Phone Dead? Garmin’s Latest GPS/Messenger Boasts More Than a Week of Battery
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Pick up Garmin’s new GPSMAP 67 series and you should be able to find your way back from a very far away place. That’s because you can navigate the little handheld for more than a week – all the time.
The Garmin GPSMAP 67 and 67i have a battery life of 180 hours. In layman’s terms, that’s 7.5 days. subpoenaed TopoActive maps (Garmin’s proprietary outdoor-focused maps) and access to satellite imagery are onboard. The multi-band signal gives them better accuracy than their predecessors, the company claims.
Also, the GPSMAP 67 and 67i are the first handhelds that you can use with Garmin’s Rugged Outdoor Maps+ Suite. Subscribe for $50 a year and you’ll get maps with “premium” contour lines, boundaries between private and public property, and identified land designations such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) area.
According to Garmin, Outdoor Maps+ even gives users private landowner names.
And the 67i comes with inReach, which enables two-way messaging, interactive SOS alerts, and location sharing.
Then there’s the battery life. Both devices have five times the lifespan of the previous GPSMAP 66SR (35 hours). Armed with 180 hours of navigation, you could probably get yourself out of some obscure traffic jams.
Let’s say you run 2 miles per hour, 8 hours a day. A fully charged battery in a GPSMAP 67 would get you 360 miles before the Garmin died. For reference, that is the distance through the state of Colorado.
The GPSMAP 67i gives you 24/7 SOS contact with Garmin’s Response Center, as well as off-cellular messaging. When paired with your smartphone and you’re within range of a tower, it tracks the weather along your route.
I don’t know what else I would ask for in a handheld GPS. (Garmin, can you make one that’s also a coffee maker?) MSRP: $500 for those GPS MAP 67$600 for that 67i.
If you want to pack even lighter, check out these eTrex SE. Garmin released it alongside the GPSMAP 67 series with 168 hours of use in standard mode and up to 1,800 hours in “expedition mode” on two AA batteries.
There’s a 2.2-inch high-resolution screen geared for readability in bright sunshine, a compass, and Garmin Explore compatibility when paired with a smartphone. MSRP: $150.