Gps Hand Held Navigation

Price:$599.99

Garmin Oregon 400T 3-Inch Touchscreen Handheld GPS Unit with Preloaded Topographic Maps Product Reviews

Garmin Oregon 400t, February 18, 2009

This is a lengthy review, but at $462 and after seeing some of the “user induced” complaints, I believe a good review is essential.

I also own a Garmin Etrex Vista and by far, the Oregon 400t is the most versatile, customizable, and flexible handheld GPS I have seen. I had the opportunity to compare the Oregon and the Colorado side-by-side at an REI store and found the ease of use and touch pad of the Oregon too much to pass up. The touch pad makes it extremely user friendly. In addition, the order of the choices on each of the 4 main pages can be arranged in any order desired and in a number of different profiles such as recreational, geocaching, and automotive for ultimate flexibility. There are so many different ways to display information to the user that the choices seem endless. The Oregon is to GPS receivers what the iPhone and the Blackberry are to smartphones. A good review from 2008 can be found at: http://gpsinformation.info/penrod/oregon/oregon.html. I was sold after seeing how to deal with the daylight viewing issues people talk about and what the other 95% positive things that have been said by professional reviewers about the Garmin 400t.

Like most things sold these days, the manual could be the quick guide so don’t expect every little detail to be explained. It would be nice if manuals said and explained everything. I’d like to know why I’d want to make one choice over another (like the difference between the Garmin Spanner and serial interfaces) since those two appear to be the same with the Spanner choice asking if you want to go to Mass Storage rather than automatically doing so,for example. Links in this review greatly fill in gaps in the manual and you’ll be happier utilizing those resources!

The benefit to the 400t over the 300 is the internal memory. As found at: http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Product+Information#toc7, the 400 has 4GB of memory (the Topo2008 takes up 2.7GB) leaving a lot of free memory to save waypoints, tracks, pics for personal and geocaching use, and additional maps. The 300 has 850 MB left and as anyone using a handheld GPS knows, maps take up HUGE amounts of memory – you can never have enough.

Choices on the setup button offer options for the system and display that can extend battery life (such as choosing a backlight timeout period and battery save option if desired). Under setup>display, there is even a screen capture choice that saves a file you can print out or email whatever is displayed on the screen – cool!

As with digital cameras, mp3 players, printers, etc., you need some sort of software program on your computer, such as a Garmin Mapsource product, and then you can (contrary to a Feb 14th review) download waypoints, tracks, and routes (I uploaded 42 waypoints, 2 routes, and 16 tracks used by E Trex Vista to the Oregon so you absolutely can upload and download data!!!).

Batteries – unless one reviewer selected the “stays on” option for backlighting, bad batteries are the only thing that can explain really poor battery life. Per the “garminoregon.wikispaces.com” web site, I’m using version 2.85beta and together with Powerex 2700mAh batteries, have gotten around 20 hours of battery life (battery type needs to be specified in system settings). It was a Garmin rep. I spoke with at a local REI that told me a university field tested high capacity NIMH batteries and that is the way to go for the Oregon. Condition batteries first and consider the Maha MH-C9000 charger which conditions the batteries – they have truly impressed me over previous Energizer and Sanyo AA NIMH batteries I’ve tried. In comparison, with the same 30 second backlight period and Energizer batteries, I saw only one full day – near the rated 16 hour time worth before the repeated low batt. warnings. This is in real use geocaching two days for most of the day, hooking the Oregon to a laptop and reviewing/downloading waypoints and tracks, and over 3 hours a third day downloading 648 MB of Roads & Recreation maps to the Kingston 4 GB micro SDHC card (also from Amazon.com) I added. I purchased the 4 GB card to also, one day, load City Navigator NT onto it. You need a high capacity reader or you have to transfer data via the USB cable connected to the Oregon otherwise – above 2GB is considered high capacity I found out.

I followed tips and suggestions on http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/message/list/home which is one of the most useful web sites out there with extremely useful and helpful information exclusively for the Oregon. It can greatly simplify the learning curve with something that can do as much as the Oregon can.

Read about the software updates and stay as current as reasonable, backup the data from the Oregon on a hard drive, register the GPS with Garmin and you’ll truly appreciate the investment as much as it is possible.

