Thread: Garmin Rino 650 road test.

I know a few guys on here have this unit already but I thought I'd road test the new software and free maps available online. I wanted to test its 'in car' ability by setting waypoints and then getting a feel for accuracy. What I found was that it was far more accurate than what some had claimed. In this picture you see a funny spur with a measurement of 1.5m. Well that was me driving down my mates driveway with thick overhead trees and then reversing back along the same route. So you see it isn't perfect but its only out 1.5m. I put it fwd that this tool could be used to pre - rangefind your LR targets, especially if you're on foot and in open paddocks.

Bearing in mind that I'm completely new at using these and they're so easy to use, I'm up and going in less than 1/2 day of stuffing about.

Things I like about this unit.
- GPRS 2 way radio built in with squelch control to cut off morons who hold down their transmit buttons. Wikipedia called this CTCSS or continuous tone coded squelch system or something. Nice to know its there if its needed (like if im out on the water)
- The touch screen. Anything else is just a pain in the arse IMO.
- SD micro slot for maps. I found it was easy to load maps on it.
- Compass. Everything on-board can be changed into whatever units you want.
- Barometer
- Altimeter
- The ability to see each other on the map. Sending text messages is freaking awesome too
- Waterproof

And finally a 20hour battery pack

Things that aren't so great
- The weight - feels about as heavy as a can of beer.
- It comes with no screen protector and pretty bland global map. At $615 it really should have come with a std map with basic contour lines.

After looking on other threads on here I found the suggestion to look on Ebay. I bought a full topo map of Australia and NZ for $38 inc postage and I think about $60 scored me the full roadmaps one too. Those are inbound atm but I'm still playing with the free open maps and the doc trails one. Hope this helps anyone looking to buy this model. It never beeped once to say it had lost sat coverage over a 50km road trip so that was good. My tomtom cant find me on startup sometimes 5 mins into the drive.