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Garmin Colorado


AV Dezign

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Additionally, the Techie I spoke to said you can use any sized SD card you want, but the unit will only recognize and read up to 4GB. He was not 100% sure if the SDHC format would work.

 

I was also told you can swap out pre-programmed cards between units. He said the authorization code is for the card only and the card is not restricted for use only in one unit. He also cautioned me to stress how important it is NOT to alter the content of the cards and said one of their most common issues with the pre-programmed cards is people accidentally save to the card and this overwrites the maps. Oops!!

 

Edit: Added the word "work" 01/11/08 9:43pm CST

Edited by 3 Hawks
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It's perhaps no wonder the tech support people aren't fully updated on the Colorado yet.

 

If you enter a cache "manually", it will not become a geocache in the context used by the Colorado. It will become a waypoint, and they do show up on the map. The icon depends upon what you select when you create the point.

 

Geocaches loaded as properly coded gpx files don't show up on the map. As that's not good, I hope they consider improving this.

 

You can't log or mark a cache as found either, so far. Hopefully they'll fix that too, in the future.

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It's perhaps no wonder the tech support people aren't fully updated on the Colorado yet.

 

If you enter a cache "manually", it will not become a geocache in the context used by the Colorado. It will become a waypoint, and they do show up on the map. The icon depends upon what you select when you create the point.

 

Geocaches loaded as properly coded gpx files don't show up on the map. As that's not good, I hope they consider improving this.

 

You can't log or mark a cache as found either, so far. Hopefully they'll fix that too, in the future.

 

That may be so, but the Techie was not even able to view the icons for the manually entered waypoint on the map overview until he adjusted the settings.

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YBLee you might ck as GPS City shows the Colorado as a PREORDER...as in not in stock. Same thing at OFFROUTE and its a better price there...I may have to settle for the 300 as that is available soon at OFFROUTE (on or before Jan. 19th) The 400t is (on or before Feb 13). Id like to pick one up before I head to Florida for some warm weather and caching. Looks like either will do better than my old 76S. :P

Edited by WoodenShoe
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I am all new to this and looks like this it the unit for me. I was wondering if i pick up the 300 colorado could i put city nav and topo 2008 on one sd card and run them both at the same time? I think having the 300 and buying the maps is a better idea then having the 400t with the topo all ready there because then you can not us the tpop on your computer. Again i am new at this and hope i am making sense. thanks for your help. :P

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I was wondering if i pick up the 300 colorado could i put city nav and topo 2008 on one sd card and run them both at the same time?
You can definitely load both and use both but not at the same time, one will be on top of the other. It's easy using map setup to turn off the upper map and switch back between entire map titles. It is also possible to have non-overlapping portions of both map sets so you can go from one to the other depending on the areas you choose, in that case both maps titles are on all the time.

 

I'm pretty sure the Colo has upped the 2025 map limit and if Garmin added SDHC support then their is virtually no limit to how many maps you can put on a card. Still a lot of uncertainty on SDHC. Since SD cards are cheap, consider multiple cards too.

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YBLee you might ck as GPS City shows the Colorado as a PREORDER...as in not in stock. Same thing at OFFROUTE and its a better price there...I may have to settle for the 300 as that is available soon at OFFROUTE (on or before Jan. 19th) The 400t is (on or before Feb 13). Id like to pick on up before I head to Florida for some warm weather and caching. Looks like either will do better than my old 76S. :P

 

Thx Woodenshoe for the info. I did miss the "pre-order" word. I am using a 60CSx now which is a great unit but the idea of integrating the full cache content (or at least the most important info) would be my reason to upgrade.

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Hmmmm....I am a little worried about what the Garmin techie said about the Colorado not truely allowing paperless caching. One of the primary reasons I would purchase a Colorado is for this feature. I had one "in the cart" today but chickened out. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

From all the excellent reporting and screen shots from Anders I feel it will be awesome as far as paperless caching. fAll I would ever need or use. I feel what the techie meant is the Colorado certainly won't mimic all a PDA can do, which is underdstandable. It sure will replace having to print our cache sheets giving you descriptions, past logs, and hints.