As with any relatively new item, bug fixes in the firmware will begin to resolve functionality issues as is the case and already in progress. Utilize the resources of “garminoregon.wikispaces.com” and the value of the Garmin Oregon 400t will be clear.

The best yet, October 10, 2008

I’ve owned about 6 GPSr’s since my first loaf-sized Lowrance Eagle. Almost all of them have been Magellans, but since my XP PC fatally crashed and Magellan doesn’t offer a driver for Vista Home Premium (why not? I suppose that since the Triton series is so bad they’re giving up) I went ahead and bought an Oregon 400t. It is by far the best GPS that I have ever used! The size is good, the graphics magnificent, and the operation is intuitive (if you’re familiar with GPS operation). (I can’t speak about a learning curve — sorry.) The touchscreen is responsive, fun to use, and much less error-prone than buttons. The maps are clean and easy to read. Pan and zoom is very easy, and different features appear at appropriate scales.

The PC interface is error-free, and the firmware upgrade process is a no-brainer. The GPSr and micro-SD card both show up as drives, so you can do anything that you want with them. (There is a warning not to delete the maps.)

Cons: the minor roads are blue (contrary to cartographic convention), but it’s easy to adjust to seeing them. Hard to read in sunlight? It’s a silly point raised by pampered people.

Summary: The Oregon 400t sets the new standard; it is way ahead of the previous generation of GPSRs. It’s quite expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Beware!, February 14, 2009

This is a really nice unit but if you buy it with the base map pre-loaded (400t) you’ll be sorry. The pre-loaded maps can NOT be manipulated. In other words, you CAN NOT plug this unit into your computer and add waypoints, tracks, plan hikes, etc. etc. Garmin tech support response: “Oh well. You can always buy the software.” I would NEVER recommend buying this model–buy the cheaper model without the pre-loaded maps and then buy the maps seperately.

oregon 400t, November 25, 2008

bought the oregon and the city navigator software and set out on a 4500 mile hunting/sightseeing trip. I did need some help from the garmin folks to get it set up, but after this small headache I found the 400 to be a superb on and off road navigator. It’s everything I had hoped it would be. I threw my magellan away. If you buy the mounting device for your vehicle expect it to work but you will have trouble with the power cord. It’s not made for the 400 but you can buy it and go by wal-mart or target and buy a power cord for a verizon phone and it will work perfectly. After driving 4500 miles and days hunting in Colorado I have not one complaint with the device. It performed superbly for me. I was told by a retail store sales rep to get two devices and not try to use the 400 for street navigating but being the cheapskate that I am, I tried it to save money and clutter and it proved to be a great decision.

Excellent, November 18, 2008

Just returned my Nuvi 500 to Amazon because the opportunity came up to purchase the Oregon 400t and the Nuvi 500 is poorly suited for off-road compared to trail-devices. Now my only questions are, what’s the limit to what I can do with this thing? (People looking into the Oregon may want to look at Delorme’s PN-40, released yesterday.) The compass on the Oregon has a prompt to hold it level until it can read well and then the prompt dissapears, it would be nice to have a 3 axis compass, but it’s not a big deal. The internal compass is, however, a great asset to the device allowing for alot easier navigation then trying to walk around and find your bearing. The touch screen works with fingers, PDA styluses, and WINTER GLOVES! It performs well in below freezing temperatures for extended periods and is fairly rugged. For off-road it’s amazing however on-road it offers routing, auto re-routing if you miss a turn, but not voice announcements only beeps to announce turns. Mac and Windows user have the option of uploading and downloading and saving tracklogs using GPS Babel and converting them into .kml files to be seen over-layed on google earth. Conversely, you can create tracks on google earth and upload them to the 400t. Great device!

EDIT: As for the low visibility, I have had absolutely no trouble with it in bright light conditions. I would highly suggest not letting the excessive low visibility comments circulating the web interfere with your decision to purchase this device. You can always return it if you find it to be that much of a problem…

EDIT: Don’t be stupid and try to use a car mount on the gas tank of your crotch rocket, the Oregon 400t WILL fall off. Mine hit the pavement going 55mph, i lost the batteries, the battery cover, and the unit looks like it’s been sent through a belt sander, but the screen is still in factory condition, not a single scratch on the screen and the unit works like new as well, same satellite reception and everything. This thing is bombproof, now i just need to get a new battery cover and another car mount…

A major advance, but dangerously flawed, August 21, 2009

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.

