verdugan
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Posts posted by verdugan
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okay, so here is another ridiculous question: where do i find the time on it? I've searched through every menu but can't seem to find it.
Click the power button. A screen will pop up that shows the back light, the gps signal, and the time.
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Personally, I think it's a very good initiative of a retailer to do some of the quality check a customer would expect to be fulfilled, before he spends his money on the product.
I don't mind as long as everything is exactly the same. My first Colorado 300 I got at REI had no plastic screen protector. I didn't know it was missing until I returned it for my second one, which had it. Clearly somebody had removed it at the store when they were playing for it. And they didn't even check for the clock problem
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After seeing the first unit's clock fail, I simply thought I'd be doing our customers a favor by putting batteries into these units, letting them locate, turn them off and then some hours later turn them on inside to make sure the clock was functioning properly. Commonly here at the store customers ask me to initialize their new units and make a few basic configurations for them. I handle these units with kid gloves and never in 15 years have I had a customer complain about doing this!
In the other thread about the clock problem they recommend that you leave the GPSr outside for at least 20 mins to download all the info (almanac?). From your post above it sounds like you're just letting them get a signal and then shutting them off. Is that correct?
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Are you leaving it outside for at least 20 mins?
If you have and all 3 units are still bad, you have incredibly bad luck. My first unit, 169000152, had that problem. I returned it. The second unit, 169000171, hasn't had any problems at all. I just turned it on after 4 days of not using it and the time was spot on.
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BTW... It seems that the new Garmin Colorado is having as many issues as the new Magellan Triton series... should be interesting to see who actually gets their units working first. Many have switched from the Triton, in assumption that Garmin would get it right... interesting to see the results.
I disagree. The Colorados are not perfect, but they are better than the Tritons.
Colorados = beta
Triton = Alpha
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My bad, website froze up while I typing. One good thing I will say about it is the reception is great on them, even though they aren't picking up WAAS like they advertise. I think the 2000's are picking up WAAS.
I can confirm that the 2000s get WAAS. Mine did for a few mins after startup, but then the "w" did not show up anymore in the sat screen. Accuracy did not go down though.
http://www.tritonforum.com/forum/viewtopic...ilit=waas#p1205 Scroll down for some pics.
I ended up returning my Triton 2000 to REI after 5 weeks. I don't mind being an early adopter (aka beta tester), but the Tritons are alpha units. They still have a way to go before they can be considered beta units.
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It was my understanding that REI, not Magellan, initiated the "recall", which is not really a recall. REI got tired of dealing with the problems, and had the stores pack up whatever stock they had, and shipped 'em back.
If it was a true recall, they wouldn't still be available at other outlets.
If that's the case, then he used 'recall' incorrectly. Either way, there are problems with the software. Magellan could be doing a better job of handling it, forget technically, from a PR point of view.
If they had managed the bad PR better, I might have kept my Triton.
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I suppose this is more of a rant but I'd appriciated hearing the good and bad of a triton 2000 I didn't find too much searching
I had a Triton 2000 for a month. More accurately, I had 3 of them. The first one wouldn't get a sat signal. I couldn't calibrate the compass on the second one (was told that it was a known problem and a firmware update in a couple of days would fix it), and finally the third one which kind of works.
The camera? It's 2MP, which is ok for basic pictures. I always carry my phone, so I'll have a camera with the same resolution. This wasn't my main reason for getting it.
The maps? The basemap is completely useless. Magellan doesn't sell any maps for the Triton yet. They are coming soon. You can still use their old Topo USA with a bit of a workaround (save to hard drive, import into VantagePoint, upload into GPS). The National Geographic maps are waaaay cool. The problem is that you can only transfer small chunks at a time or the upload will fail. Also, some owners have reported that if you upload a large area, the maps will be off. Again, a firmware upgrade is coming.
The touchscreen is pretty cool, but it's not very well implemented. There is no X to quit out of any menu. You have to exit by pressing the ESC button, which is a pain. Some of the menus cut off some of the options, so it's hard to read. I found the scroll bars very thin and hard to use with the touchscreen.
The 3-axis compass is really cool. It sure beats the 2 axis one that Garmin has. Although, I never found a problem to hold the Garmin one level. It can be a pain to calibrate the compass. What made me finally decide to return it was the fact that after changing the batteries I couldn't calibrate the compass. It's very touchy.
I only experienced a crash once (blue screen of death requiring pulling out the batteries). Others have experienced more. There are lots of features that will be implemented in the future. Feature that I think are pretty basic. When? Who knows. Read the tritonforum.com site for more details.
Finally, Magellan itself. I called Tech Support once. The lady was clearly in India. It was a bit hard to understand her, but she was nice. All she could tell me was that the firmware update was coming in a few days. It's been almost a month and a half and there is no firmware still.
