enough Spanish to get it to comprehend English again. Sufficient to say that the weather conditions were hard on gear so good chance to see what would stand up to the conditions.

My contribution was the Garmin 62s, Fenix and iPhone in Lifeproof case. The iPhone in a Lifeproof case withstood the conditions well but the Garmins being worn outside the clothing copped the more extreme conditions and sailed through. Just to test me out sthughes at the end of the trip presented me with a map and compass to fix our position. Ok we were sunning ourselves on the ferry platform at Narcissus with crystal clear blue skies but I must admit I struggled to remember the basics, such has been the inroads that technology has made.

But to the Fenix. In answer to the question on datum, it can display all the common datum so you can use it as a basic GPS. In fact, that is actually its main intended purpose with track back being its next main role. In those roles it performs extremely well and is all you could ask for. The interface is logical and the button sequences well thought out. Now some might be familiar with my almost loathing of Garmin's interfaces so this is indeed high praise. Its buttons kill the Suunto for feel and ability to use with mitts. I like the look and feel of the unit and even without the GPS feature makes a Suunto Core very second rate.

I must admit that I have lost faith in electronic compasses so did not have much tolerance in trusting them. But if you allow the Fenix time to settle on your wrist it makes the Garmin 62s compass look very second rate and leaves for dead the dangerously useless Suunto compass. You can use it to navigate to waypoints

I brought the remote temperature sensor and that worked a treat. Honestly a watch based temperature sensor is near useless but with the remote sensor you can be in your tent and check outside or be walking along and have an actuate reading. This is useful for actually understanding the true temperature. It can snow like mad and still be above zero for most of the day is just one example of putting data behind emotive expectations.

We sent a waypoint from the the Garmin 62s to the Fenix with no problem so should be handy in sharing data in the field between Garmin devices.

Now for many the above features may appear useless but for people willing to think outside the square they can be very handy aspects to evaluating gear performance.

Now the real party piece is using OSM. Now the resolution of the screen means it is not even a contender to be a mapping GPS but it can be very handy in low visibility situations. Here is a screen shot of what you can see.

Lake as traced into OSM by the user.

Not bad The main advantage is using it as a track following tool. We have been gradually refining the Moses Creek Track in OSM by knocking out the false turns that you can make. The unit can enable you to check if you have not taken a wrong turn after say 10 metres or less. Brilliant in difficult conditions or following a poorly defined track that has been walked by someone before and entered into OSM. Now with Tasmap the Moses Creek Track is in the wrong place and more than a few water bodies are missed So even the professional maps can be rather suspect so as usual caution is needed when relying on OSM tracks.

I ran the unit on full GPS tracking performance so battery life was not great. About eight hours of walking took it down from 100% to around 50%. The unit will switch off the GPS at around 5% so lets say 16 hours of GPS tracking will pull the unit up. Not bad given that the cold temperatures experienced made the Garmin 62s eat lithium batteries. I have yet to experiment with the ultra setting apart from finding it rather annoying when using the GPS as a track following tool.

I charged the unit using a mixture of battery packs. My clever idea of using a solar panel rechargeable pack came unstuck with the weather gods drowning my feeble attempts of using "green" energy. For a brief while it looked like a Jaycar 1000 mah battey pack with built in solar panel could just keep up with the unit but constant rain and snow on a few days made that concept a joke. A couple of 2000 mah battey packs would keep the unit in business for a week when used as a full tracking GPS.

To be frank, the unit is not going to replace a mapping GPS, nor even a dedicated GPS used in tracking mode but for those that occasionally use a GPS to fix or confirm a position on a map, like to know the elevation, and want the ability in bad weather to use waypoints the unit is more than up to the job. For gear freaks with an interest in OSM and track following it is great. Battery life is the issue but like with gas stoves I would imagine different people would get varying length of time from the unit by switching it on and off as needed.

