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Garmin GPSMAP 76Cx Rating
Average rating:   (4.4 based on 16 ratings).
Lowest rating: 2 | Highest rating: 5
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Recommendation: 94% of our reviewers recommend this item.
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Exit106
montreal
September 9, 2009
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WORKHORSE
This his the fifth unit I get for me or colleagues. The unit provides everything you would want for outdoor activities. Upgrade to a bigger card and you can put most of your maps on this unit.
Pros: rugged, waterproof
Cons: screen could be bigger in this day and age.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
12 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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BJ
Ontario Canada
September 9, 2009
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GOOD BASIC GPS NAVIGATOR
This unit is very robust and easy to use. Waypoint entry and navigation are straight forward. The various menus and user functions are easy to implement and understand. The color screen is easy to see in sunlight. A good unit for land or marine use.
Pros: easy to operate, good value for the price
Cons: a waas mode op indicator would be useful
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
13 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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John
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
September 9, 2009
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EXCELLENT HANDHELD MARINE GPS
Although I've had just a few opportunities to use it, my Garmin GPSMAP 76Cx seems to be just what I wanted. The colour screen is clearly visible even in sunlight. I'm impressed that I'm even able to pick up a few satellites from inside my living room. It's not unusual to pick up 9 satellites from my boat.
I'm still learning all of the functions but overall, I'm very satisfied.
Pros: screen clarity, reception
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
10 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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wesley
Edmonton, Alberta
September 8, 2009
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EXCELLENT!
Great unit that is perfect for the outdoors. Upgraded from the GPS Map76 and love the SD card feature and increased memory capacity.
Pros: more room to load maps
Cons: should have owned this years ago!
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
13 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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Brian
Haliburton, Ontario.
September 3, 2009
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WORKS VERY WELL
This is my first gps, so I have nothing to compare it to. But, it seems easy to use, and the screen is easy to read. It seems to be very accurate as I have found 5 out of 6 geocaches I have looked for. It marks and returns to my fishing holes very well, which is the main reason I bought it. My only question is, Why is the screen on the bottom? That took a bit to get used to. It seems more natural to have the screen on top.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
13 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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Brent
Ontario
August 16, 2009
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GARMIN GPSMAP 76CX
Excellent GPS. I have had the original GPSMAP 76 for about 4-5 years now, and this is an excellent upgrade. It fixes most everything that I wanted on the original version. The batteries last a long time, and the screen is nicely coloured. GPS City had an awesome price on this product.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
18 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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John
Burns Lake BC
August 15, 2009
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GOOD UNIT
These 4 units were purchased by our Search & Rescue organization for training and operational use. Have been setting up screens and loading local maps for our use. Everything seems to work very well. Have notused them in the field as yet but if it works as well as my own 76 Csx there should be no problems.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
20 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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Ken
Toronto
August 7, 2009
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EXCELLENT GPS
Works great. Used it inside a 4X4 due to bad weather. Held satellites while my friends didn't. Excellent in heavy cover. Easy to use though the instruction book needs some serious work. Would have liked to buy a 3D unit but couldn't beat the value for the money on this unit. A bit on the bulky side for in and out of pocket. One drawback not associated to unit was the TOPO Canada map. It has a terrible beige colored land. Not the yellow land blue water as in ALL Garmin's adds. Garmin says too bad so sad you're stuck with it, you can't change the color of Topo Maps.
Pros: a little on the large size.
Cons: none yet.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
17 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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YVES
MONTREAL
August 3, 2009
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GPSMAP 76CX
Great item. very very good gps. every one should have one.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
20 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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RonJ
Ontario
July 30, 2009
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NICE UNIT, MAPS UNMANAGABLE
It is hard to review this unit, as the unit itself works as described. It is solid and although you need to spend some time leaning the features, it is not hard to use.
However I can't recommend it if you plan to use it with multiple maps. IE, Boating and land. Garmin now sells maps preloaded on and SD card. I got the Canada Inland Lakes (Ontario) map. It is not complete and does not include rivers like the Trent or Rideau. I need the Metroguide Canada map for the rivers and roads. It would be fine if I could load both maps. But the SD card loaded map can not be used with any other CD based map. If you try to load another map on the preloaded SD, the preloaded map is destroyed. So in order to view both lakes and rivers you need two sd cards and swap them in and out of the unit as you go. Not a usable situation. Garmin seems to recognize this is a problem, but they say you have to live with it. If you are usng this unit with one map, it is a fine unit and I would recommend it. If you are going to use multiple maps, or don't know if you will need more than one map, then I would advise looking somewhere other than Garmin until they fix their map management.
