I love geocaching with my G1 using GeoBeagle. It is a great phone with GPS abilities, and of course GeoBeagle is the best program out there for the Android platform for geocaching (plus, it’s free). However, there are times when you exceed the ability to use the program, especially if you need a map to find where to drive to and you are in an area not serviced by T-Mobile. Such was the case the other day when at the family reunion in Minerva.
There was an additional problem, I loaded my G1 up with the 500 caches nearest me, and they stopped just outside of Minerva. This was no fault of the phone, the program or anything other than there being too many caches close to me to include Minerva. I have since ran a search for Minerva and will add those to the list soon.
The big issue while there was the lack of a signal. I couldn’t find places on Google Maps as it requires a good signal, and I couldn’t find new caches in the area to add manually as I didn’t have a signal. At the moment, GeoBeagle doesn’t support offline maps, though it is on the feature request list. Of course even if it did, my lack of foresight wouldn’t have solved the problem of not having caches for the area loaded up. Once again we see the value of the lesson of what happens when you assume something. I assumed that the area would be covered in my 100 mile search radius, but it is just the first 500 in that 100 miles that the query pulls, and in this case I wasn’t loaded in from my full database, which probably includes Minerva already.
Anyhow, the offline maps issue and some others show the value of still needing a good handled unit.
To that end here is the list of handheld units I want… I only need one of them, but if somebody wanted to send me one of each for evaluation comparison by all means feel free.
At the cheap end, and yet one of the best units out there for geocaching is the DeLorme Earthmate PN-40

Next up in price is the Garmin Dakota 20, but that won’t be out to July so I can’t provide an Amazon link yet, the Sugested retail will be $349.99, so perhaps $300 or so on the street… or Amazon price anyhow.
Next up in price is the Garmin Oregon 400T

Finally we get to the Garmin Oregon 550t, which isn’t pulling up in Amazon thought I thought it was out. This one has a suggested retail of nearly $600.
In order of preference, I would probably go PN-40 and Dakota tied for first, the two cheapest units on the list, then the 550t, then the 400t.