Pretty cool, but quite a few cons.., June 29, 2009

This is my first gps unit and it is very cool when you turn it on. The 3d view is great for locating water sources in the backcountry, and backpacking side by side with a garmin 60csx shows it is pretty accurate. The basics are good. However, the 400t comes pre loaded with topo maps that are fairly worthless. I was disappointed on a recent trip on the Pacific Crest Trail because the trail (a rather large and prominent one) was not on my map. After contacting garmin they told me quite frankly that I should have bought the 400 base model and bought my own topo map separately. Perfect. So in addition to needing to purchase the $100 street map to use it on the road, I also need to buy a halfway decent topo map. After $450 on the unit and $200 on maps, it may function to it’s fullest potential. In addition, it does not seem to have a pointer feature like the 60csx to calculate the distance of a trail on a map, the compass must be recalibrated daily while on an excursion, and as others mention, the screen brightness leaves much to be desired. Also, I have found that loading lithium batteries and setting the system accordingly only seems to tell the unit to make more beeps and such, which tends to wear the lithium battery at the same rate as an alkaline set to the alkaline setting. I am only using alkaline now on the corresponding setting and the batteries last a fair amount for me. And lastly, my experience so far has shown me that garmin customer support is simply terrible and largely a waste of time. In summary, it is probably the coolest gps unit available to civilians, but find answers to your questions outside of garmin support, and be careful of garmin’s “gotcha” games with software.

Best yet., April 19, 2009

Garmin makes the best gps out there and Oregon is their best as of now.
Pro;
1. Solid Product, You can feel it.
2. Maps are great
3. Display is good.
4. Ease of use, Awesome GUI
5. Accuracy is excellent

Cons:
1. Battery Hungry, this can be resolved using Nimh batteries. If you are using regular batteries, don’t expect much of it.
2. Display in sunlight is DIM, I am not sure if this can be resolved using anti glare display covers.
3. Costly Maps: If money is not an issue, This is fine. But you can
search on web for Free Custom made maps or use google earth and some conversion apps to get a custom made tracks for Garmin.

Overall, Better than Delorme pn-40 (I gave this a chance) for sure.

The best Hand held GPS on the market, October 12, 2008

I bought Oregon 400C. I have Topo 2008 and many other Garmin maps on micro SD cards. No matter which Garmin Oregon you pick this model offers all you need in a mapping hand held GPS device. Fast, convenient with its touch screen interface and it is very compact. The only con is the relatively low battery life but with charged 2700+ mAh NiMH or Lithium batteries in particular you can use it for 2-3 days. Compared to the Garmin Colorado this device has much better battery life, smaller profile, and much, much better user interface. If you need a reliable, easy to use and powerful hand held GPS don’t look further. Buy it!

Pretty Good, Could Be Better, getting worse, April 4, 2009

I bought the 400t a couple of months ago, and have added the North America Street maps. So far I have used the unit mostly for road navigation, and find it works quite well. The screen is a bit dim in direct sunlight, as other reviewers have noted, but reads fine when I put it in shadow. My biggest problem has to do with adding and updating maps. Both times I have tried, I had to go through Garmin Product support. Support has been great, but downloading/installing should not be that hard!

I like having the two AA batteries, and have found that one set will last a day, but no more. I plan to use it on wildfires where portability , topography, and tracking are important, and AA batteries are plentiful.

The road navigator always gets me there, but occasionally takes a slightly strange route. If I make a wrong turn, it is quick to recalculate, but has run me is circles a couple times.
I did not find the 100k topo to be very useful. The landmarks, such as roads, were way off, and the elevation lines were too far apart for me, so I just bought the 24k topo, but it hasn’t arrived. I also purchased the hard case and the car adapter set.

I really like the unit, but it can be improved.

5/1/08
I had a problem updating the navigator, and to make a long story short, I now have a $600 paperweight! Support managed to destroy my device, and hasn’t yet made good…. More to come.