For me the unit has kicked the Suunto Core into the garbage bin and will be a standard tool. I will still take my Garmin 62s along and more than happy to play second fiddle to the groups much superior navigator and his preferred toy of choice the Asus Nexus.

For many the unit will be derided as not being a grown up GPS with more than few continuing to shun GPS technology for various highly personal reasons but for some it will be a very useful tool and for other a great toy to indulge their gear freak passion with. I would much rather have it, than not have it, is my highly personal opinion.

Cheers

[dancier]

I will still take my Garmin 62s along and more than happy to play second fiddle to the groups much superior navigator and his preferred toy of choice the Asus Nexus.

Rumour has it on the Whirlpool forums that next week Google are announcing the release of the 32 gigabyte 3G Nexus, hope it’s true because I want one for overseas travel.

I’ve been hanging tight to see what Apple have up their sleeves but even so they will have to come up with something really good to beat the Nexus’s dedicated GPS and Google mapping.

[sthughes]

I will still take my Garmin 62s along and more than happy to play second fiddle to the groups much superior navigator and his preferred toy of choice the Asus Nexus.

Rumour has it on the Whirlpool forums that next week Google are announcing the release of the 32 gigabyte 3G Nexus, hope it’s true because I want one for overseas travel.

I’ve been hanging tight to see what Apple have up their sleeves but even so they will have to come up with something really good to beat the Nexus’s dedicated GPS and Google mapping.

Yeah the new iPad Mini is out and as expected no GPS chip unless you go the whole $509 4G version

I was impressed by the Fenix. It's basically a very good, non-mapping GPS that fits on your wrist (as long as you don't have a small wrist!).

[north-north-west]

... that fits on your wrist (as long as you don't have a small wrist!).

Good thing I don't want one, then.

[flatfoot]

I tried my fenix for the first time on a walk. I had it running on the normal high-resolution tracking mode. After 3.5 hours of tracking the batteries were down to about 80%. That's pretty good.

During the week I found the settings that enable a custom tracking interval. This can be set to any interval in hours, minutes and seconds. It is tricky to find these settings in the menu. The firmware update allows for more than 10,000 track points ( it will use as much of the memory as is available ). Although 10,000 track points should be more than enough for 3 weeks of track points at no more than 8 hrs usage per day ( an interval of approx 60s between trackpoints).

My intent is to have a track log for the 3 weeks of my trip in Nepal so that I can geotag my photos on return. Keeping it charged is another matter ( I'll be taking a USB battery pack and solar panel ). The battery pack will also be used for topping up my camera batteries.

[busheur]

Been absence for about a week due to a long planned and anticipated wander from the Walls to Lake St Clair starting using the Moses Creek Track then the Lake Artemis Track then following your nose to Mount Spurling and then onto Mount Ida and finally to Narcissus Hut. Experienced every season with heavy snows on top of the Traveller Range so with Mount Ida being a wash out we used the extra day to split a leg that with the heavy snow turned out to be the correct decision. Great trip and one to enjoy the best and worst of Tassie conditions to evaluate gear.

In true Strollers style we were heavily over prepared. On the emergency side a Spot and PLB. For navigation, paper maps (two sets), Asus Nexus, two iPhones, Garmin 62s, and the Fenix plus a person that has been in the area before. The Nexus was running multiple mapping programs plus Bing satellite photographs. It proved to be the mainstay of the navigation largely in part to the owner being a navigation wiz. But in true Murphy style decided to change language into Spanish Its owner threaten it with immediate ebay sale but finally learned enough Spanish to get it to comprehend English again. Sufficient to say that the weather conditions were hard on gear so good chance to see what would stand up to the conditions.

My contribution was the Garmin 62s, Fenix and iPhone in Lifeproof case. The iPhone in a Lifeproof case withstood the conditions well but the Garmins being worn outside the clothing copped the more extreme conditions and sailed through. Just to test me out sthughes at the end of the trip presented me with a map and compass to fix our position. Ok we were sunning ourselves on the ferry platform at Narcissus with crystal clear blue skies but I must admit I struggled to remember the basics, such has been the inroads that technology has made.