Pros: unit seems solid, easy to use, works as advertized
Cons: unmanageable with multiple maps
Recommend: NO
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
20 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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Lou
Gatineau
July 22, 2009
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A GOOD UNIT BUT DOES NOT AGE VERY WELL
I own 2 of these GPS (GPSMAP 76cx) and several of my friends also have one. They seem to all start suffering from old age after about 3 years. Chronic problems appear like shutting down for no reason, time being off by a few seconds or even minutes, distance not calculating properly, and location off by 100 meters and even more, etc. Is it normal that a GPS will last for 3 years only? For the years it worked it did a great job on the water, under forest cover, in mountainous areas, in car navigation, in rain or snow, at -30 or +40. I am now purchasing another identical one mostly because I know this unit so well and because I do not know yet if I can trust the new touch screen units in all weather conditions. It should be good for another 3 years.
Cons: garmin mapsource licensing upgrade stinks
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
23 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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Robert
QC
December 31, 1969
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Just got my new Garmin GPSMAP 76Cx 3 days ago. Sensitivity of the new SiRFStarIII receiver is INCREDIBLE. This is my 4th GPS units and none of the previous one's reveived any satellites inside my home unless put right next to a window. Now, no matter where I am in the house, I receive min. 6 and up to 9(most with excellent signal strength), with continuous 3D positioning and between 7 to 9 meters precision. Inside my car, no matter where I put it, an outside antenna would be useless. The RAM Mount Aluminum GPSMAP 76C/76CS Series 3.25'' Locking Suction Cup (RAM-B-166-GA14U)I bought with it is very versatile and hold my unit firmly in place. That Micro SD 128MB card is really MICRO. About the size and thickness of my small finger nail, and they now make them up to 1GB ! In short, I'm very happy with my new toy !
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
50 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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Bill
AL
December 31, 1969
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The Garmin GPSMAP76Cx is very disappointing. Garmin recommended this unit after I contacted them about wanting a GPS I could transfer from my boat to my car and vice versa. It was more money than I had expected to pay but then it looked like it had everything I needed and although I knew I would have to buy a Bluechart map I was assured these were readily available on micro SD card. I was assured that the included Metroguide Europe software had detailed maps of the UK and therefore I would not need to purchase additional maps for using in the car. However when the unit arrived it became clear that the Metroguide Europe software does not do "auto-routing" (you can't get the GPS to find places and direct you to them) unless you have first worked out all your routes on a PC and uploaded them to the 76CX unit. If you want the 76CX to behave like a proper automotive GPS unit you have to purchase the City Navigator software which is another £150! This seems completely crazy as dedicated car sat nav units are available for this price with auto-routing and all the bells and whistles as standard. The fact that Garmin didn’t include the City Navigator software rather than the completely useless Metroguide software seems very mean spirited to me. At this point I was starting to feel a bit ripped off so I thought I would just buy the Bluechart Micro SD card and use the 76CX on the boat, and probably buy a proper dedicated road GPS separately. However when I tried to buy the Bluechart map on Micro SD card I couldn’t find anyone in the UK who had them in stock. Garmin will only sell them directly within the US and eventually when I found someone who said they could order the card for me they said it would be "at least 10 days" to get it to them and it would cost 50% more than Garmin charge their US customers! After contacting Garmin's support team I was told to buy a blank SD card and the Bluechart map on CD - even more expensive! The Bluechart maps are also for quite large areas which is useless for me as I only have a small boat with a 10 mile range so really wont need such a large area but still you have no option to just buy the bit you need - you have to purchase an entire section! All in all this unit is fine - the screen is smaller than I would have liked and there's no voice directions, it also feels a lot flimsier than I thought it would, but the additional costs of maps and poor availability of pre programmed micro SD cards mean this is incredibly poor value for money - I really regret buying it now and wish I had done more research.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
53 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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Glenn Stumpff
OH
December 31, 1969
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As a long time user of a Garmin emap, I knew there would be some things I'd need to get used to about the GPSMAP 76Cx that I just purchased to replace the starting-to-disfunction emap. What I didn't expect was to have to get used to a complete loss of streamlined and easy to use functionality.
