There has been a significant and welcome downward trend in the price of some handheld GPS units in the last couple of months.
For instance, you can now pick up a Garmin eTrex Legend HCx, which has the newer high sensitivity receiver chip and can display OpenStreetMap mapping (using mkgmap), for £139 in the UK, €185 in Germany and $197 in the US (prices compared at Amazon). What’s more you can include a 2GB micro SD card for a little over an extra £1 in the UK.
These prices might still be twice those of a basic non-map logging setup and you may still be able to get cheaper prices outside your country, or by bidding for instance for non European models on ebay, but it’s still a big change in the market since Christmas.
If you were ever thinking of dipping your toe in the OSM mapping game then it’s probably never been a better time to do so.