Home > Consumer Reviews > Brunton Multi-Navigator MNS GPS with Neoprenerying Case

...The first thing I would like to say is "WOW!" I just purchased one of your new MNS receivers and am so very pleased with its performance, that I just had to write you a quick note.

I have been shopping for quite some time for a little handheld, but was kind of stubborn and too "old fashioned" to spend the big money on one of those new toys. I know that they eat batteries and are not very accurate, and I guess I was hoping that technology would bring the price down and accuracy up. I have owned one of your eclipse compasses (the big one) for awhile and have been pleased with its performance, and so naturally I wanted your MNS. I like the compass, altimeter and weather features found in your unit, as well as the GPS.

I am a registered land surveyor in the state of Kansas and Colorado, as well as an avid outdoorsman, so you can understand why I like things to be very very accurate as well as durable and most of all, reliable. My company owns the Trimble GPS surveying equipment, so I know what GPS is and basically how it works. I understand the coordinate systems and lat/longs for locations and navigation, barometer and altimeter measurements and of course, how to operate a compass. I have seen the need for GPS and understand its capabilities and most of all, its limitations, but I still wanted a receiver to "play with". So finally, I stumbled across one of your units in a store that was going out of business, and I just couldn't pass up the price.

The first thing I wanted to do with it is put it to the test. I know that they all say "plus or minus 15m accuracy", which to me is not very good. Yes I could find my car while out hiking with that kind of accuracy, but I want to be within a few meters. I recently staked a house for a friend of mine that sits in the middle of 45 acres of very hilly, heavily wooded land. I used the standard survey transit and tape to square up the house where he wanted it in a nice clearing. But then came the difficult part, which is locating the house within the property. The county needs approximate side yard ties and a drawing when he goes in to get his building permit. It would take over a day to traverse by conventional methods to obtain the side yard ties, so I thought I would try the MNS and see what it can do.

I obtained the county appraisers map from the clerks office in digital format, which just happened to be in NAD 83 datum. I then loaded it up into autocadd (computer aided drafting software) and clicked the latitude and longitude locations on the property corners. I plotted it out and went back to the field. Much to my amazement, I mean really to my amazement, every property corner on this 45 acre site hit to the tenth of a second of the lat/longs shown on my map, which is about plus/minus 10 feet (3m) accuracy! It is so much better than expected, that I couldn't believe it! It was cloudy with partial tree cover and the little MNS performed flawlessly and hardly touched the battery supply! I am not suggesting that I will use this receiver to survey with by any means, but I did want to let you know that I am very happy with its performance which exceeds its listed specifications. I just wish that soon I will get to use it for fun instead of work!

Scott Confer, RLS 08May01

I have used the MNS for about a year hiking in the mountains of Colorado. I decided I needed a GPS because I started climbing mountains without well-defined trails; I climbed the wrong mountain several times. I used the Brunton MNS in parallel with the Garmin Etrex Vista for about a month.

The MNS is more accurate than advertised when finding positions. When entering a waypoint on the "way out" of a daylong hike, the MNS usually registered "found" within 5 feet of the landmark that I recrossed and recognised on the "way back." The MNS can acquire a signal in light forests near tree line, but not in the heavy forests of Ponderosa Pine at lower altitudes. The heavy smoke generated by the fire burning West of Colorado Springs this Summer killed satellite acquisition.

The altimeter is not accurate to within three feet, even given that the weather is clear and constant. It is of equivalent accuracy to my Sunto Vector altitude watch which is rated accurate to 10 feet; both must have the same internal mechanism. If I start climbing at 10,000 feet and climb to 14,000 feet, both devices will register about 13,900 feet. Interestingly enough, both devices always register low, which allows me to intuit the real altitude. On that closed loop between 10,000 and 14,000 feet, both mechanisms will register within 10 feet of 10,000 feet on return to the starting point.

The MNS mechanism is capable and has kept me from getting lost several times when weather on the return trip became bad.

The Tracklog function has little value because there is a very small limiting number of collected waypoints; a user is bound to miss that bend in the trail or special landmark that he would enter if he were setting waypoints manually.

The MNS is somewhat more accurate than the E-Trex Vista in finding positions. The E-Trex is far more user friendly in entering data. It might take twice as long to manually enter a route using the MNS vis-a-vis the E-trex.

I wear reading glasses. I cannot view the E-trex map or any of the displays without my glasses. I can view all the displays on the MNS without glasses. This was the ultimate reason I kept the MNS and returned the E-Trex Vista.

The Map on the Vista is so tiny as to be of little value. When I hike, I print a map of my route from my mapping software on plasticized paper; this printed map is far more convenient than the tiny map on the Vista.

After receiving the unit, I tried all the features it has. Wow!
It is an amazing gps. Great. It performance exactly as it said on the specifications especially under the thick forest trees. Without this I could be lost in the jungle during one of my weekend jungle trekking trip. Unbelievable. It even track signal under tiles roof in my house.
I have another gps of other brand (I wouldn't mention it brand name) it is of no use in that conditions eventhough it has all the other features which I think is great. These are good when I use it in lake and sea.But totally useless under thick foliage without satellites signal.
Trekking under the compass mode is great when there isn't any satellites signals. It saves battery. You wouldn't get lost in any conditions.Great feature!
Don't go jungles (from my part of the world a lot of jungles here are virgin jungles) trekking withou this gps. You can leave others gps at home at least it save you space and weight in your backpacks. Believe me.
TQ
GPS NUT

This is my first GPS unit. While I generally avoid reading the directions to anything, I decided to actually sit down and read the owner's manual, which I found very easy to follow. After 15-20 minutes I had figured all the functions out. Several very cool features are: 1) You can use the built-in digital compass even when the unit is turned off. 2) The unit has several layers of functionality. The most basic or initial layer allows you to access the unit's key functions (altimeter, barometer, current position, etc.) by hitting just one button. Then, if you want to delve deeper into a particular function, you can. For example, when dealing with waypoints I can keep it simple and, by pushing only one button, see my "home" waypoint (and its exact direction and distance from my present position). But, if I want to get more complicated, I can (through a few more buttons) access my other waypoints, or upload/download waypoints to/from my computer. I used the GPS with electronic USGS maps program (the CD-ROM verson by All Topo Maps). At first, it takes time (and a careful reading of the instructions), but I can't imagine owning a GPS unit and not synching it with actual maps. You can plot your course by setting waypoints on the electronic maps, then "sync" the GPS, and now you can follow the waypoints on the GPS to go exactly where you need to go. I actually went on a long motorcycle ride, plugged in waypoints while we were riding, and then once I got home, I could see exactly where and how far we road after I synced the GPS with the map software. I can't wait to try it sailing this summer. The only negative I have is that the GPS unit automatically set the clock to central standard time (where I live), but the time doesn't seem to reflect daylight savings.

My aim was to get a GPS with no map capability in order to maintain good habits when navigating with visual checkpoints. The low battery consumption was also an important matter. The Brunton unit I got from Finalcall fulfills all my expectations. The very large screen, additional features such as the compass, the altimeter or the barometer in addition to a full GPS unit are perfect. I will use it mainly when making cross-country travel in a Cessna 172 as a complementary tool to classical navigation instruments. The service given by Finalcall has been perfect.