Phone Dead? Garmin’s Latest GPS/Messenger Boasts More Than a Week of Battery

Carry along Garmin’s new GPSMAP 67 series, and you should be able to find your way back from a very far-flung location. That’s because you can navigate with the little handheld for more than a week — constantly.

The Garmin GPSMAP 67 and 67i come with 180 hours of battery life. In layperson’s terms, that’s 7.5 days. Preloaded TopoActive Maps (Garmin’s proprietary, outdoor-focused maps) and access to satellite imagery are on board. Multi-band signal gives them better accuracy over their predecessors, the company claims.

Plus, GPSMAP 67 and 67i are the first handhelds you can use with Garmin’s robust Outdoor Maps+ suite. Subscribe to it for $50 a year, and you’ll get maps with “premium” elevation contours, boundaries between private and public property, and identified land designations like Bureau of Land Management (BLM) territory.

Garmin says Outdoor Maps+ even gives users private landowner names.

And the 67i comes with inReach, allowing for two-way messaging, interactive SOS alerts, plus location sharing.

Then there’s the battery life. Both units have five times the lifeblood of the previous GPSMAP 66SR (35 hours). Equipped with 180 hours of navigation, you could likely spring yourself from some obscure jams.

Say you walk 2 miles an hour, 8 hours a day. With a fully charged battery in a GPSMAP 67, you’d make it 360 miles before the Garmin went dead. For reference, that’s the distance across the state of Colorado.

With the GPSMAP 67i, you’ll get 24/7 SOS contact with Garmin’s Response Center, along with messaging outside cell service. When paired with your smartphone and when you’re in range of a tower, it will track the weather along your route.

I don’t know what else I’d ask for from a handheld GPS. (Garmin, can you make one that’s also a coffee machine?) MSRP: $500 for the GPSMAP 67, $600 for the 67i.

If you want to pack even lighter, check out the eTrex SE. Garmin launched it alongside the GPSMAP 67 series, with 168 hours of use in standard mode and up to 1,800 hours in “expedition” mode with two AA batteries.

There’s a 2.2-inch high-resolution screen that’s geared toward readability in bright sun, a compass, and Garmin Explore compatibility when paired with a smartphone. MSRP: $150.