I know my old eTrex has worked well for me. I found lithium batteries give more runtime. If you choose lithium, check to see if you have a setting for lithium batteries so you have a more accurate battery gauge. The power supply curve is much different, lithium’s hold strong for a long time and then fall off rapidly.
+1 for Garmin Foretrex 401 Simple, easy, and works...you can't go wrong. I also love my Garmin Fenix 5X so I basically have something all the time.
There is no doubt it is expensive. I had the Fenix v1 so this was quite the upgrade for me. I wouldn't suggest it being your only GPS, but for what it has I think it is a really good setup. I have used it to navigate back to camp when a path we took ended up being blocked by down trees and had to navigate around to get back on track. I use it a ton for workouts with runs and mountain biking. It has all the heartrate features which I like. Also, it is a smartwatch and I didn't previously have one. So for me, it checked a lot of boxes all in one package. I used it for hunting for getting to/from blinds as well. It is a small feature, but the fact that the alarm can be on vibrate versus beeping is a huge win. I would much rather have a watch vibrating on my wrist versus a loud sound alarm that wakes up my wife and/or others while camping or whatever. With the 5X Plus, they really increased battery life which was another huge checkmark for me. Fully admit, I'm a big Garmin fan especially when it comes to anything GPS. All of this to say, yes I think it is worth the coin if you are going to use all the features. I don't see my upgrading anytime soon as the version increase is good, but not amazing. Since I went from a 1 to a 5X Plus, I'm probably good to stay with this one for a bit. Hope that helps and happy to answer any other questions.
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