First, I should point out that I'm aware that very little of what I discuss here can't be fixed/modified with software changes. The GPSMAP 76Cx was clearly designed and programmed to have the potential to be a very powerful device. I just wish Garmin had acted on that potential before rushing to the market. (I feel like I paid Garmin to let me beta test their software.)
The 76Cx is the newer device. It's much larger than the emap, but the vertical size of the display is only about the same as the emap's and it isn't as wide. The usable area of the 76Cx's map display is even more reduced when grossly over-sized data fields are added in order to make the map display show necessary information. Things get even worse when in pan mode. It's nice to have the latitude and longitude displayed as the cursor moves around, but there's no space on the display for that again grossly over-sized added field, especially given the non-optimum way that data field is formatted. (The map virtually goes away.)
Further, although the 76Cx has the nice feature of allowing the user to define what data is shown in the data fields, there are no data fields that can be added to the 76Cx's map display to make it as informative as the emap's. With the emap, when not navigating, there is a compass on the lefthand side at the top of the map and three numbers at the righthand side: speed, odometer reading, and time of day. When navigating, the compass automatically changes to a bearing pointer, the odometer display changes to a distance to destination/next waypoint, and the time changes to a time to destination/next waypoint. One or the other of these sets of fields can be added to the 76Cx's map display, but the unit will not automatically switch between them based on whether navigation is active. When I'm not navigating, I've just got wasted space up there. Further, adding the compass to the map page's data display isn't one of the options.
Regarding that bearing pointer, couldn't they have made it any smaller? I can still just barely see it--if my glasses are on (and they generally aren't when I'm driving). Yes, the bearing pointer on the compass page is really big, but the map isn't shown on that page.
The emap's method of editing waypoints and other such textual data, or specifying what waypoint to find by simply selecting a letter and using the rocker to move upwards or downwards in the alphabet was admittedly clumsy. However, that was understandable given that there isn't a keyboard. The 76Cx's attempt to add a keyboard with an on-screen keypad is a complete failure. I got used to the emap's method of doing it and I'm pretty much used to the 76Cx's way of doing it. But the latter will never be anything but much more clumsy and tedious/time-consuming than the emap's method. It doesn't help that the keypad layout/functionality is anything but optimized or consistent.
With the emap, when you create waypoints, you have the option right then and there of navigating to it. The "GOTO" option does not exist on that page of the 76Cx. You first have to create the waypoint and then use the FIND button (or pan mode on the map) to navigate to it. Could it be any clumsier?
I thought the rocker on the emap could've been a little more responsive than it was...until I got the 76Cx. It makes the rocker on the emap seem perfect. (I can't even make any sense of the shape of 76Cx's rocker. It's not even clear that it IS a rocker just from looking at it.)
The different pages of the 76Cx make things much more clumsy than the simple context-sensitive menuing of the emap. The main and setup menu's use of pictures instead of a simple textual list of options is just stupid.
I have a 128 MB data cartridge in my emap. It holds 128 MB of map data. I have that map data stored in a MapSource file. Big surprise, when I went to transfer that map data to the 76Cx, with its 128 MB microSD card, I was informed by MapSource that I couldn't transfer more than 120 MB. (MicroSD cards need a "small" amount of space for formatting.)
I suspected that everything I've heard about the newer GPS receivers being more accurate than the antiquated units such as the emap was just hype. I confirmed that. The 76Cx sometimes (but rarely) shows a slightly smaller accuracy value than I've ever seen from the emap, but it's not enough to make a difference. (However, that may change in a "few" years when the ionosphere gets nastier.) But the SiRF chip appears to be an improvement, for what it's worth. I can actually use the 76Cx inside my apartment as a GPS receiver (i.e., it can track the satellites). The accuracy is naturally degraded, but it can do it. The emap isn't too successsful at that...at any accuracy. My emap really hasn't lost lock with the satellites very often, but it's nice to know that the 76Cx will likely do it less. (But my general feeling on that issue is that simply maintaining a lock won't do anything for multipath effects, and when those effects are strong, my general experience is that having just a lock on the satellites isn't too useful.)
Battery Saver mode degrades the accuracy of the 76Cx over Normal mode much moreso than with the emap. The 76Cx's Battery Saver mode is essentially useless. Even upon switching back to normal mode, it takes much longer to get back to an accurate position reading than it takes to get to one after powering up.
