A friend asked recommendations for a no frills handheld GPS, for rural use rather than nivigation.

I have a Garmin GPS60. It’s simple, rugged and very accurate. It has a USB computer connection, so you can easily upload and download data to the computer.

It does not do maps, but it does everything else. I’ve used it in multiple countries, in the car, on the water, in the air. It just works.

The basic function is a geographic location: latitude, longitude and altitude. Given open skies it will track 5 satellites and the locations are accurate to about 5-8m.

It can record tracks. That is, it stores a series of points showing where you’ve been, when and how fast you were going. These tracks can be uploaded to the computer using companion software and stored for analysis. They can be converted into a format that shows up on Google Earth.

It can store waypoints. These are individual locations along your track, or points you want to visit.

It computes speed from one point to the next. This speed is accurate to about 1% or better, given 5 or more satellites in view. The fasted speed I’ve recorded was just over 1100 km/h, at an altitude of just over 40,000 feet.

Battery life is an issue. It runs about 20 hours on a set of alkalines or half that on rechargeables.

It cost about $300. There are slightly cheaper and lighter ones intended for bushwalking.

http://www.ja-gps.com.au/garmin_handheld.html