I have been researching handheld GPS devices recently, mostly out of personal curiosity about what's available, but partly out of interest of getting a device I can load my own maps onto and take backpacking.   Not wanting to settle for anything less than the best, I am torn between the Garmin GPSMAP 62 and the GPSMAP78.   They are largely the same GPS, but the 78 comes preloaded with nautical maps, and the 62 covers Topo 100K maps...  Either way, I would be replacing the onboard stuff with Topo 24K maps, so the preloaded stuff is not a determining factor... In the end, I will just have to hold them and see which one feels better in my hands.

That being said, the maps I can buy from Garmin are only of a certain amount of utility... They are nice, but they only give me what Garmin wants me to have, and that simply won't do.  As a student of Geographic Information Systems, I need the ability to load GIS data onto my device, and to get data back off again.   I am largely annoyed by the lack of consumer grade devices that have this ability.

In an attempt to get what I need without dropping nearly $3 grand on one of these bad boys: Trimble Nomad 900GXE, I discovered this cool software called OziExplorer.   I'm pretty stoked about the idea...  It converts tracks and points to Shapefiles (.shp) and back again.   It's neat stuff.

There's also the constant nagging from the back of my mind that I should try to get GrassGIS running on one of my linux machines... Maybe I can get someone to buy me the hardware in exchange for my research and my skills....

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=63802
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=63603
http://www.google.com/search?q=Trimble%C2%AE+Nomad%C2%AE+900G&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=Trimble%C2%AE+Nomad%C2%AE+900G&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=1vY&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivns&source=lnms&tbs=shop:1&ei=RUwiTfmXOIbSsAO9jsGRCg&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&ved=0CBkQ_AU&biw=1920&bih=866&fp=9bef8cda26d1a6ec
http://gpstracklog.com/2006/01/using_gis_data__1.html