But to the Fenix. In answer to the question on datum, it can display all the common datum so you can use it as a basic GPS. In fact, that is actually its main intended purpose with track back being its next main role. In those roles it performs extremely well and is all you could ask for. The interface is logical and the button sequences well thought out. Now some might be familiar with my almost loathing of Garmin's interfaces so this is indeed high praise. Its buttons kill the Suunto for feel and ability to use with mitts. I like the look and feel of the unit and even without the GPS feature makes a Suunto Core very second rate.

I must admit that I have lost faith in electronic compasses so did not have much tolerance in trusting them. But if you allow the Fenix time to settle on your wrist it makes the Garmin 62s compass look very second rate and leaves for dead the dangerously useless Suunto compass. You can use it to navigate to waypoints

I brought the remote temperature sensor and that worked a treat. Honestly a watch based temperature sensor is near useless but with the remote sensor you can be in your tent and check outside or be walking along and have an actuate reading. This is useful for actually understanding the true temperature. It can snow like mad and still be above zero for most of the day is just one example of putting data behind emotive expectations.

We sent a waypoint from the the Garmin 62s to the Fenix with no problem so should be handy in sharing data in the field between Garmin devices.

Now for many the above features may appear useless but for people willing to think outside the square they can be very handy aspects to evaluating gear performance.

Now the real party piece is using OSM. Now the resolution of the screen means it is not even a contender to be a mapping GPS but it can be very handy in low visibility situations. Here is a screen shot of what you can see.

P1060958.JPG

Not bad The main advantage is using it as a track following tool. We have been gradually refining the Moses Creek Track in OSM by knocking out the false turns that you can make. The unit can enable you to check if you have not taken a wrong turn after say 10 metres or less. Brilliant in difficult conditions or following a poorly defined track that has been walked by someone before and entered into OSM. Now with Tasmap the Moses Creek Track is in the wrong place and more than a few water bodies are missed So even the professional maps can be rather suspect so as usual caution is needed when relying on OSM tracks.

I ran the unit on full GPS tracking performance so battery life was not great. About eight hours of walking took it down from 100% to around 50%. The unit will switch off the GPS at around 5% so lets say 16 hours of GPS tracking will pull the unit up. Not bad given that the cold temperatures experienced made the Garmin 62s eat lithium batteries. I have yet to experiment with the ultra setting apart from finding it rather annoying when using the GPS as a track following tool.

I charged the unit using a mixture of battery packs. My clever idea of using a solar panel rechargeable pack came unstuck with the weather gods drowning my feeble attempts of using "green" energy. For a brief while it looked like a Jaycar 1000 mah battey pack with built in solar panel could just keep up with the unit but constant rain and snow on a few days made that concept a joke. A couple of 2000 mah battey packs would keep the unit in business for a week when used as a full tracking GPS.

To be frank, the unit is not going to replace a mapping GPS, nor even a dedicated GPS used in tracking mode but for those that occasionally use a GPS to fix or confirm a position on a map, like to know the elevation, and want the ability in bad weather to use waypoints the unit is more than up to the job. For gear freaks with an interest in OSM and track following it is great. Battery life is the issue but like with gas stoves I would imagine different people would get varying length of time from the unit by switching it on and off as needed.

For me the unit has kicked the Suunto Core into the garbage bin and will be a standard tool. I will still take my Garmin 62s along and more than happy to play second fiddle to the groups much superior navigator and his preferred toy of choice the Asus Nexus.

For many the unit will be derided as not being a grown up GPS with more than few continuing to shun GPS technology for various highly personal reasons but for some it will be a very useful tool and for other a great toy to indulge their gear freak passion with. I would much rather have it, than not have it, is my highly personal opinion.

Cheers

Hey ENt
Awesome post. I have a few additional questions could you PM me?

