GPSMAP 67 Worth The Money?

[Backstreetbob]

Looking at getting a new GPSMAP 67, a few questions I have is, is the 67 worth the money? I've read multiple posts on here about firmware issues and inaccuracies, is it really as bad as is made out on this forum?

Lastly does Garmin release models yearly? As I understand this unit has been out almost a year so I don't want to buy if a new model is imminent?

[JungleJim]

Whether the device is worth your money is something only you can answer

As for the firmware issues and inaccuracies, on a forum there will always be more people posting about things not working as expected than people posting about what works well. Personally I don't encounter any issues that make the device unusable. Some things are quirky (e.g. map manager) or inconvenient (e.g. total ascent/descent values not always correct, but this can be adjusted afterwards) but for my use cases it works well enough. The improved battery life alone makes the device worth it for me.

And as discussed in another thread in this board, a successor to the GPSMAP 67 this year is very unlikely because the device is only one year old. But then again only Garmin knows what their plans are for outdoor handheld devices...

[Backstreetbob]

Will the mentioned issues likely be fixed in a future update or something?

[JungleJim]

I certainly hope so!

[neilwoody]

I am very happy with my 67. I use it for off-trail route finding under fairly heavy NE foliage. With multi - GNSS and dual-band, the positional accuracy is excellent. The ascent and descent recording issue really does not matter to me because that information is available to me from the detailed USGS topographic custom maps that are displayed on my 67. I also found that I can calibrate the altitude using a known benchmark elevation and that usually works well for a day's hiking. The internal battery life is excellent.

[pedigree1]

If you wait for garmin to fix all the issues you will never buy one.

I have had several hand held Garmins and they have all had issues but none of them have stopped me from using the device and enjoying it. It's a complicated beast and each new model increases that complexity. I upgraded from a 66s because that was broken and I didnt want to pay for an expensive repair but also becuase my 67i means that I dont have to carry a separate InReach device and because of the hugely increased battery life.

[Backstreetbob]

Mine arrived today very impressed with the screen quality and speed of the device. Just added a glass screen protector and case on it to keep it mint.

[Roy47]

Related my 66 with 67 all good except it won't read my map card

[GPSrChive]

Sorry for the late response.

Which map card?

[elho]

As has been pointed out, the answer to the question is quite subjective. Furthermore the market for outdoor consumer GPSr handhelds is basically just Garmin nowadays.

I have had a GPSmap 60CSx and (once that broke) a Oregon 450 that I did use for car navigation, hiking & snowboarding (with my own OSM Freizeitkarte Wintersport flavour) navigation, track logging, geocaching. Nowadays, there's Smartphones and as such Waze+Android Auto, OSMand and C:geo have taken over all tasks except for track logging (and the occasional navigation for the last few meters in challenging terrain).

Now that the Oregon broke, I got a GPSMAP 67i last weekend (at about only EUR 50 than the non-i, that seems worth the extra money compared to a standalone InReach device) for that I did want: a glorified track logger with multi-GNSS and multi-band receiver that can write GPX and show current GPS time with second precision (Etrex can not do the first and reportedly neither the latter). That it does, and to my very positive surprise (unlike os the screenshots here on the site) the time of day data field does show the seconds, so I am happy.

All other things I played with sofar is rather underwhelming and had I have to or wanted to use it for all tasks like in the pre-smartphone days, I would not be happy:

• Once connected to Wi-Fi the device took quite some time before bothering to upgrade the quite old 6.x firmware to 8.50 (with the Oregon I could copy on the net firmware image using mass-storage mode and it was done)

• I did forget how bad the GPSMAPs are to use when it comes to typing text or positioning the cursor on the map cohpared to touch devices like the Oregon

• The device is slow. The TopoActive maps are fast, yes, but e.g. OSM maps (OpenFietsMap, Freizeitkarte) are slow. No comparison to map rendering on a smartphone.

• There is both (some, the TopoActive West, Central and East Europe parts are subsumed as Europe showing the West part's coverage in the Info screen) individual maps to enadle/disable in the Map Manager, but also May Layers that only shows and distinguish between TopoActive anh City Navigator, where the latter affects some OSM maps but neither affects the Topo Deutschland

• Connect IQ data fields lag (I for now guess that being a fault of Garhin, not the data fielf in question), using AppBuilder 5 to create time of day data field, the clock in that field lags behind the built-in data field. This turns what looked like a great way to customize into a useless gimmick.

• Map update over Wi-Fi for TopoActive Europe slowly progresses to 90% then an empty pop-up message appears that can not be dismissed, after restarting the device it starts download over with same result. I am not using Windows nor MacOS and with the Oregon never had to, here I had to dig out a Windows system to get out of that cycle by updating the map using Express.

• The Explore app, even though showing sofware was uptodate repeatefly shows a notification with a progress bar of a software update being sent to the device that could take hours.

• GC Live feature got stuck at loading details for one (small!) List at 61%, removing live data and deregistering/reregistering does not get rid of that and as a result, any other download either does not happen or yield some caches from one of the lists instead of the requested (e.g. near dy) ones. Seems I will have to master reset.

• Pressing (the quite exposed at the edge of the device) enter key in e.g. satellite page opens the recording controls menu with "Stop" selected, so (accidentally) hitting that twice would ruin the tracklog if gone unnoticed.

• The rubber flap for the mitroSD card sits pretty loose, that does not feel like dunkable.

Yes, I may be spoiled compared to 20 years ago and yes, Garmin devices always had their quirks, but time has moved on and they never felt that bad, all the new "features" they added to make the devices more modern seem to work so bad, they only worsened things. And I found all those issues within only three days of playing with the device.

Bottom line, know what to expect and what not and have a limited/specific use case that goes along with unconnected use like in the old days and you can be happy - want all the advertised features and connectivity/app synchronization on the go to work, and you will not enjoy at all.