When I went to return my Triton to REI last week, the GPS guy told me that Magellan had recalled all of the Tritons due to a software issue. Magellan has my email address. It would've been nice of them to contact me to at least acknowledge the problems.
You mentioned Geocaching, right? Lots of bugs there. Forget about transferring a large number of caches, it will not work. The search function for caches doesn't work at the moment (firmware update should fix that). It doesn't contain all the info that the Colorado does. And I don't think a firmware update will address that.
So the Triton looks great on paper, but Magellan screwed up the execution. I don't mind being a beta tester (price of being an early adopter) as long as I'm confident that the company is working on addressing the issues. I didn't get that warm and fuzzy feeling from Magellan.
I bought a Colorado and I'm much happier. It's not perfect, but I have more confidence in Garmin addressing the problems sooner rather than later. I gave up the camera, 3-axis compass, touchscreen, and NG maps. But I gained a usable basemap, and a usable unit.
I suggest you buy your GPS from a store with a really good return policy (like REI).
Hope this helped.
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Final note:
I can't remember any other case in my life, when a new product has caused so much dissapointment (not only battery issue, but all that other things, what we read here on this forum dozens of times)
Go out and buy a Triton. You'll be happy with your Colorado after that
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Ok, based on the feedback it seems as though random units have this problem. That scares the %#&*@ out of me because this seems to be a hardware problem instead of a firmware fix. Where is/was the quality control. Were they in that big a hurry to get these units to the CES?
You might say not to worry because Garmin has always been good with replacement units for defects regardless of warranty. That's true. I just hate to be without a unit for a couple of weeks while they do it, not to mention the shipping costs.
That's why I bought my unit at REI. I picked up my new unit yesterday. Verified that it works, and I'm returning the old defective unit today. No waiting, no shipping costs. Sure, I paid list price, but it's ok. It is a good trade off.
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I am definately not having this problem. My clock is fine. My Colorado 300's serial number is 1690000534. It seems like the younger ones have this problem and the older ones don't. Maybe the first 250 off the pruduction line had bad chips installed?
The bad unit is 169000152. The new unit is 169000171. They are 19 apart, which is practically nothing. Maybe the 152 was the first unit built on Monday after a weekend trip to Vegas? By the time they got to 171, they weren't hung over anymore.
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I stopped by REI last night and picked up another 300C. Left it outside for 20 mins. I then had the new and old unit side by side, both with the same time. I turned them off until this morning. The new unit had the correct time. The old unit still said 8:00PM.
Interestingly, the serial numbers are not too far apart. The bad unit is 169000152. The new unit is 169000171.
I'm returning the bad unit to REI today. I love REI.
Thx for the help.
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Did you ask him to explain how the unit then would support the alarm clock or the sampling of pressure data at regular time intervals, when it has been turned off? If the clock can't issue a time-based interrupt to turn it on and execute the requested function?
No. I told him about the my previous Garmin, and the experiences here of other members. I even asked if he could check with other people there. When he replied "There's nobody to check with because there's nothing about that topic" or something along those lines, I knew it was a lost cause.
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Are you saying that he claimed that the clock is not supposed to run when the unit has been turned off?
Correct. He said that the clock won't be correct until it gets satellite fix again.
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I sent you a P.M.
Thanks. PM'ed back.
Angel
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I've done that with mine. I left it outside for almost 40 mins. It didn't help. I will call Garmin in a bit update here with what they say.
That was disappointing. After describing the problem, the tech support person said "that's the way it's supposed to work." I gave him all the background info from here, even asked him if he could check with somebody else over there. He said there was nobody else he could check with and told me to just return the unit to REI.
I expected more. The only positve thing I can say about him was that he was a native English speaker.
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I talked to the Garmin handheld support supervisor at lenght about this clock problem yesterday. As a dealer, I now have 2 units shipping back directly to him for examination. Believe you me, he's very interested in examining these units to try to figure what's happening here!
The only thing he stressed was to make sure your unit sets outside somewhere with clear view of the sky for at least 20 minutes in order to get a complete almanac established. I'd try this before I returned it to the dealer or Garmin.
I've done that with mine. I left it outside for almost 40 mins. It didn't help. I will call Garmin in a bit update here with what they say.
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Sounds like you got a bad one too. Just for kicks let's see if they' got similar serial #'s, mine is: 169000131 and the other unit that had the same issue was: 169000130.
169000573
Add my 300 to the list. 169000152. The moment I turn it off, the clock stops. Next time I turn it on (5 mins or 5 hours) the time will be exactly what it was when I turned it off. Once it gets satellite fix, it gets the correct time.
Is there any point in calling Garmin's tech support? Or should I just exchange it at REI?
Colorado firmware 2.40 300/400
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
Good thing this update came after Valentines