Should I replace my eTrex?

I suppose the answer to your question depends on where and how you use your GPS equipment. When I'm hiking or biking, I usually carry both my smartphone and Montana 650. If for no other reason than to have a back up.

While there are plenty of smartphone navigation apps out there that are excellent for highway use, I have yet to find one that is meant specifically for off road use.

I usually download topo maps, waypoints, tracks and routes into my handheld from my computer before an outing. Afterward, I upload the track log from the GPS back into the computer. Until a smartphone app will allow me to do all this, I'll continue to carry my GPS.

Still, its too bad about your old eTrex. While you can probably locate a replacement LCD screen, I doubt it is worth the time and effort to replace it. IMO, a used unit on eBay or a new unit would be in order should you decide to stay with a GPS.

And seems to be a nice upgrade from the original eTrex. Pretty basic though. No maps or topos. The big plus is not having to worry about battery life.

The bad thing about an etrex 10 is it has a very limited amount of internal memory and no SD card slot. It is fine for getting your current location coordinates, saving waypoints, geocaching (without a map), etc. You may be able to load a small map (a few square miles) in internal memory, but without a SD slot to expand storage, you are very limited.

The etrex 2x or 3x has a SD slot, but of course these models are quite a bit more expensive than the 10.

Are the pixels actually dead or is the screen just fritzing out? On my eTrex Vista it looks like dead pixels until I give it a good wack or two, then the screen looks normal.

I looked at the eTrex 10 a while back. The main drawback is, like with the eTrex Vista I have, is the limited memory.

The pixels aren't dead, but the effect is the same. Several rows don't work. One row came back briefly. I tried giving it a whack, but it didn't help. It was just an annoyance until the row right through the middle of the Latitude went making it impossible to read the coordinates. The eTrex10 lack of memory isn't an issue, because whatever it has, it's far more than my original eTrex.

In my opinion, a 15-year-old GPS is too old to be used as your main device for navigating. If price is an option, there are a lot of cheap but more modern-featured units. If emotion gets in the way of discarding it, then by all means have it repaired, but keep it only as a backup and keepsake. Just my take.

If I remember right one cannot add additional maps to the eTrex 10. And the internal memory only has something like 3mb free (or so I read elsewhere). On the plus side, when compared to early eTrex units is the faster USB port compared to the older and slower serial port.

While the 20x and 30x are more expensive ($90 or more) they do offer color screens versus the monochrome screen on the eTrex 10. And the 20x and 30x feature expandable memory. The eTrex 20 and 30 both have 3.7GB built in memory. Once one gets up to the eTrex 30 pricing it may be wise to look at the eTrex Touch 35 since its roughly the same price with a slightly different feature set.

A member of my family is a geocaching addict, and has gone through three Etrex GPS receivers, and now uses a Garmin Oregon. The poor things just get beaten to death even though she does not abuse them. The buttons wear out, the small joystick fails, and the LCD screens have problems. Each time when I check with Garmin about a repair, it is almost as expensive as simply purchasing a new GPS.

Considering the improvements in technology and decreasing prices, these things are getting to the point of being disposable. Having said all this, my antique GPS 12 is still working great...