"Our 60C and 60CS deliver the kind of color that hikers, hunters, anglers and mariners say they want in their handhelds," said Gary Kelley, Garmin’s director of marketing. "These products deliver a brilliant, sunlight-readable display and enough battery life and internal memory to help users navigate with ease - whether in town, in the woods, along the trail, on the lake or offshore."
Resembling Garmin’s popular Rino® series in look and feel, the 60 Series offers a lightweight, rugged and waterproof design. The color display on the GPSMAP 60C and the GPSMAP 60CS sets these products apart from other GPS handhelds. The GPSMAP 60CS has all the features of the GPSMAP 60C and adds two sensors - an electronic compass and barometric altimeter. These sensors, when combined with GPS technology, provide enhanced bearing and elevation readings to the user.
The GPSMAP 60C/60CS units boast one of the richest color displays of any handheld available on the market. The high-resolution (160x240 pixels), transflective display vividly renders detailed cartography and depicts various map features in brilliant color. And while the color display will dazzle the eyes, it won’t drain the batteries. Providing 30 hours (typical use) of battery life, these products are ready for any kind of outdoor adventure.
With 56 megabytes of internal memory (plus an 8-MB routable basemap of North and South America), these units are fully compatible with Garmin’s extensive line of MapSource® software products, including City Select®, U.S. Topo 24K™, U.S. Topo™, Recreational Lakes™ and BlueChart®. Users can download map data from these optional MapSource products on a PC using rapid USB connectivity - another first for a Garmin GPS handheld device.
Garmin has also packed these products with extra features to deliver additional value to the user, including a dedicated geocaching mode, indoor/outdoor GPS games, an integrated outdoor calendar, and enhanced track log features. In addition, the GPSMAP 60C/60CS units provide users with automatic route calculation to addresses or points of interest, offering turn-by-turn directions and tone alerts along city streets or trails using MapSource City Select or 24K Topo software, respectively. The addition of this routing feature ensures that users get the superior navigation guidance to urban or off-road destinations.
For hundreds of thousands of GPS users, geocaching* is a fun outdoor activity. Garmin’s 60 Series provides intuitive pages to aid geocachers in the pursuit of their "quarry." After a cache is found, these units will automatically apply a date stamp, log it in the Outdoor Calendar, and point the user to the next closest cache.
Garmin has also loaded these units with its proprietary "geolocation games" - Virtual Maze, GekoSmak, Nibbons, Memory Race and Gekoids (GPSMAP 60CS only) - that turn the outdoors into a giant gameboard. These games can be played individually or with others.
Further, these products provide outdoor enthusiasts with the day’s best hunting and fishing times, along with the sunrise/sunset times and moon phase, on the integrated Outdoor Calendar.
Garmin has also enhanced features associated with its patented TracBack® technology. With the 60 Series, users can retrace their path to any selected track log point on the map display. Users also have the option to save any portion of the 10,000-point track log for later review and navigation.
Other specific features of the GPSMAP 60C/60CS units:
The GPSMAP 60C is expected to be available in January 2004 at an MSRP of $482.13, with the GPSMAP 60CS following in March 2004 at an MSRP of $535.70. Both units will ship standard with a lanyard, belt clip, USB interface cable, owner’s manual and quick-start guide.