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Garmin Colorado 400t Handheld GPS Unit with US Topographic Preloaded Maps
From Garmin
List Price: $639.99
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Average customer review:

Customer Reviews

Garmin Colorado 400t - Is Garmin for Dummies…
It’s ergonomical, simple to use (thus the dummies part), inaccurate due to a more inferior chipset designed by Garmin (rather than the SirfIII), does not play well with Google Earth, although it is possible with some additional software and alot of technical know-how to export track data to Google Earth! The screen is unacceptable…Poorly lit, you cannot even see it in the dark well! I’m not sure how you are supposed to use it hiking on a highly sunlit trail! This is a major, major flaw! For that flaw alone, I would shave off 2 points! I hate the simple childproof interface…It’s not sophisticated enough for serious GPS users, especially on topo! You cannot find roads, addresses or heck, even navigate manually to a waypoint! It’s ridiculous…I mean if I want to see the location of a waypoint on the topo map, I just cannot do that, cause it takes you back to your original location by default! I also want to be able to get distances between points! No you cannot do that either…What the heck can you do with it? I mean yeah, this simple minded individuals out there that want to follow the cursor around a JPEG bitmap image of a topo map think this is great, but for the rest of us, we want a little more bang for the buck…Weird enough, the competitor Magelan, uses National Geographic topo maps which offer way more resolution than the basemaps in Colorado or even the latest Garmin touchscreen model Oregon! I can go on and on about this unit! It’s slow to acquire signal, slow to start up and try loading geocaches in it and at times they become scattered POI’s that are unmanageable. They will show up on the map, yes, but scattered on the map without a management list. I find their software to be at best retarded and without extensive capabilities. I find Google Earth better at keeping your POI’s and tracks, etc. than this device! To be honest for $600 + you would expect much much more! You get a simple device that has predefined functionality and no custom features! I find that unacceptable this day and age! I returned mine to the store and got a refund - restocking fee! Perhaps many of those people that find this great in the beginning will have later on decided to probably return theirs! It’s just not worth it given the available featureset until they come up with next gen beyond this simplistic, yet dummyproof design! BAD GARMIN!!!

Nice unit
I have not used this much, but so far it is quite good. I got the extra street map and after a little config. It works great for driving directions. There is a nice mount for my motorcycle and car for this unit and I look forward to many off road jeep trips, national park trips and camping trips. It also suggests local attractions with the add on software which is really nice if you don’t know the area.

Pleased
I decided to get into geocaching this summer. After reading a number of reviews expressing concern about the screen’s readability, both here and on other sites, I was leaning away from the 400. Fortunately, I was able to try the 400 and the 60CSx side-by-side. In direct sunlight, I found the screen on the 400 to be just a little dimmer than the 60 but still perfectly readable. I also found both units to be harder to read when standing in the shade, lots of reflection off the glass.

I’ve now been hiking and biking with the 400 for just under a month and absolutely love it. I like the jog wheel and find it easy and intuitive. Entering text is a bit on the slow side, but having never entered text on any other GPSr, I really don’t mind.

Using 2500 mHh NiMH batteries, I typically get 5-6 hours of life, more if I remember to turn down the backlight when not in use. So certainly take extra batteries into the field if the ones in the unit aren’t fresh or you plan on being gone for more than a few hours.

Overall, a great, easy to use GPSr.