Garmin GPS V

Pros: Gray scale=long battery life, can change orientation of screen, stays locked on sats even in congested areas, water proof to 1 meter, rugged buttons, good screen resolution, variety of mounts to suit almost any application available

Cons: gray scale can be hard to read, backlight kills battery fast, being an older unit, parts are harder to find, adequate but non-expandable memory, screen size a little on the small side for dashboard mount use in vehicles

Summary: I love my GPS V as my go-to all around GPS solution. It mounts to my bike, in my car, on my sailboat, is small and will fit easily in small pockets in my hiking backpack and is lightweight. Being water proof and very well built, it will take the knocks of being an active life GPS and keep on ticking. The battery life is around 20-22 hours on alkaline AA, 24-26 on lithium AA either lasts long enough to leave the spare batteries at home when going out on a fresh pair. Being very familiar with using Garmin aviation GPS units, I feel right at home with this unit. One Garmin works like any other model. However, my wife has a hard time navigating through the multiple menus and options. It's not the quickest processor, takes a bit to get it to do what you want but can't be beat for it's versatility. There are a good variey of maps avilable for it and has enough memory to handle reigonal activites. This is not a good unit for long distance (over 200 mile) trips as the memory is not large enough to support continually detailed maps that far out. I live in MI and it holds all of S MI (S of Grand Rapids to the state line, lake to lake). The main drawback is that the screen is almost too small to use if you have to set it far back on your dashboard. Small screen = small characters and icons. My Nuvi 765T has taken over road trip duty but I'll never sell my GPS V as I'm not worried about breaking it like I am my Nuvi.