I don't know why Garmin designed the 76Cx to have the power and data cables attach to the unit on the back. (I'm pretty sure that I don't WANT to know why. I just won't be able to make sense of the answer.) The least they could do is point out in their product description that the unit will not lie flat with any sort of cable attached to it. Until I can rig up something, I don't have any real good way of using the 76Cx in my car if I have a passenger in it. (Without a passenger, it sits on the passenger seat--just not in a very convenient way there either due to not being able to lie flat.) Yes, I know Garmin sells devices to mount the thing in a car, but I don't appreciate them telling me how I have to do it--especially when there's no good reason for it. (But then, given how complicated the 76Cx's options are to get to, I'm not sure how advisable it is to use it in a car.)
When I saw the "Quit" key instead of an "Esc" key, my first thought was that it was just another attempt to "dumb down" the world. But then I realized that the Quit key actually works a little different than the emap's Esc key. I wish it didn't. I liked the emap's Esc key taking me back to the main map page and then no farther. However, given that the 76Cx just isn't going to work that way, the Quit key's acting like a backwards Page key is useful, given the unit's paging system.
The main menu existing as a separate page and also being accessible by pressing menu twice is unnecessary, resource consuming, and detracts from the functionality. Simply pressing the menu twice works fine. (Of course, the main menu's functionality is much harder to get to than on the emap.)
The 76Cx display's viewing angle range is less than optimum. Unlesss backlighting is turned on or it's used outside on a very sunny day, the display cannot be viewed straight-on very well.
This may be just nitpicking, but I would think that Garmin understands that elevation is just a component of the position. Hence, moving the display of the elevation to the Trip page from the GPS page (where the other MEASURED quantities are displayed) is just nonsensical. (It has nothing to do with a trip!)
I understand that the GPSMAP 76Cx is not the emap and that different devices aren't going to work the same. But that doesn't mean that the differences have to be totally nonsensical. This isn't about my just not liking the way a new device works because I got used to something else. (There's a whole host of purely subjective nitpicking things that I didn't mention.) The emap is just an example of what was being used before the so-called new and improved units came out. The older devices should have set a standard for Garmin in terms of functionality by defining what was possible for a mapping GPS receiver to do. Why didn't they? Why did I pay a whole bunch more for something than I did for what it replaced but I have to give up something that I had before?
With that said, am I sorry I bought the 76Cx? Not entirely, but I definitely am planning on doing what I thought about doing in the first place and send the emap in for repairs. Someone who hasn't used other GPS receivers and thus has no idea how well things could work may like it just fine. (However, I'm not sure I'd recommend the 76Cx as a first GPS receiver to anyone who isn't heavily into electronic devices. It could very well create the erroneous impression that GPS receivers in general are too complicated to be worth the trouble of using.)
I like the option on the 76Cx's compass page while navigating to right then and there specify that a geocache has been found. I also like its giving me the option after I do that to automatically start navigating to the next closest geocache. (However, it would be nice if it gave me the option to skip that next geocache and move on to the one after that, and so on.)
Although I've never had much appreciation for "new and improved" typically meaning a bunch of added unnecessary bells and whistles, I like the calculator. It's not a substitute for a true calculator with buttons you can get to instantaneously, but it's better than no calculator at all in those rare instances when I'm out in the woods and need to make a calculation (perhaps to decipher a numerical geocache hint). (But it would be nice if the "scientific" calculator had a value for PI stored and would allow "scientific notation.")
The option to make a movie of the solar and lunar motions is neat.
The 76Cx generally seems to acquire satellites at power-on somewhat faster than the emap, but every once in a while seems to take as long.
It seems to redraw the map much faster.
It preserved the compatibility with MetroGuide USA. (I was glad to be able to postpone buying City Select or City Navigator until it's a little more convenient to do so.)
When in GPS Off mode and navigation is initiated, the 76Cx has the nice feature of very conveniently pointing out that it's in that mode and asks if you want to turn satellite tracking back on.
One thing I didn't like about the emap got fixed with the 76Cx. On the emap, when you start to create a waypoint but then decide you didn't really want to do that (e.g., when you press Enter by mistake), pressing Esc in the middle of the process doesn't abort the process. The waypoint's created. However, pressing the 76Cx's Quit key actually aborts the process, avoiding creation of an unwanted waypoint.
And of course, being able to add almost 1 GB of map data to the 76Cx is something I'm going to appreciate taking advantage of.
Recommend: YES
Tag: garmin gpsmap 76cx review, gpsmap 76cx review
56 votes. Was this review helpful to you?
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