NaviGadget

Garmin Dakota 20

Jun 27, 2009 garmin, gps navigation, tracking 1 Comment

Garmin Dakota 20 is Dakota 10’s bigger brother. Announced at the same time Dakota 20 has pretty much the same appearance as Dakota 10 but when it comes to specs it hides a lot inside.

Priced only $50 more than Dakota 10, for a total of $350, you can expect the same impressive 20 hours battery life from Dakota 20. It also has a microSD card slot to store more stuff, like maps, a 3-axis compass tilt-compensated electronic compass, and a barometric altimeter. Also don’t forget about the wireless connectivity feature that lets you share waypoints, tracks, routes and geocaches wirelessly with Dakota, Oregon, Colorado and Foretrex devices.

If you’re looking for something bigger and more expensive you should check out Garmin Colorado or the Garmin Oregon series.

Wait until September for Garmin Dakota 20 to come out.

Garmin Foretrex 301

Jun 16, 2009 fitness, garmin, gps navigation, tracking, wrist watch 3 Comments

In addition to Foretrex 401, Garmin also introduced its little brother today: the Garmin Foretrex 301.

Foretrex 301 is quite similar to 401, except that it lacks the electronic compass, and the barometric altimeter. In addition it is slightly has a lighter color and supposedly will last up to 18 hours (instead of 17) with only 2 AAA batteries.

Garmin Foretrex 301 is rugged and waterproof, boast a sensitive GPS receiver with HotFix that quickly acquires and maintains satellite reception. It keeps track of where you’ve been so you when turn on the TracBack feature, it will retrace your path right back to where you started.

Foretrex 301 feature dual-position readout so that you can view your current location in multiple formats, including latitude/longitude and an alternate position format of your choice.

Also no wireless sharing your tracks and waypoints on 301. Only 401 has this feature.

Garmin Foretrex 301 can store up to 500 waypoints, 20 routes or a tracklog of up to 10,000 points and 10 saved tracks.

UPDATE: Pricing info has just been released and Garmin Foretrex 301 will go for $200.

Here are some more specs:

• Unit dimensions: 2.9″ x 1.7″ x 0.9″ (7.5 x 4.3 x 2.3 cm)
• Display:1.4″ x 0.9″ (3.6 x 2.3 cm)
• Resolution: 100 x 64 pixels
• Display type: Black and white LCD
• Weight: 3.1 oz (87.3 g) with batteries
• Waterproof: yes (IPX7)
• Floats: no
• Interface: USB

Garmin Foretrex 401 now official

Jun 16, 2009 fitness, garmin, gps navigation, tracking 2 Comments

Just as we promised the Garmin Foretrex 401 has been made official by the company today. And just like we talked about Garmin did mention the military personnel as one of their target markets.

Long story short, Foretrex 401 is a lightweight GPS recevier/navigator designed to be comfortably worn on your wrist. Device comes with a highly sensitive GPS receiver, keeps track of where you’ve been by using bread crumbs so you can always get back to your camp site or vehicle or whatever. It also includes a trip computer, sunrise sunset hunting and fishing information, electronic compass and even a barometric altimeter.

It works on 2 AAA batteries which should last up to 17 hours.

Press release does not mention the price but we suspect it’ll be around $250.

UPDATE: Foretrex 401 is now up on Garmin’s site. Suggested retail price is $249.99.

Garmin Foretrex 401

Jun 10, 2009 garmin, gps navigation, wrist watch 9 Comments

Apparently Garmin is coming a with new Foretrex called Garmin Foretrex 401. We didn’t think Garmin would continue with this series after coming up with products such Forerunner 405CX and even Forerunner 310XT, but they must have seen the market for it. Specially the DoD market: Militarytimes got their hands on a final prototype and the specs for the new Garmin Foretrex 401 looks quite impressive.

First off Garmin Foretrex 401 is about 20% smaller than the original 201, and 101, but do share the same size (1.4″ x 0.9″) screen. It has a 2-axis digital compass, barometric altimeter, and a USB port to hook up to a computer. It even has some sort of wireless waypoint sharing option.

Up to this point everything is OK. But then you get to some other set of features which makes us think Foretrex 401 was designed for those who regularly jump off planes:

There’s even a “Jumpmaster” function for static, HAHO and HALO jumping that will let you set data points for under-canopy guidance to an LZ. It’s got options for forward throw, windspeeds at altitude and HARP to get you to the right place. Garmin also improved the GPS sensitivity so it will pick up a signal faster once out of the aircraft, but it’s still best as a backup to your backup altimeter.

Garmin Foretrex 401 runs on two AAA batteries which can last up to 24 hours and if you really need this to be with you on a mission you can get the optional pouch that was designed with the help of Navy Seals and will make it easier to mount the 401 to your gear or rifle. Huh.

Really? Did Garmin really design and is about to announce a military grade GPS receiver for only $250? Wow. Expected to release date is June 16th.