[wander]

Well I bought a Fenix after Ent's report and reading a couple of other reviews elsewhere. I've only been testing during exercise wanders so far and it seems to work OK. I'd echo flatfoot's comment about finding things in the menu. I'm about to map the menu out on butchers paper or I will go crazy trying to remember where to find stuff. As expected battery life is the main issue to manage. Testing so far tells me I'd have about 6 hours of GPS use in the field of a 1 week wander without re-charging. But will be taking enough for 2 recharges with me.

A question for Ent and / or flatfoot. When you turn the watch off by holding down the top right button does it stop using power?

And flatfoot where did you find the setting to change the tracking interval?

And I feel silly asking this one, in the alerts for way points you can set the radius in km in a screen that looks like 0000.00, so if you set it as 0000.50 you have set a radius 500M and if you set it 0000.01 you have set a radius of 10M? It seems obvious but is it true? It would have made more sense for the screen to ask you for the radius in M.

As you can probably tell from these question this is my very 1st experience with GPS equipment. The Fenix reads to me that it is expected that users will come from a background of using other GPS and and other Garmins. A 9 page Manual that does not actually match what you on the screen tends to make me think this.

[Ent]

Hi Wander

Sorry for my tardiness in reply. Balance inner issue means looking at a computer screen has not been on my agenda.

The major consumer of power is the GPS. Simply switching it off will give many weeks life. After I stop walking, I switch it off. Switching off the watch full stop should do the same thing but I leave mine on with the GPS off.

On the radius, I simply zoom in and out. The trick is the inbuilt Garmin software drops detail as you zoom out so using OSM maps you are often are "forced" to use a resolution of around 120 metres. Still need to get my act into gear and work out how to set customer zoom levels for OSM maps so tracks hold in longer.

Frankly the small and low resolution screen means for aging eyes it will never be good for the "where the heck am I now" overview. But it can do a very impressive job as a track following device but does take a few seconds for the compass to kick in and orientate track up view.

As for the menu system. It is sort of logical but more suited to people with a gamer’s memory for functions.

You can set it into economy mode but I did not find this impressive plus it makes track following pretty useless. The instruction manual is correct how to access this. I run mine on the full power setting and charge each night from battery packs. The experiment with a solar battery pack was the expected failure as in Tassie simply not enough hours of daylight for such things to work.

In generally very impressed with it for its intended purpose. OSM maps loaded give it a remarkable degree of capability. The compass can be trusted and the altitude reading as well. The remote temperature sensor works a treat. In all I trust it where my Sunnto watch I could never trust. Battery life is the only big downside.

On tracking I set it to ten metres intervals and then trailed automatic. Basically, it does such an impressive job on automatic that manual setting is not required even when recording tracks. It is interesting to compare its tracking performance with my Garmin 62s. It is remarkably good and frankly, while the Garmin 62s is better, I doubt if the resolution in error in accuracy is in real life noticeable for most conditions. I have found GPS placement to be critical so naturally a wristwatch GPS will not have its aerial at the optimal position for most of the time so the 62s hanging high on the chest strap will do a better job of track recording.

It is not a toy and for the cashed up bushwalker a useful tool but as usual a dedicated mapping GPS will be more useful and paper maps should be packed as the primary navigation tool for unfamiliar areas. It can however replace a basic GPS providing you have battery packs and the charging cable packed. Because it is so assessable, you find yourself using it more than a normal GPS.

It is interesting how we double or triple up on gadgets. I now have iphone, mapping GPS and Fenix so three GPS enabled devices. The old argument of being too reliant on technology is fading fast as losing all three is remote and if the GPS system is taken out then maybe the reason for this will be worst than lost in the bush.

Cheers

[BillV]

Love my fenix..........The biggest problem I have found is that when knocked by brush etc you can put it into it's high GPS function mode and quickly run down the battery................While on the subject does anyone know if they are compatible with devices like the power monkey etc?...........Edit.......Just noting the previous post......I like the idea of getting the co-ords and checking against a paper topo the main reason I bought it...

