Didjerrydo

This may have been discussed at some point and I missed it by not reading every word on the subject. Excuse me if I did. But I would like to know one simple issue- is the new Garmin Oregon's touch screen a hard durable material such as used in iPhones or a soft flexible plastic that's going to be easily scratched, especially by repeatedly handling its surface and dragging gritty fingers over it such as when panning a map screen?

I have worked in a large outdoor outfitter here in Western North Carolina as their "GPS Guy now for 22 years and have sold Garmin GPS units since the old 38's. It has always been my experience that a helix or quadrifillar, would consistantly pick up better in difficult situations such as we have right here (heavy canopy in summer and the topography year around. I saw a marked improvement and somewhat of a leveling of the playing field when the SIRF Star 3 processors came out in the 60's three or four years ago, but I still find the helixs to be the overall winners.

The one thing I'm seeing that I'm not too crazy about on Garmin's new OR is the fact that, I assume, it's using a patch antenna rather than a helix. I realize that with the new processors that perhaps this is not as big an issue as it once was, but if this is the case, looks like that's a step backwards in an otherwise cutting-edge new handheld GPS. Am I just reading this wrong somehow?

It sounds to me like you were a jerk to the CSR if you called them up and 'told them how angry you are'. If you call up all angry, then they aren't going to help you. If you call up nice and ask what they can do for you, you'll be helped. Garmin's CS is incredibly good - they send my geobuddy 2 free rubber top replacements on his 3 year old etrex, and replaced my 60csx no questions asked when it had issues, and replaced my other geo buddy's 60csx no problem when he tore the top off of it while riding his motorcycle. I have it on good authority (a high-level Garmin insider), that when the initial run of Colorados were released from the factory in Taiwan, they were all fitted with the wrong size o-rings surrounding the SD card slot on the unit's bottoms. Garmin soon discovered this issue and replaced a huge number of them. This o-ring did not provide an adequate seal when the unit was slid into the back battery cover. You must have gotten one of these early units that slipped through!

Check out this old post of mine. It says it all!: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...ater+resistance

What my experience has been with 3 different Colorado 300's, is that if the unit had been off for a couple of days or so, is then turned back on where a sat signal was unavailable, the clock was either several minutes to several DAYS off the correct time! Sure, this problem fixes itself once the unit re-acquires, but if you're depending on the alarm function or the barometric pressure plotting (while unit is off), you're out of luck! Surely this corrected in the Oregon.

I'd loke to ask GOR$'r if he's noticed if the clock function actually functions correctly in the new Oregon. I never got it to keep accurate time in my Colorado. Surely this was fixed in the Oregon?

I see that now Garmin is introducing a new series of handhelds called the "Oregon's". These new units seem to have adandoned the famous "Rock & Roller" design in favor of a touch screen and hopefully many other fixes that were badly needed. I wonder if the Colorados have been written off as a poor design and a splash in the pan. It does seem like they are entirely too problematic. What I wonder is, are these new unit's displays going to be as hard to see in anything but the best lighting like the Colorados, do they actually have a functional clock, and do they leak if exposed to the shallowest water. Surely Garmin has learned a few lessons from their ill-fated Colorados and corrected them in these new Oregons?

My Colorado 300 just will not work with Eveready Lithium Batteries for some reason. I realize these cells are a little "hotter" (voltage-wise) right out of the packaging, and I realize the 60 series had issues with them, but even if I wear a set down a little, my Colorado just don't like them! The display will start to do its thing but quickly fade out and die. I can turn right around and replace the lithiums with NiMH's and all is well for some reason. This problem happens regardless of how the "Battery Type" setting is set correctly or not. What's the Colorado got against lithium cells?

Has anyone been able to use lithium batteries in their Colorado 300 after the update? Mine still can't use them. The screen just fades out a short time after turning the unit on, even if set to "LITHIUM" setting. What goes on here? I'm wondering if the unit's clock has finally been fixed so it can actually maintain accurate time. That would be nice in a $500 device!

Has anyone here had any experience with the new Garmin Forerunner 405's? They're the first one Garmin has introduced that's actually wristwatch size and wearable as an everyday watch (except it needs re-charging every two weeks or so).