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I feel what the techie meant is the Colorado certainly won't mimic all a PDA can do, which is underdstandable. It sure will replace having to print our cache sheets giving you descriptions, past logs, and hints.

 

From what aspersson said, the premium membership should take care of the lack of info on some of the items. He has one to work with. I read on this review under Fig. 27 about the problems initially. The tech did stress that he had the same problem. But, I don't have one to mess with, so I can only go by word of mouth.

 

I think what you have to consider is how much you will expect this unit to do. Are you currently caching with a PDA? Are you expecting this unit to replace your GPSr and PDA units? See for us, this is what we wanted it to do for the hefty price. We already have a PDA, the only reason to pay $600 is if we can also sell our PDA. Here's the best pic I could find to show where you can enter info about the cache by using waypoint edit . This screen on Fig. 17 shows the screen before where you are supposed to edit the waypoint. On the edit screen is where the tech said there were a couple of lines open to enter text info about the cache. Personally, I think the space will be too limited for the info I would like to be able to enter (what I currently can with my PDA).

 

Maybe that's too much to ask, but I feel like if I have to start carrying around a pad of paper to record things down after spending $600 and selling my PDA, I've gone backwards not forwards. If you don't currently cache paperlessly, or you don't mind that the features aren't as complete as you PDA and Cachemate, then maybe this unit will work perfectly for you. For us, it just doesn't make sense. That's not to say it's not a nice product. It's just too pricey for us with it's limitations. I certainly don't want to deter people from buying the Colorado. I just wanted to point out the problem I saw as the info that there currently is on the subject is still very limited and the paperless caching hadn't really been explained thoroughly.

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Screen size and input means will forever make the Colorado less capable than the GPS + PDA combo, or a unit like the iQue 3600a, which combines both.

 

But if you compare it with a GPSmap 60 CSx, there is a lot more already. If they then decide to do some kind of logging support as well, you'll be a good step ahead of what the 60 CSx offers.

 

Text entry on the Colorado is by rolling the wheel to the letter you want, then press Enter (center button). You can go back and forth through the text line you are entering independently of this, as moving the cursor is by pushing the wheel edge down, not by rolling it.

 

What's referred to in the post above, i.e. the text under image 27 in that review, has been taken care of now. An update to the Groundspeak site and a new version of the Communicator plugin fixed the problem. The cache shown in that review isn't loaded as a cache, but as a regular waypoint.

 

Check my web album to see real geocaches on the Colorado.

Edited by apersson850
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Well... you should have read the entire topic to find your answer.

 

But I'll answer anyway: There is still no official confirmation. However, the unit supports cards up to 4 GB, which means that they are supported (SD's are no larger than 2 GB).

 

But we should still wait for an answer form Garmin.

 

:P

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I don't have any SDHC card, so I can't try it. Neither do I see any need to buy one. If any of my cameras worth taking pictures with could accept SDHC, then it would be another thing. Now they both take CF cards.

 

I've not had anything larger than a 1 GB card in the Colorado, so that's not much of a capacity test.

 

The backlights mentioned further up are all on full throttle, yes. But taking pictures in daylight is very difficult, if you want to show something relevant. First, there's no sunshine around here this time of the year. The average for the last month was one (!) minute per day.

Second, even if I do take pictures in daylight, cloudy as it is, it's difficult to get such angles that it really does show the difference between the screens.

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I see the Colorado 400T is available on GPSCity. Who has ordered and who actually has one. Should I wait to buy now?

 

 

According to REI's website, the 400t is "exclusive" until 2/11/08. I'm guessing that means no one else gets them until then, but I'm sure there are pre-orders for them at other places.

 

 

I know Groundspeak is holding some events at REI for the Colorado. There's one in Seattle and one in the Bay area scheduled so far that I've seen.

