I'm still playing with the capabilities of the one I just bought (Garmin eTrex Vista HCx)


1. I updated my firmware on it and it gives you the options of Lithium,NIMH or alkaline batteries. I will start running the Sanyo Eneloop ( http://www.thomas-distributing.com/sanyo-eneloop-batteries-aaa.php ) batteries

2. I had bought 4- 2 gig micro sd cards from Comp USA that was on sell cheap and loaded one with the entire US street level maps,the second one has all of the European maps on it, and the third has almost all the topos for the us on it and the fourth one is blank but I'll probably put the remaining topos on it. I had took out several areas of topos that I would probably never goto in my life to get it to fit on one card but since I have another card, I will probably load them all now.

3. I've been trying to get it not to pick up satellites and I only found 1 place so far and that's in a concrete bunker at work that's a story underground. So it picks up signal extremely good.

4. The only negative I found with it besides not being able to store all the maps on 1 Micro sd card was that when you power up the unit, sometimes the WAAS reiver is disabled in the setup menu (only on power up) and that is one fix Garmin said they were going to patch,(talked with them on the phone,known issue from many complaints) but it has been transparent to me because it always powers up and locks so fast, the only way I know is checking it and turning it on.

5. It has been really awesome with routes so far,great tracking and loud alerts before the turn and at the turn with big arrow displays.

So far I've been impressed with it and I'm still in testing mode. Oh yea and I used a whiteout pen to identify the SD cards and I'll look into your power supply circuit.
Thanks