Old vs. New Garmins
As stated in my previous article "Not All Garmins Are Created Equal", Garmin seems to be stuck in the 1990s with software.
If you are looking to save some money and go with older Garmins, they are still solid navigation devices. They come from an era when people knew how to read maps and needed a GPS to check that they were correct.
I would caution that you might have a tough software road ahead of you for a few reasons.
- Maps - Maps on older devices were very basic. Devices were more singularly focused. Buy a device for hikes and another for driving. Maps were most likely a paid update service. Most hiking type devices don't even get updates.
- Speed - Older devices are slow. For the cell phone generation, it could be considered snails pace slow to move around a map with an old joystick.
- Software - Again, Garmin Basecamp on a Windows machine will be needed to sync manual input data over to a device.
I hate to harp on Garmin for this, but their 1990s software mentality lost them the modern GPS standing. Going with an older Garmin model might prove to an exercise in frustration.