 

 

Meet & Greet Groundspeak & Garmin in Seattle

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Just to add to the earlier comments:

 

While having the ability to load GPX files of cache data into the unit is useful - it definitely doesn't meet my requirements for paperless caching. Using CacheMate, not only do I mark caches as found - but this process also includes a date/timestamp which imports into GSAK for chronologically correct logging and closed-loop, cradle-to-grave paperless caching. Still - if it keeps me from pulling the PDA out of the pack on a rainy night, just to read description, past logs and hint? SCORE. I can mark the cache as found in CacheMate when I get back to the car. :)

 

I've already ordered a 400T, and look forward to its arrival, despite its limitations. As others have noted, I can't help but believe a few of these major items (e.g. the fact that geocaches don't show up on the map?!?) will be fixed before release date. Particularly items that were core capabilities in previous units. I can live with a few frequent firmware upgrades after initial release, too...

 

Anyone else remember the 60CSx locking up when switching navigation modes? :D

 

Can't wait to get my hands on this thing!

 

Much thanks to apersson850 for all the great information, screen shots, and responses to all the questions.

 

If I'm in town, I plan to attend the Bay Area event - I'll really be drooling after seeing one of these units in person.

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Hello Anders,

 

it would be interesting to compare the performance of the Colorado vs the 60 CSx, when scrolling or zooming the map with the same detail level.

 

For example:

 

Basemap on

Detailled Map on (Topo, City Navigator, etc.)

Detail level: higher

Declutter off

 

Another issue:

When I look on this video

, then it seems possible to add satellite maps (or other bitmap based maps) on the unit. Could you confirm this, Anders?

 

Thanks

 

Stefan

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Just to add to the earlier comments:

 

While having the ability to load GPX files of cache data into the unit is useful - it definitely doesn't meet my requirements for paperless caching. Using CacheMate, not only do I mark caches as found - but this process also includes a date/timestamp which imports into GSAK for chronologically correct logging and closed-loop, cradle-to-grave paperless caching. Still - if it keeps me from pulling the PDA out of the pack on a rainy night, just to read description, past logs and hint? SCORE. I can mark the cache as found in CacheMate when I get back to the car. :)

 

I've already ordered a 400T, and look forward to its arrival, despite its limitations. As others have noted, I can't help but believe a few of these major items (e.g. the fact that geocaches don't show up on the map?!?) will be fixed before release date. Particularly items that were core capabilities in previous units. I can live with a few frequent firmware upgrades after initial release, too...

 

Anyone else remember the 60CSx locking up when switching navigation modes? :D

 

Can't wait to get my hands on this thing!

 

Much thanks to apersson850 for all the great information, screen shots, and responses to all the questions.

 

If I'm in town, I plan to attend the Bay Area event - I'll really be drooling after seeing one of these units in person.

 

I already ordered my 400T as well. If they have not fixed it by the release date I am sure by the 1st software update release.

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I already ordered my 400T as well. If they have not fixed it by the release date I am sure by the 1st software update release.

Highly unlikely, but I love wishful thinkers. :laughing:

 

Actually more hoping it would come true for the other guy. It's not all that important of a feature for me. I only do a few caches a year. I need it more for Snowmobiling and Jeeping out in the middle of no where so I can find my way back.

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Considering how efficient the beta testers are, I'm sure more will be done to the Colorado within the near future. It's just a question about what...

 

The Colorado supports Garmin maps. That's it. But in some 400 versions, Garmin include a basemap which has satellite imagery as well. That's why it looks like it can take raster maps.

Also, as it's compatible with BlueChart g2, which in turn contains detailed satellite images, you can see such images from these maps.

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Considering how efficient the beta testers are, I'm sure more will be done to the Colorado within the near future. It's just a question about what...

 

The Colorado supports Garmin maps. That's it. But in some 400 versions, Garmin include a basemap which has satellite imagery as well. That's why it looks like it can take raster maps.

