So between the Vista HCX and the GPSMAP 60CSx what are my major differences? The GPSMAP appears to have a bigger antenna? But is it on old system?

Outstanding review, and i do not mean to minimize that. and it it's just a typo, and the price of spell check technology. But the Genie Pig image made my night-Thanks-

The software battery select is generally just what discharge curve algorithm it uses to work out battery warnings.
It shouldn't affect the power circuitry

It's difficult to do automatically because the depleted voltage of some types is higher than the fresh voltage of others. Unless you know the user will always start with perfectly new/charged batteries it's hard to id them in software.

Good call Mike, the spell check didn't catch that. Thanks for catching that and I'm glad you like the review, I'm curious if I can get that power adapter locally, I am anxious to try it out on the solar cell, I'm pretty confident it will run it with no problems but I want to make sure first.

Oops. I meant my GPSMAP 60CSx. Forgot my eTrex Vista became backup gear in my car.

-john

The Vista/Legend lithium issue was due to the higher initial voltage of the lithium chemistry making it think the voltage was too high and the protection routine would shut it down. They corrected that with a later firmware release. Though since switching to the new low self discharge nimh and getting nearly the same run time from them as lithium I haven't used lithium in forever.

There are two types of LCD's, the ones you see in laptops, monitors, tv's etc which are lit from behind and the transreflective which are 'lit' by a reflective strip behind it and the ambient light or a front light. The transreflective are what you find in a watch and are brighter in bright light. It appears that is what they switched to for the Dakotas looking at the pictures, those are not as bright indoors since you can't have a light in front of the display so it has to be off to the side then have some sort of reflector system to direct the light downward through the screen and back out, a fancy polarized panel which isn't as efficient.

I'd like to see how the colorado compares, I'd have bought one if it weren't for the map licensing.

I haven't check it recently, but last I saw, the firmware "fix" for the 60CSx simply removed "lithium" from the list of available options.

:-(

Seems they didn't spec the unit to allow the range of voltage needed to support lithium cells, methinks.

-john

One thing where the Dakota seems to be an improvement over other touchscreen units is the excellent battery life, up to 20 hrs so not much worse than the plain eTrex HCx series. Maybe that has something to do with the dim screen, though?

Great review, but I still prefer the old ways.

Photoshopped!!! Sorry, had to throw that in

Great review, thanks!