5.0 颗星,最多 5 颗星Useful tool in land nav/field problems
2018年11月4日 - 已在美国亚马逊上发表
样式: Foretrex 601已确认购买
Active duty Army Infantry, very useful in the field/land nav. NVG mode was more necessary than expected on night movements. Multiple options and abilities with this garmin. Didn’t notice huge difference on performance for 401 though. Recommend screen protector as the screen may scratch easy under use.
4.0 颗星,最多 5 颗星I wish Garmin would have added some of the features like starting line or lifted/headed from the Quantix
2017年11月26日 - 已在美国亚马逊上发表
样式: Foretrex 601已确认购买
I use it for sail boat racing, having a large display and buttons that I can use with gloves is very important to me. Ease of use and the accuracy of the compass are also important, everything else is secondary to me, so your mileage may vary. From my experience it is just a 401 refresh, larger screen, three axis compass(big win) but no other improvements. I wish Garmin would have added some of the features like starting line or lifted/headed from the Quantix. But the 601 wins because the Quantix is hard to use and has a tiny screen. The biggest thing I would like is to have is the GPS time to the second on every screen or at least have it on the timer screen and have it to the second in the data field options.
Buy the separate Quick Fit Watch band, the included strap is garbage. I do not understand why the straps are different than the one from the my previous generation Quantix. The default resolution (medium) is way to low from my tracking needs. I wish the resolution setting for auto were defined. And of course all Garmin manuals are lacking in detail, but this one sets a new low.
If you do not have wrist strap GPS, this is probably the best, but there are better choice if you do not have to have a wearable. I recommend against buying any GPS you do not have to have until the BCM47755 with Level 5 decoding is released, it should have 30 cm (1 ft) accuracy versus todays devices which seem to be about 10 m.
I have used this in the Army for over a year now and I love it. Before this I had a Fortrex 401 and loved it. There was some issues with the 401 that this solves. I will do a comparison of the 401 to to the 601.
So the biggest upgrades from the 401 to the 601 are as follows. 1. Battery Life- Like this is enough of an upgrade alone to justify it, if you are using these in the Military, or just use them often. I went from having to change my batteries every mission, to changing them every 3-4 days of heavy use.
2. Built in Watch- Having the ability to now tell time is great, its saves you from having to carry another thing around your wrist, and works well. The watch only mode allows you to use this without taking much battery life at all, so you wont have to worry about it draining your battery supply for a watch.
3. Back Light- The back light on this is way better than the 401's orange light. It has the ability to be super bright if you need a quick flashlight type ability, and on the other end of the spectrum, it has a night vision mode that is very dim and even on the darkest nights, cannot be seen past 10-15 meters.
4. Screen- It has a much better resolution and slightly bigger screen on it, allowing you to more easily see everything displayed.
5. GPS- The GPS seems like it connects a little faster than the 401 and is slightly more accurate at the single digit meter level, But that aspect is not a huge difference from the 401.
Overall- If you are in the military or use GPS's a lot, this thing is amazing. It is small, doesn't kill your batteries and works extremely well.
If you have a 401 already...trust me when i say the battery life alone makes this worth the upgrade.
*************** Updated Review - Three Stars - August 2018:
As a longtime user of their products, I decided to give Garmin the benefit of the doubt, and picked up another Foretrex 601. One of the first tasks was to update the firmware to 2.70 (the most recent version) to see the improvements that have been made over the last year.
I'm happy to report that the unit doesn't crash, even when recording a long track log, and there doesn't appear to be any more random freezes or restarts. Battery life, even while recording a track log, is outstanding (probably the best I've seen on any Garmin device).
That being said, IMHO, Garmin still needs to address a few FW issues, as well as possibly some QC:
- My unit had a button that only worked intermittently (page button). - Despite marketing material about barometric pressure trends and weather forecasting, there doesn't seem to be a way to clearly enable or display a barometric pressure plot option on the elevation page. - The elevation page still doesn't show data at certain zoom levels when recording or viewing a track (it says "loading" but then doesn't load the elevation profile). - Still no accuracy / EPE reading for the GPS satellite page. - Track logs imported to BaseCamp still don't show overall distance, just the distance of each leg. - Elevation readings were still off by hundreds of feet after only a few hours, despite calibration to a local weather station (can also be the nature of the beast with barometric altimeters). - No way to view GPS satellite elevation as a data field (sometimes more accurate than barometric altimeter elevation, esp. with the extra satellite constellations available - e.g., GPS + GLONASS).
Suggested Improvements for the Foretrex 601:
- If the idea is to keep the user interface nearly the same as the Foretrex 401 series for commonality, offer an "advanced" user profile option or menu choice with a way to enable: longer waypoint names, waypoint averaging, and any other add-on features.
Overall, I'm going to bump my review up to three stars. I think Garmin has made several improvements to the firmware and the Foretrex 601 is much more stable versus a year ago, and didn't crash at all during my use. Unfortunately, due to the QC issue with a button that worked intermittently, my unit was ultimately returned. As another reviewer mentioned, the battery life compared to the Foretrex 401 is probably the biggest upgrade between the two models. Still, for someone looking for a small basic GPS for outdoors, hiking, traveling, or .mil use, it's definitely worth a closer look. (Just ensure that your unit is updated to the latest firmware and double-check that all buttons work.)
*************** Original Review - One Star - Sept. 2017: As a previous owner of a Foretrex 401, the new Foretrex 601 provides a similar feature set, but with a lot of nice upgrades and improvements:
- GLONASS and Galileo satellite reception capability. - Stronger watch band lugs. - Stronger battery door (metal twist latch). - USB port now sealed in battery compartment. - Increased screen resolution. - Improved battery life and runtime. - Super dim ("NVG") backlight mode for low light use. - 3 axis magnetic compass.
Unfortunately, IMHO, the firmware still needs some work. On a unit running the latest firmware as of Sept. 2017 (v2.10), there are a few things that appeared in use:
- No way to view satellite accuracy reading in feet or meters / EPE. - Zooming in and out with a lengthy track log can cause the unit to freeze and/or restart (fixed by 2.70 FW update). - Plugging into the computer can cause random freezes and/or restarts (fixed by 2.70 FW update). - Recorded tracks don't include elevation data when imported to BaseCamp (fixed by 2.70 FW update). - Elevation readings, even when calibrated, can be way off (to the tune of hundreds of feet). - Elevation page doesn't show data at all zoom levels. - Some waypoint icons are missing vs. the 401 (fixed by 2.70 FW update)
Then, of course, there are things that would be "nice" to have, but I'm not going to complain, as the Foretrex 401 didn't have these either:
- Waypoint averaging. - Ability to show barometric pressure plot (fixed location or moving), instead of just elevation. - Longer waypoint names beyond 8 characters.
My hope is that Garmin improves the firmware ASAP on the Foretrex 601. Until then, having the unit freeze while working with tracks, for example, is a huge problem -- I'd hate to be in the field and discover this. Until changes are made, I can't recommend this unit, and am withholding a higher review. More than like Garmin will address these issues, but if you are an early adopter, please be aware of them.