Also, as it's compatible with BlueChart g2, which in turn contains detailed satellite images, you can see such images from these maps.

 

Comment & Question......

 

Since NG TOPO's deal with Magellan was/is non-exclusive, maybe NG's 1:24000 maps could be in the future. Maybe only in my dreams also....!

 

I have a Nuvi660 and a 76CSx. (so both unlock codes of the CNNTare used up).I also have Topo 2008.

Here's the question...if I got a 400c with all the street maps, and installed Topo 2008 on the card, would the maps ( Topo) still show up as 3D ? ie same as the preloaded maps on the 400t?

I guess another way of asking the question is, would Topo 2008 install the DEM info on the card/unit the same as on a PC. Right now, the Topo 2008 DEM info is only available on the PC.

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The Colorado supports Garmin maps. That's it. But in some 400 versions, Garmin include a basemap which has satellite imagery as well. That's why it looks like it can take raster maps.

Isn't it true that ALL Garmin Colorado's load and view JPG photos, a raster format? Hence if your satellite image is in JPG format, highly likely, then it will load and view any object so formatted. Having said that, JPG images do not speak Lat and Log so you couldn't use them for position.

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I guess another way of asking the question is, would Topo 2008 install the DEM info on the card/unit the same as on a PC. Right now, the Topo 2008 DEM info is only available on the PC.
I believe, but the jury is still out, that Topo 2008 contains the embedded DEM dataset and will indeed show shading on all Colorado GPSr's.

 

The fact that it shows in Mapsource is a clue. Also, what was the purpose of Topo 2008 except for the shading? I believe it was convenient for Garmin to release Topo 2008 last year and it has been awaiting the Colorado to strut its stuff.

 

Time will tell, I can wait.

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It can't be worst than the Triton's release. It already sounds as though Garmins Beta version work better than Magellan "released" version.

 

You have that right. I purchased a Triton 2000 and what a piece of junk. Barely functioned as a GPS and had issues with most all of it's functions. The flashlight and camera worked okay but that was about it. Good thing I bought at REI and was able to return after a couple of weeks of trying to get it to work. I since ordered a Colorado 400t and looking forward to getting it.

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ok 400n no-map.

 

Its hard without lookup what i, c and t does mean

 

It's hard? To remember three letters?

T = Topographical map (from Garmin web site)

I = Intercoastal (meaning not saltwater) map (from Garmin web site)

C = Is the last one (saltwater) Not sure why they picked C though...

 

If you can remember your address, phone number, birthdate, etc... I'm sure you can remember these three letters. And really you don't even need to remember them. Just decide which one you want and forget the others....

:laughing:

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ok 400n no-map.

 

Its hard without lookup what i, c and t does mean

 

It's hard? To remember three letters?

T = Topographical map (from Garmin web site)

I = Intercoastal (meaning not saltwater) map (from Garmin web site)

C = Is the last one (saltwater) Not sure why they picked C though...

 

If you can remember your address, phone number, birthdate, etc... I'm sure you can remember these three letters. And really you don't even need to remember them. Just decide which one you want and forget the others....

:laughing:

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Something I have wanted Garmin to do for quite a while now and I know we would all love is to have a "waypoint type" proximity alarm. So, instead of having a proximity alarm for a selected waypoint or geocache, you can set the alarm to go off if you come within a set distance of a waypoint "type". This would come in great if you set the type to Geocache, Fuel station, Food, etc... then you just drive and it will let you know when you have come within that distance. With the Wherigo functionality, it seems something like this should not be a problem...

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I was wondering if turn warning tones were supported by the Garmin Colorado?

 

I would like to use the unit for hiking purposes primarly, but using the GPS w/ City Nav for turn by turn routeable directions to the trail head would be almost as important. But to me if it doesn't provide any beep or tone about an upcoming turn its worthless. I don't want to have to constantly look at the thing while I'm driving!

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It beeps on upcoming turns. But you can't set how to beep, like on the 60 CSx.

