Video Transcript
So this is the Garmin eTrex 32x device. It's a great backup GPS navigation system. Very small, um, basically pocket size, I would say, depending on the size of the pocket. It has a very sensitive GPS receiver in here. Also uses the glow nos, satellite. So two different systems, a three axis digital compass and a barometric altimeter. It runs on two AA batteries. If you run regular Alkalines, you get 24 hours and if you run lithiums like this, you get closer to 40 hours. That's with everything on and being used all the time. If you are, uh, sparing with this device and careful, you can get it to run a lot, lot longer on the same set of batteries. You can also put, uh, rechargeable batteries in here, but if you do, they don't recharge over the USB port. USB port is just for data.
And speaking of data, this thing comes with, topographical and road routable maps of the entire North American continent. So you have every road and the names of the road and you also have specific, points of interest in here. So if I go into the menu and I go into the real menu, I can look up specific points of interest. Like if we are looking for food, we will actually be able to see specific points of interest, just like an old school GPS, just like Google Maps, although this date is gonna be slightly outdated. And we're gonna be able to navigate directly to these things with turn by turn directions with no internet required and basically no infrastructure whatsoever. So you can navigate with this, but where it really shines is when you are off-road and you're wanting to see those topographical features.
You're wanting to mark your own roots, you're wanting to mark your own waypoint, stuff like that. So it is a great backup device that covers a whole bunch of different options. So look into the map here. We're in Tennessee. We can see the major roads and rivers and as we zoom in, we just get more and more detail. You may be familiar with how these kind of GPS units worked back in the 90s and, in a lot of ways the interface hasn't changed. There is just better battery life, a better screen and a lot more features in here. So if we zoom in, we've already made a couple of way points here and a couple of tracks around where the T.REX shop is. And as I navigate around with the little joystick, uh, I can put the cursor anywhere and I can get grid references from anywhere or lot long, any coordinates that you like. And if I click on a spot, I can navigate to that spot or I can actually start saving different points that I want to have in here and select later without scrolling around. So even with this tiny, tiny screen and these 6 buttons and the little joystick with. The, the clicker, you can do quite a bit. However, this thing does have an additional feature, which is if you plug in the USB cable, uh, by the way, this is mini USB, which is fairly ancient. I think this is my last piece of mini USB technology. If you plug your GPS device into a computer that is running Garmin Basecamp, and by the way, there's a whole bunch of storage space on this device. So you can download the installer of Basecamp, keep it on the device, plug it into any computer, install Basecamp even if you don't have internet. And then a really interesting thing happens instead of seeing internet maps, this program is seeing the exact maps that are on this device. And so now I have a much better interface for drawing roots, saving things, searching, doing elevation profiles, stuff like that than this tiny screen in the five buttons.
I get to use this whole screen and uh, all the different little features that it has. So now in here we're seeing the exact map data that is on this GPS device, including the way points that we just saved. I can see those. But now I can add a whole bunch of new way points and I can draw tracks and I can make roots and I can take notes and I can name things and do all the stuff that is a pain to do with the little tiny screen and the little tiny buttons of the handheld unit. Then I can save all of those to a GPS file in the computer. I can copy that back to this device, but then I can copy that to other devices. So all of my GPS units have the same way points with the same names and the same route and all of that stuff.
I only have to set it up once and any time in the field, even if I don't have internet, I can just plug one of these devices in that has the map data, see it on the screen and do my planning and stuff right here. So being able to, use a computer to look at the maps that are in the device is really nifty. But there's also a microSD card on here so you can load more maps. So this comes with, uh, North American continent and Central American cuz nobody can decide whether Central America goes with north or south. If you buy a Garmin device, it goes with both. But you can install maps, download maps either from Garmin or there's several ways to get free Garmin compatible maps. Put those in a microSD card for every continent and um, plug 'em right in.
So there's a lot of extensibility for this device. The fact that it runs on AA batteries and it's just super lightweight and simple, makes it really easy to just have as a backup device for all kinds of scenarios. And on the back for a mounting, a mounting device, they have something called the spine system, which is not quite as cool as the Sidecar Spine System, but it lets you snap a whole bunch of things on here, Belt clips, carabiners, vehicle cradles, stuff like that. So it is very versatile and there's a bunch of different ways to use it. So that's the reason that we have decided that this is a really useful device. It isn't perfect. The buttons are very small, the screen is very small.
The screen looks like something from the 90s. It is not a super high refresh vibrant OED display, but it actually looks fantastic indirect sunlight and when you run it without the backlight, it uses even less power than it used before. So our recommendation is you use the screen sparingly, you use the GPS connectivity sparingly, you look at the maps, you compare 'em to paper maps. This thing will last for a very long time on AA batteries, which you can get anywhere and that makes it a really good backup device. One thing I will say, if you're comparing it to other devices, once you start using something with a larger screen and more buttons, you feel the interface is a little more constrictive but you can totally get stuff done with it. So there are a bunch of other garment devices that we like, but there's only a few that we've decided to carry cuz those are the ones that we believe are gonna be the most effective for the largest number of people. But the entire suite is very impressive. So if you have any specific questions about the specific devices that we carry, feel free to contact our customer support team. Uh, you can get them at team@trex-arms.com and ask 'em about the eTrex 32x.