I'm guessing these timers won't be affected because they are computed every second or so based on the speed data along your route and your distance remaining to dest/next. Software timers like the stopwatch and total time are usually implemented based on some sort of hardware timer/counter. The hardware device receives a periodic clock from a crystal oscillator. The accuracy of the oscillator (usually expressed in ppm) determines how accurate the hardware device is and, hence, how accurate the software timers using it will be. It is normal to see inexpensive oscillators used in electronic devices with accuracy in the 100-200ppm range which would yield an error of about 10-20 seconds over a 24 hour period, worst case. However we are seeing something that is almost an order of magnitude higher, nearly 500 seconds in a 24 hour period. Originally I thought maybe Garmin is really using a very poor oscillator, but now I'm wondering if maybe there is some sort of software bug or hardware issue because the error seems to beyond what would be caused by oscillator inaccuracy -- especially if multiple people start seeing nearly the same error in the same direction. GO$Rs I got it on a very good source that the time errors you are seeing here is a result of Garmin's ongoing effort to somehow correct the presistant clock problems with the Colorados. It seems as in tweaking them to keep the clock from totally quitting, they've somehow slightly over-corrected and as a result, the onboard clock now is gaining a little time as a result!

I can't believe there's so little comments on the new Ver. 4.51 (beta) firmware update for the Garmin Colorado 300 that's just been released. I guess that says everything is working fine and/or no one is seeing any noticable improvements as a result of it?

I am still very aggrivated that my Colorado 300 STILL can't keep time! If it is turned off for a couple of days it totally drops the ball on timekeeping. Garmin did a band-aid fix on this issue by simply making the units do an automatic "Autolocate" when the internal clock has failed, which at least gets you located, but doesn't really fix the problem at all. I can't believe that Garmin can't remedy this issue once and for all! This now tells me that this ongoing clock headache must really be hardware issue after all. That's not good.

You'd really have to see this area "in the flesh" to see exactly what I'm talking about here, but believe me, it looks like a pretty poorly done way of sealing this area. That's odd that opening the image causes a problem on your computer. On mine, it simply opens full screen when clicked on, then closes completly when you close that window.

No' I didn't open up my new Colorado 300' but after my ill-fated experience with water un-proofness sometime back, I did open up this dealer's dummy unit just to see how certain parts were "sealed"(.http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=184669&hl=IXP7) I realize this is a dummy unit and it isn't sealed at all points of vulnerability as a real unit would be. What concerns me most is the area where the back latch engages to the body. I had wondered if this opening commuted with the internal electronics. Apparently, there's some sort of gasket/O-ring that not present here, in this dummy, that goes into this open squarish hole that otherwise commutes directly into the units internal electronics. Even so, it would have to form a seal by pressing against the somewhat flimsy, thin metal sleeve into which the SD card fits. This looks like a rather jerry-rigged configuration to me. Maybe this is the problem with Colorado's leaking so easily?

We brought 3 Tritons into our store because we were excited that they could utilize the National Geo TOPO software. We sold all three units- all three were returned by the very dissasitified customers! We returned all of them to the vendor- lesson learned. We had always only carried Garmin and in the future we'll stay that way!

That's strange, I just read your post and just checked my 300. It's 7:15 AM Eastern time here in western North Carolina on March 2, 2008. My unit said 7:15 AM, but Feburary 29, 2008! That's wierd that the time would be right but the date would be off by 2 days! I then re-booted it and let it acquire satellites upon which it got it's act together and gave the right time & date. Wonder if the leap year somehow threw it a curve?

Well, it's been several days now since the update and just as I thought it had fixed the Colorado's clock problem, yesterday I found my 300 dropped a couple of hours for no good reason. Apparently, there's more to this than a firmware issue. Maybe hardware related after all?

I don't seem to really be getting any kind of great battery life from NiMH batteries in my Colorado 300 even after the latest firmware update. I realize lithiums are a hard act to follow. I have been trying Duracell 2650 mAh ( about 4-5 hours) and a battery from Battery Station, Power2000 2900 mAh (better, at about 8-10 hours). Maybe this ia about all one should be expecting out of re-chargables. Using anything less than the 2650 mAh batteries is hardly worth fooling with though! I like the idea of rechargables, but to me personally, they've always been a dissapointment.

Cold start

Well, here's 30 minutes outside in a clear area: http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/282/outsidebm2.jpg It's actually worse in some directions, plus I had to scale it out to 50' just to contain it.