[wander]

Ent, thanks for the reply. I should have posted myself as I have poked about and solved some of my queries.

Updating Base Camp to the latest version helped a lot.

Using Base Camp makes it clear what the radius of the proximity circle is. And field testing confirms it. it is quiet accurate.

I found the use of the Ultra Track to save power prompted other bugs in the software. Garmin still need to work on this area of the software. And so gave up on it. But I might test the setting to 10M in lieu of the time interval default following your comments.

Your comment on the accuracy is interesting. I have found that it will tell me if I was on the left or right hand side of a 1500 wide trail that I use for training and this is probably accurate enough for my needs.

Can't say I have even tried to put and use maps on the Fenix. It is too small and I think you are confirming this. Paper maps are good.

BilV, if you hold the back (bottom left) and the top right button down and hold them you can lock the buttons and that may solve your problem Repeat to unlock.

BilV, Yes you can use power monkey, I was lent one to test prior to an upcoming wander and it charged the Fenix up OK. But as it is I will take an old Socket battery pack that I have as is packs more power.

Good thing I bought the Fenix 2 months out from the planned wander, It has taken a lot of that 2 months to track out how to use the ting and how to use the thing efficiently. And there is still more to sort out, but that will have to wait. 3 days and I'm in the Picton bush. Yippee.

[Ent]

Hi

Well time for an update after a wander. I was until about an hour ago going to be singing praise to the until but it then locked!!!!! Now the critical thing with bushwalking navigation devices is they must work. Ok, people being people so will flatten batteries and such things but the unit should soldier on providing that the user gets the basics right. The unit started to misbehave and become very unresponsive but during this stage I could identified that the track log was full. Ok, saved the track but then I went to clear it and the unit locked up.

Back at home base found that holding down the off button for a while and the unit reset. Ok, it started working again but "Bye, Bye" track data So there goes my log of the weekend refining tracks for OSM on the Fenix. Before the relEntless Ent critics stumble over themselves about having alternatives and backups, I did. My Garmin 62s has the refined tracks as well. Plus had I needed, the iPhone with a mapping application was on standby, along with laminated map and faithful compass. It appears that when the track log becomes full the unit stops displaying your position on the map screen and then when clearing the current track can lock up. My version was 2.50 of the firmware and Garmin has moved on to version 3.00 so maybe the issue has been fixed. I have just updated the firmware so here is hoping that the problem is fixed. Also have now switched the unit into auto archiving of tracks; this works a treat on the Garmin 62S.

But now to the good stuff. I use mine with OSM maps that I have been gradually adding to the growing community map database. The wander was around February Plains for a slap up Christmas type diner at Mr Basil Steers' hut. So ultra overloaded packs (look away now Tony as a thirty kilogram load) stuffed with all the good things of Christmas. I had the track already loaded so it was a simple matter of following the line and keeping an eye open for the track on the ground. Still managed to express pass the start but a quick look at the watch confirmed that the junction was missed despite the protests of the two younger navigators that we had not missed it. Needless to say their "slower" sister had not missed the junction nor their "faster" father. So for us it was an uneventful wander to the hut once we back tracked. The "faster" father then proceeded to completely miss the valley containing the hut and despite his requests not to let the wife and daughter know (rang him when at the hut when we did not find him there) he was busted as the "slower" group arrived before him. For the record we have all been there before but the track can be a little indistinct in places.

Anyway the Garmin Fenix with OSM makes a very easy to use track following tool. When exploring for Basil Steer's second hut I used the the Tasmap for the area as nothing can beat a printed map for providing a good overview.

I would of until today been happy to recommend the Fenix for a fast and light GPS but when it locked not so willing to do so. It does prove yet again that electronics can not be trusted implicitly even if you can keep the electrons up to them.

Cheers