Garmin Colorado 400t Handheld GPS Unit with U.S. Topographic Preloaded Maps
by Garmin
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List Price: Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin Colorado 400t Handheld GPS Unit with U.S. Topographic Preloaded Maps
Customer Review: Great performer but battery hungry. Fantastic GPS accuracy but the topo map is poor.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great unit; very accurate and easy to use. Be prepared to spend a little while getting used to the menu layout as some items you might expect to appear under one menu appear under another menu entry. But apart from the small "learning curve" this is a very nice GPS unit. The roller-style control is very easy to use and the "tracks" feature is particularly well developed in this unit. The only real issue is that the battery life can be quite short. However, there are three tips which will help you get a good 14 to 15 hours of continuous use. First, don't use the back-light unless absolutely necessary (fairly obvious, really). Second, select the auto record setting in the "tracks" function to "update least frequently". This second expedient seems to double the battery life and the unit still seems to update every 5 seconds or so (how far can you walk in 5 seconds anyway??). Third, if you use nickel metal hydride batteries make sure they are REALLY fully charged. Don't use a rapid charge cycle (charge instead over night using a standard charger) as this gets the batteries hot and the total charge is dramatically reduced. Without these measures, I could only get an hour or two of operation when I first received the unit. Not using the back light added another hour of use and minimizing the "tracks" update frequency added another 4 hours of use. Finally figuring out what was going on with my battery charger resulted in a good 14+ hours of continuous use.
Some reviews have reported that the accuracy is not good. I have done testing and found the accuracy to be superb; it's possible to get 10-20 ft accuracy, sufficient to see clearly which side of a small street you are on and to get within spitting distance of any waypoint you have stored. However, the accuracy of the pre-loaded topo map is poor. The contour lines seem to be very accurate but the apparent location of features such as streams, footpaths and road overlays is sometimes off by as much as 300 ft. Shame on Garmin for using such an inaccurate topo map with this unit. Garmin certainly does have access to more accurate maps; loading the US 2010 North America road map gives superb accuracy and places the user exactly where the map shows you to be. Switch back to the topo map and the road upon which you are standing can suddenly be apparently 300 ft away. This gives the illusion that the unit is inaccurate, but the GPS system is actually fantastically accurate. If you take the topo map as a guide only, the unit is capable of getting you to within 10 to 20 feet of any waypoint, providing you have a clear view of the sky (no large hills around you and out of the city). I hope Garmin will update the street overlay for their topo map with the better data set they have with their city navigation maps. If absolute topo map accuracy is critical for you, I suggest you load a more detailed topo map specific for the area you are using the unit, such as one of the maps for the national parks, etc. But the poor topo accuracy with this unit is a function of the map, not the unit. The apparent inacuracy with respect to the topo map should be the same whichever Garmin unit you use.
Customer Review: total disappointment
Summary: 1 Stars
I have been doing a lot of back-country hiking the past several years, and last year, after doing some research, bought a Garmin Colorado 400t. (Apparently the newer Montana's screen is not readable in direct sunlight, which is a complete showstopper.)
Unfortunately I did not hike for several months after receiving the Colorado, but once I started using it, I became increasingly frustrated with its completely unacceptable limitations. I will mention three of them here:
1) The compass does not work! WTF? Can you imagine you go hiking, you're off in the weeds somewhere, so you'd like to orient the GPS with your trail-of-breadcrumbs to figure out where you are relative to where you've been? Wouldn't you think that's one of the FIRST things you'd want to be able to do with a GPS? Or maybe look at a waypoint, look at the horizon, and say, aha, it's about 2 miles thataway. Well guess what? There is NO WAY to do this with the Colorado 400t, because the internal compass does not work. First you have to calibrate the thing by walking around in a circle two times, then you have to hold the thing perfectly level, and maybe, just maybe, the built in compass will agree with a magnetic compass. But if you start walking again, you're toast. So not only is the compass calibration procedure unreliable, if you move it loses its calibration. Google "Garmin Colorado compass" if you don't believe me.
2) Elevation must be re-calibrated every time you use the device. Inexplicably, the Colorado, which can see a dozen or more satellites and therefore should be able to pinpoint its location in three-dimensional space quite easily, is unable to determine its own vertical position. What's even more insane is that IT HAS TOPO DATA PRE-LOADED, so it could just ask you "hey man, are you on the ground right now?" and use that to calibrate its barometric altimeter. But no, every time you use the Colorado you must either get NOAA barometer data, or you must know your current elevation before you can use the elevation feature. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
3) It eats through batteries. If you get a day's use out of a pair of AA batteries, you're doing pretty good. Yesterday while hiking in the desert, it died despite having a fresh set of NiMH batteries in it. I was ready to throw the damn thing into the stream.
