Garmin RINO 530 GPS Receiver

Outstanding Unit, But.....

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Aug 3, 2007 | 1 out of 1 found this Garmin RINO 530 review helpful

Pros: Rugged, powerful, bright map, long life battery, easy (for me) to use

Cons: Road Navigation, Charging Components

Having owned the Rino 110 for a while before getting the 530, I was already pretty familiar with navigating through the various menus of the unit. First timers should give themselves adequate time to familirize. The unit powers up quickly, aquires ...satellites quickly (given an ample view of the sky), has a beautiful screen which backlights. I accidently left my unit on in the car one day at work with the backlight set to full. After 11 hours it was still brightly lit with almost 25% of it's charge left! I currently have both topo and road maps for the unit and have found both of them to be very accurate. I have been able to use the radio on several occasions and have found the range and clarity to be excellent. The literature says that the unit is capable of transieving GMRS to a range of 14 miles. I'm always sceptical of these figures as they're line-of-sight estimates. At full power I've gotten a good 9 miles so far. The games included on the unit are pretty fun as well, provided you have a large field to roam aimlessly in:) So far I have only 2 complaints; one minor and one major. First the minor. The unit includes a rechargable L-ION battery which, as stated before, works marvelously. The method of charging, however, leaves much to be desired. In order to charge the unit you must attatch a clip-on connector the the rear exterior of the battery and then plug the AC adapter into the connector. To me, this just seemed like one more small component to lose or break and need to replace. Works well, though. Now the major. This device should not in any way, shape or form be depended on for road navigation. When you plot a destination it first asks you if you want the shortest or fastest route. After several senarios that I've tried, picking one or the other option has failed to plot a different route. And the route it choses is often WAAAAYYYY out of the way. It'll keep you on the highway LONG after you need to be. If you deviate from it's flight plan it's recalculation consists of telling you to turn around and go back to where you deviated from. I was actually 100 yards from a friends house, but the unit refused to point me in that direction. It kept insisting that I turn around, get back on the highway and continue on IT'S course. I'm not bashing the unit; hell, I love it!! It's speciality is the outdoors which is where it really shines! Read more Less