 

You can have jpeg images on the Colorado, that's correct, but as stated above, they bear no reference to any position. Now if they could read the EXIF lat/long, when present, and allow you to jump to that position on the map, that would be cool. Or perhaps the other way around, i.e. insert a card from a camera in the Colorado, then do the geocoding in the GPS. Just tell it to read its own log and apply the corresponding positions to the images. Then no need to do that separately on a computer, to which you'd need to copy both the images and the track log. No such features right now, though.

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YBLee you might ck as GPS City shows the Colorado as a PREORDER...as in not in stock. Same thing at OFFROUTE and its a better price there...I may have to settle for the 300 as that is available soon at OFFROUTE (on or before Jan. 19th) The 400t is (on or before Feb 13). Id like to pick one up before I head to Florida for some warm weather and caching. Looks like either will do better than my old 76S. :unsure:

 

Humm, OFFROUTE, I'm not familiar with them. I generally use GPSCity. How are they as a distributor? I see there price for the Colorado is about $40 less than GPSCity but I've always had good experiences with them.

Thx in advance,

Lee

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I would like to use the unit for hiking purposes primarly, but using the GPS w/ City Nav for turn by turn routeable directions to the trail head would be almost as important. But to me if it doesn't provide any beep or tone about an upcoming turn its worthless. I don't want to have to constantly look at the thing while I'm driving!
Wouldn't it make more sense to have a dedicated dash GPS for road routing? They talk, larger screen and the maps are included, and not very expensive.

 

I tried some level on road routing with my Venture, a joke. The screen is to small and to dim. The audible tone is inaudible inside a car. I concluded dual-purpose car/hiking is to big a compromise and dismissed the whole idea.

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It beeps on upcoming turns. But you can't set how to beep, like on the 60 CSx.

 

You can have jpeg images on the Colorado, that's correct, but as stated above, they bear no reference

to any position. Now if they could read the EXIF lat/long, when present, and allow you to jump to that

position on the map, that would be cool. Or perhaps the other way around, i.e. insert a card from a

camera in the Colorado, then do the geocoding in the GPS. Just tell it to read its own log and apply the

corresponding positions to the images. Then no need to do that separately on a computer, to which

you'd need to copy both the images and the track log. No such features right now, though.

I think these are both ideas that should go to the head of the list! Although geocaching is an enjoyable

pastime, I'm primarily a hiker. On board photo geocoding would (for me) be more important than satellite

image views, I may be in the minority there, but both thoughts are worth consideration. Wireless photo

geocoding would probably create lots of implementation issues, maybe not w/ the correct PDA, but would

be cool nonetheless.

 

For Anders :

 

Will the Colorado talk to a computer with the dongle thing that the new wristwatch #50 thing uses to keep

track of workouts, . . . Hmm, that would be cool for tracks and routes at the very least, or loading caches.

 

Norm

Edited by RRLover
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YBLee I noticed a few others in the forums have ordered from OFFROUTE (I have not yet) and I did not see any complaints. So I was looking for the best price on the colorado 300 & Map Source NT 2008 DVD. The difference was only 25.00 so not that big of a deal...and it looks like they will match the price at GPS City anyway. I intend to add the road kit (power cord and mount) and GPS City was less on that. I use the GPS for road navagation and Geocaching also but will buy a road unit when the Nuvi 5000 gets a bit less expensive or just buy the new Nuvi 260W.

Others complain about using a hand held on the road...ya its not ideal...a larger screen is better and voice is a big +. But I used my 76S for doing service calls for quite a while and it works just fine but no autorouting on that unit. I have a RAM suction mount in the left corner of the windshield and thats just about eye height on the Astro and the 76 blocks very little view as the pillar is right there anyway so it worked for me. GPS City expects the 300 on the 16th...we will see. I plan to order when they are in stock, I just would like to have a new unit before my trip to Florida. I would wait till the 400t is out but that may be playing things to close (Feb 13th or so + shipping) the topo's are nice but I can always order them if I really find I cant live with out them, tho the 400 sounds like it may have extra memory for the topo's. I plan to leave for down south the 27th. Good Hunting!! :laughing:

Edited by WoodenShoe
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It's better than nothing, but instead of buying a Colorado and spend money on a copy of the City Navigator maps, you are better of buy complementing the Colorado with a nüvi 200. It's cheaper, too, in spite of the map being included.

