Good for both car navigation and hiking / geocaching

I couldn't wait for this model to come out in January 2006, and I bought one as soon as it was available. The reasons I bought it were:
- It has a base map (my old Garmin 12XL had NO map), AND you can purchase the road atlas CDs and download them to this handheld unit.
- It has a color display (that's the "C" part in 60CSx), and previous customer reviews for the 60CS (previous model) praised the readability of the screen even in sunlight.
- It has the SiRF III chipset, which is super-sensitive and enables you to get GPS fixes even under a tree canopy or amongst tall downtown buildings.
- It has a built-in compass and altimeter (that's the "S" part in 60CSx).
- It has expandable memory (that's the "x" part in 60CSx).

Although the 76CSx has slightly more internal memory, I chose the 60CSx because:
(a) I prefer the buttons UNDER the screen. I have owned GPS units with both variations (buttons above the screen and buttons below the screen). With the buttons above the screen, I found that my fingers pushing on the buttons blocked my view of the screen while I was pushing the buttons, so I prefer the buttons below the screen.
(b) The expandable memory slot negates the advantage of the internal memory.

I also purchased the car-navigation kit to go with this. It came with the sand-bag dash mount, the car power cord, and the North American City Select database. The sand-bag dash mount is EXCELLENT. It's heavy and has neoprene rubber on the bottom, so it doesn't budge an inch on my dash board, and it doesn't leave any permanent marks like screws or sticky-back tape would.

I upgraded the expandable memory card to the 256MB card, and I downloaded all the roadmaps for all of New England, PA, DE, DC, MD, VA, and the top half of NC. If I'm going on a road trip somewhere else, I can easily remove the currently loaded maps and load the maps for wherever I'm going.

It doesn't talk like my wife's car does, but it gives you a warning beep when a turn is coming up and a "turn now" beep when you are at the intersection you need to turn.

I've owned this GPS unit for 6 months now, and I love it. It has some quirks that I am learning, but I still love it.

What I love about it:
- Battery life is awesome. It only takes 2 AA batteries and it lasts ten times as long as my old Garmin 12XL that used 4 AA batteries.

- The North America database is the same database in my wife's Acura navigation system and has all the restaurants, gas stations, businesses, addresses, etc. It's very easy to find someplace to get gas or get a bite to eat after telling the 60CSx to find the nearest... whatever it is you're looking for.

- It automatically changes the screen between daylight and nighttime brightness settings. It calculates your position, then it calculates what time sunrise and sunset are where you're standing and figures out whether it's daytime or nighttime, then it adjusts the brightness of the display.

- The software is set-up for geocaching. It uses a closed treasure chest symbol for a geocache you have not found yet. When you find it, you click on "found" and it changes the icon to an open treasure chest, so you can look at the map and tell which geocaches you've already found and which you haven't.

- It shows your position inaccuracy on the map display with a blue circle. This is a LOT better than having to flip through the screens to the satellite status screen where it says "+/- 15 feet". It's a lot more easy to understand looking at the blue circle on the map.

Quirks / things I hope Garmin will fix in future upgrades:
- The sensitivity of the SiRF III chip is awesome, but it's both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing when you have an obscured view of the sky like under a tree canopy in the summertime. It's a curse when you have a CLEAR view of the sky, but there are multiple interfering objects near by. For example, hiking in the woods in the winter. I had a clear view of the sky, but all the tree trunks around caused the receiver to receive multi-path arrival (multiple bounces of the GPS signals off the trees) and degraded the accuracy of the GPS fix. I hope in future upgrades, Garmin will include a sensitivity adjustment so that in such cases, you can raise the threshold of the receiver so that it will ignore the weaker signals from the multipath arrivals.

- Although the database of businesses is the same as in my wife's Acura navigation system, the algorhythm it uses to calculate routes is pretty obviously different. It tries to route me some pretty wacky ways around town sometimes. I have learned that I need to review the directions it calculates before I start driving to see if I agree with the way it is sending me. Don't get me wrong - it won't drive me off a cliff or take me to the wrong place, but it may not take me the most efficient or ideal route. So if you have some local knowledge of the roads, be skeptic of the directions it gives you. If you aren't familiar with the area, then don't worry about it - just follow the directions it gives you and it'll get you there.

- The expandable memory card is only for maps. You can't use the expandable memory to store more waypoints (yet). Garmin just released a beta version software upgrade that will let you save tracks to the expandable memory card, so they might release an upgrade later on that will allow waypoints to be saved to the card, too. For now though, you are limited to 1,000 waypoints.
At first, I was pretty annoyed by this. I filled up the 1,000 waypoints pretty quick with geocaches. I soon discovered that the 60CSx has some features to help mitigate this. You can tell it to delete waypoints by symbol. So, for example, you could tell it to delete all waypoints with the open treasure chest symbol for geocaches you've already found and clear out some room in your waypoint memory.

One more note: I managed to crack the screen within a week of buying it. Not a big or really bad crack, but it's there nonetheless. I highly recommend getting a screen shield. I bought a screen shield from www.shieldzone.com, and it's really awesome (can hardly tell it's there).