Garmin Oregon 400t

Off a few feet wouldn't be bad, but roads are yards off. One nearby road is 69 yards wrong! The worst is there are roads that don't exist! There is a meandering (over a mile long) road through my whole… property (350 acres). There has never been a road there and I have topo maps going way back and deeds back to the 1700's. They have no idea where it came from and told me to report it. Goes right through one of my ponds! No way to fix it except load another map! The readings are correct because I've used it side by side with my old Etrex Vista. I'd hate to have to rely on this thing to get me somewhere. Streams and other landmarks are accurate. They should provide all of us with topo maps and junk theirs! Screen is hard to see in daylight as well... last Garmin I ever buy

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I have an extensive outdoor history reaching back 40 years, but a much shorter history with GPS devices. My family owns three other Garmins; I also have the Vista HCX. GPS devices are a classic example of… an industry that has been a monopoly for far too long. If ever there was a product poised to be obliterated by better, cheaper competitors, it is Garmin GPS handhelds. If you don't need one just yet, I'd advise waiting. But if you need one, you need one. This review will be choppy, to get you to the crucial parts fast: - I did a 6-day, half off-trail, 70 mile, backcountry wilderness hike, wanted a bigger screen and easier operation, bought a Garmin Oregon, here on Amazon. It failed a day later, with no hard use, in just about the most dangerous way possible: at the first battery change, one of the four battery contacts inside broke in half. Unrepairable, in the field or at home, and the unit is utterly dead. I immediately went out and bought more detailed print maps ( I am not dumb enough to travel without a real map and compass; that's what 40 years teaches you. But I was about to rely on the GPS for 1 to 24,000 scale maps. ) Since I had also bought the 1: 24,000 scale maps on a separate SD card ( the maps that ship with the Garmin are only 1:100,000 which is pretty good, but not enough for off-trail ) I decided to give it another chance. I went to REI and bought another Garmin Oregon. The expense of the topo maps is one sign of a dying industry; we live in a world where Google maps are free. My iPhone has much better maps, weighs less, has a GPS, costs less... Garmins may soon be dinosaurs. On the other hand, the value of data like "stream" versus "intermittent stream" in the wilderness in August is hard to overstate. I carried the Oregon for a week. Fundamentally it is a big advance over the older units, but there is enough plain stupidity to give a person pause. Specifics listed below: - It took an absurdly long time to find me when I started the hike, more than an hour and a half. First several miles of my GPS track is missing. - The bigger screen is a major advance. Garmin took the iPhone design, and since formerly Garmin might have been the worst user interface ever invented, it is a big improvement. - Touch-screen is a big help, but it ( the hardware ) works poorly. You can drag the map with your finger, like on an iphone, but you usually have to try 4 times before it notices your finger. Then, more than likely, it will think you touched instead of dragged, put down a big red pin where you did not mean to put down a pin. It is extremely hard, essentially impossible, to drag or touch the point of the pin accurately enough that it will land on a marker ( which will pop up to indicate a place name / information. - The screen is indeed very difficult to read in some conditions. Unfortunately, the worst case is daylight outdoors, which tends to happen a lot to a GPS. You choose between max brightness while hiding it under your shirt, or zero brightness and direct sun. Neither is good, but you can mostly read it. I had better luck with backlighting off. - Battery life is fair, but still embarrassing. These are receiving devices only, with lithium batteries, so they ought to last forever with the screen off, but only last 2.5 days or so if you are careful about screen brightness and turn them off at night. Garmin needs new hardware engineers. I was EXTREMELY careful when I changed batteries in the field, due to the broken battery contact mentioned above, but on my second unit had no issues. - The thing seems to be built like a battleship, but as a result it weighs three times as much as it should, and if one fragile part like a battery contact breaks off, the strength of the casing is useless. Did I say dinosaur earlier? Yes, I guess I did. - It has a simple screen-lock feature that would be perfect except that it is utterly defeated by stupid design. You press the power button once, and touch "lock screen". After that, unless you unlock the screen, it ignores bumping things in your pack, EXCEPT that bumping or touching the screen TURNS ON THE BACKLIGHT. Now, how dumb is that on a device where battery life is both crucial and inadequate? - It is a bit hard to find things in the menu system, having been designed by Origami experts, but it is far better than older Garmins in that regard. An example: - On default settings, at a zoom level where the preinstalled topos are visible instead of the 1:24000 purchased ones, the map has so many little rectangular elevation tags ( 10,231 ft ), in opaque white boxes, that you barely can use the map. There is no doubt a way to turn 'em off, and when I am done with this review I will go search for it, but in six days in the field I never found it. Summary of my advice: If it weighed half as much ( backpacker speaking! ) and cost a third as much, you should definitely buy one. For the moment, unless your need is compelling, you should not buy this generation, but hope that they read these reviews. I work for a major hardware / software company that makes things, so I know they read them. The negative reviews don't get passed along as much as they should :) If your need is compelling, ask a lot of questions about the battery contacts. I don't know if the Colorado is more robust, having never owned one. The bigger screen is a huge help.

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Purchased this unit 1 month before a planned trip. Had to get replacement from Garmin as original unit had problems. Garmin support express mailed a replacement for which I thank them. I don't recommend the… downloaded maps. I had no success with a number of attempts to download and install. Just pay the few extra dollars and get the DVD and you will do yourself a favor. The 24K West maps were good and I am glad I got the DVD version. I was using the Oregon 400t on horseback and the screen was sometimes very hard to see. To plan the ride for any distance ahead while riding over steep and rough ground while in motion was more difficult than with the E trex that I also carried. Several time I needed to stop and dismount in order to find a route passable on horseback. The screen is sometimes difficult to read in bright light with polarized glasses. Despite the screen issues I am happy with the 400t which is the 5th gps unit I have owned. Garmin tech support was also helpful.

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To quote a five star reviewer, "...the Oregon 400t is the most versatile, customizable, and flexible handheld GPS I have seen." I agree completely. In addition to its GPS capabilities it has a barometer,… a compass, the ability to add a heart rate monitor and cadence capabiity, and will even tell you the tides and the best times to hunt and fish! It also has the nicest touchscreen since the iPhone. Unfortunately, it is the most inaccurate GPS I have ever used, never coming closer than 70 feet to the actual location. This makes it virtually useless for geocaching. Since it comes with pre-loaded topo maps (with 3d view) and a 16 hour battery life, it would be perfect for a backpacker. Accuracy is not nearly as critical for that application. However, it's not much use in a car, since it lacks voice (which you think could be added when used with the optional car kit, as is the case with my old, old Street Pilot 2820), and, although weatherproof, the screen is too small to use on a motorcycle. It would be okay for a bicycle but perfectly adequate bike GPSs can be found for a lot less money. I had really high hopes for it, but due to the fact that it is more inaccurate than any other GPS I have ever owned I returned mine after giving it a really fair trial of daily use for two weeks.

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Despite some favorable reviews I do not think that this device is adequate for the purpose it is supposed to perform. The LCD screen is too dim. I cannot see anything on it in daylight. It works fine in… my closet but I know my way around the closet. At night and at dusk it seems ok, but mid day in bright indirect light the screen is barely visible. There is not enough contrast between the background and the roads for example. No matter what other attributes the device may have, at least when loaded with topo maps, I find it unusable and will be returning it. My old Garmin GPS 12 map has much better screen usability. The only reason I am looking for a new handheld is that Gramin no long supports the GPS 12 -- I cannot update the basemap and the memory space for downloaded detailed map segments is very small.

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