I wish more of the Amazon reviewers had mentioned these shortcomings. Basically, all this device is really good at is recording a GPS track of your hike or bike ride so you can later upload the data to Google Earth. There are several much less expensive devices out there that can do this. If you want a device that can actually help you navigate, this is not GPS for you.
I never should have bought this thing and I wish I could return it.
Do not buy.
Customer Review: Colorado 400t
Summary: 4 Stars
I was concerned with the accuracy issue of this GPSr. I emailed Garmin customer service with my concerns and they assured me that it would not be a problem. I basically wanted some sort of correspondence for proof just in case their was an issue. Then the price became an issue. I tried to order the unit through an online camera shop for a price around 400.00 and found out that what they were selling me was a Japanese (no english installed) no warranty, no topo maps installed unit. How can it be a 400T without Topo maps? Anyway, I went to amazon for a higher price but a more comfortable transaction.
This product is pricey, but I believe that it is well priced for what you get. It hasn't disappointed me yet as far as the accuracy goes. Base maps are preloaded but streetmaps are not. These are separate and will run around 100.00. I went with the SD card street maps and glad I did. This leaves the memory free for geocaches. I was able to load 400 caches along a route and made an insignificant dent in the 256MB memory. Map cards are a no hassle PNP operation. I have been told by Garmin Cust. service, that if you want to have the same maps on your PC Mapsource software (which comes with the unit) as your gps, then you should buy the DVD mapset. With this configuration you can upload the wanted maps onto the unit itself or a seperate memory card. The WAAS works wonders in dense foliage. The external antenna is a must if you are using in the car. Screen protection is a must if you aren't storing it in a case. Screen brightness is not as bad as I was expecting. I usually don't have to turn on the backlight unless It is dark of course or if I am in the shade. Only problem with screen brightness is that you have to reset it after every reboot, as it won't store the setting in memory. Shaded relief maps are nice to have and the topo features are great to have as well. If it wasn't for battery consumption I would have gave it a higher rating.
This unit will go through batteries very fast. For lightweight backpacking you might want to buy lithium batteries, a whole lot of them. Do consider buying rechargeable batteries and the car charger with alkaline spares as I have already found myself hunting down batteries instead of caches. Easy .GPX file transfer with www.geocaching.com and a windows machine but not a linux machine that I know of.
Overall, this is a must for a geocacher
After nearly ten years of service my eTrex can finally take a rest.
One last thing. Phone calls to Garmin customer service are not fun. Expect a 30min wait time before you get to talk to anyone. I am rating their product not their customer service.
Customer Review: Garmin Colorado 400t - Is Garmin for Dummies...
Summary: 3 Stars
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!!!Customer Review: Garmin Colorado 400t after a years use.
Summary: 4 Stars
Was very happy initially with the unit when it arrived but quickly found out that the included user manual is pretty much worthless. I tried to find any additional user information from Garmin and nothing in book form is currently available. I did find out about a company called Bennett Marine Video that has a DVD's for almost every GPS unit and one specifically for the Colorado 300 and 400 series GPS. Not sure exactly what it contains but it is the only aftermarket product that contains more info than what's in the user manual. Also have noticed some issues with accuracy on this unit initially while doing some geocaching with my son locally. Had problems getting the thing to stabilize and quit bouncing around. Also had some accuracy problems when using it while snowshoeing in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness area in Colorado. It would not lock onto the trail I was supposed to be following and I ended up totally losing the trail. This was a bit more than an inconvience when you are hiking in 5 to 10 feet of snow and cannot see the trail. I have become more familiar with its features and have done some communicating with Garmin support, have uploaded the 24K Topo series maps and upgraded the operating system software to the the new beta version and it seems to be a little more accurate. Will be testing it out again in the Rockies in a few weeks and see if accuracy in the mountains has gotten better. I like many of the features, like being able to add or remove shortcuts from the main screen and only have the ones you really need displayed. The battery life is great with 2700ma NiMH batteries and I have not had any problems with viewing the display in bright sunlight. The backlight is also great in poor lighting conditions. I would highly recommend investing in a screen protector. It's cheap insurance and they are easily replaced. I did find out that the built in thermometer not very accurate displaying the ambient air temperature probably due to the insulating effect of the GPS body. The bottom line I guess the best way to learn about this beast is just keep playing with it until someone puts together a decent manual. Will update this review once I finish my next wilderness trek and see how the accuracy does with the new maps and updated software.