 

The drawback is that you don't get the maps on a DVD, for your PC.

 

Actually, in your scenario (and I like the idea of talking myself into a car gpsr) I think the major drawback for the geocacher is that you'd have to load two units with coords for parking and/or caches in order to get to the next cache easily.

 

For me, the drawbacks of the poorer auto-routing of the handheld are easily outweighed by the convenience of having an all-in-one caching/routing unit.

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With my 60CSX, I load a waypoint for the geocache from within GSAK. I also load a custom POI file that has the hint.

 

Could you still load a geocache waypoint from GSAK so it shows on the map and so you can mark it as found the way it works now and also load the gpx file for the cache info?

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Yes, it should. I don't know how many caches it can hold, but it easily swallowed one file, with 500 caches, and then one more, with about 50 or whatever it was. This prooves that it can handle more than one GPX file with cache descriptions, so you can obviously combine them, if you like.

The file with 500 caches was about 2.7 MB, but as there are about 380 MB of internal memory free, I suggest placing your maps on the card and the caches in internal memory, and you'll be able to hold at least 50000 caches in the Colorado.

 

Maybe it would be slow as melasses sorting through them, but I think this shows that the number of possible caches in the device is probably not what's going to stop you from finding them.

 

As it is now, the Colorado can't show a map overview of the nearby (or any other) caches. You can only search for caches, near where you are, or near something else, and get a list of them. When you then view that particular cache you choose on the map, it always has the same blu map pin icon.

However, above that map, there's a short description of the cache, and there it will have the conventional icons representing a common cache, a multi or whatever it is. My screenshots describe this with fewer words.

 

If Garmin decides to implement a graphical overview of the caches on the map, I don't know if their current implementation would support using these same distinctive icons for the different kinds of caches. But at least they should be able to show different icons for found and not found caches. Perhaps filter out one or the other type.

Anders, if I remember right you can load multible pocket queries on a 60csx until they totaled 1000,then you could not load anymore so could you please test my theory by adding more than 1000 waypoints to the unit to verify that it can hold more in active memory ?

 

Guy

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Anders, if I remember right you can load multible pocket queries on a 60csx until they totaled 1000,then you could not load anymore so could you please test my theory by adding more than 1000 waypoints to the unit to verify that it can hold more in active memory ?

He's already done a test with a 2,000+ geocache file. It worked.

 

Also, on the Colorado Geocaches are not waypoints. Waypoints are still limited to 1,000.

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It's better than nothing, but instead of buying a Colorado and spend money on a copy of the City Navigator maps, you are better of buy complementing the Colorado with a nüvi 200. It's cheaper, too, in spite of the map being included.

 

The drawback is that you don't get the maps on a DVD, for your PC.

 

Actually, in your scenario (and I like the idea of talking myself into a car gpsr) I think the major drawback for the geocacher is that you'd have to load two units with coords for parking and/or caches in order to get to the next cache easily.

 

For me, the drawbacks of the poorer auto-routing of the handheld are easily outweighed by the convenience of having an all-in-one caching/routing unit.

 

Having both an in-car and a handheld (60cs) I would tend to agree. If I had to give up one, it would be the in-car GPS because I can live with the handheld on the road. The problem I have with my in-car unit is that I hardly ever bring it inside to download waypoints so I'm always adding them manually, using my handheld GPS or palm as the reference.

 

What would be really nice is if Garmin had an new in-car unit that supported the same wireless transfer protocol as the Colorado - that way I could easily transfer parking waypoints and such on the fly!

 

GO$Rs

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