Colorado 400i Screenshots 1-10

[CrazyViking]

Colorado 400i Screenshots

 

Apologies for poor quality screenshots! g-o-cashers posted a response message on the right way to take screen shots with the Colorado in my initial review notes, “No need to take photos. Just press and hold the right soft key when you get to a screen you want to save. The screens shots get saved in [drive]:\Garmin\scrn as .bmp files.” but I didn’t read it until I had uploaded all these files! Guess I better open the operators manual after all….

 

The display is much clearer than shown. The Colorado has a down-angle optimized view, I held it at about -60 degrees and took the picture at about +80 degrees from vertical. I then photo-shopped the skew out and did some hurried color curve/brightness/contrast adjustments (to brighten up the greens…but gave them a yellowish tint). The website photo sizing utility then added the image artifacts. Oh well…the images are hopefully better than nothing.

 

WARNING The map set in the Colorado 400i is INCOMPLETE. These are pics from the pond that I wrote about in my initial review yesterday. Today I went to a lake 6 miles east and the lake showed up, but No Contour lines and Only Very Major Roads showed up on the map. There is a 4 lane road that runs right past the lake to a city park on the lake (Parkers Lake). (Look at the 3 mile zoom satellite image for the 001 waypoint flag). The GPS recorded my track just fine, but only the roads showing up on this 3 mile zoom map were shown on all closer-in zooms. There are dozens of roads that do not show up here that should have if the map set was as complete as near the Classen Lake area.

 

The good news is that it appears the Colorado CAN do vector map overlays on top of bitmap aerial images. The bad news is that Garmin has not fully implemented the data. They appear to have a satellite image at 500 miles that they digitally zoom to about 80 miles, then another photo image set at 50 miles that is zoomed to 5 miles, another partial image set at 3 miles that they can zoom down to 0.3 miles. The road information and shaded relief information also seems to only partially cover areas at 3 miles and closer, with major data gaps showing up.

 

Look at the 0.5 mile zoom map and you can see on the top quarter of the screen the edge of detailed satellite bitmap data. If I zoom in on nearby lakes above that area, some have depth contours, but they do not have shaded relief ground images (as shown on the 200 foot zoom image).

 

It seems that a minority of the inland lakes actually have depth contours. This is okay for the guys with 50ft yachts, but for the backpacker like me looking for the right fishing spot, we are on our own most of the time. I panned around northern Minnesota and there are areas with detail information and others with detail roads but not detail aerial photos. I have no idea what percentage of national coverage is higher detail.

 

On 3 occasions today the Colorado beeped at me with a low battery warning, but quickly recovered. The battery indicator was at 4 bars. I haven’t dropped it and they are alkaline batteries, so I suspect there is another firmware bug lurking inside.

 

So far I stand behind my initial assessment: Inland lake data is Good, overall the Colorado 400i is exceptional. A-

 

NOTE: The Groundspeak forum has 10 photo limit per post, so attached are the first 10 photos in the zooming in series....

 

[CrazyViking]

Colorado 400i Screenshots

 

-

NOTE: The Groundspeak forum has 10 photo limit per post, so attached are the #11-20 photos in the zooming in series....

 

 

[CrazyViking]

Colorado 400i Screenshots

 

-

NOTE: The Groundspeak forum has 10 photo limit per post, so attached are the last photos in the zooming in series....and actual pics of the 400i and Classen Lake from the location the screen photos were taken (looking westward)

 

 

 

[+hogrod]

I don't own a Colorado GPS, but copied the text below from the gpsinformation review. sounds like you can take actual screen captures with the Colorado gps.

 

"press and hold the right handed 'soft' key for a few seconds, it will save the current screen shot. You can then access this bitmap image by connecting the Colorado to your computer and finding it in a folder called 'scrn.'"

 

EDIT: I see now that you already know about this, please disregard.

Edited March 16, 2008 by hogrod

[+hogrod]

Are the maps in the colorado 400i the same as the Inland lakes DVD? I own the DVD(I use them on my 60cx), anyway you can fit the whole US mapset onto a 1gb card. Inland lakes V3 is 236map segments and 918.2mb. Buying the maps this way might be another option for those that want to also use the maps on their PC.

 

I was a bit disappointed with the inland lake maps, I also have the older fishing hotspots for my area & these maps have more detail for the lakes they do cover. The fishing hotspot maps probably only has a third as many lakes with detail though, and to get the whole US it's more expensive than the inland lakes DVD.

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/fhs.jsp

[CrazyViking]

Are the maps in the colorado 400i the same as the Inland lakes DVD? I own the DVD(I use them on my 60cx), anyway you can fit the whole US mapset onto a 1gb card. Inland lakes V3 is 236map segments and 918.2mb. Buying the maps this way might be another option for those that want to also use the maps on their PC.

 

I was a bit disappointed with the inland lake maps, I also have the older fishing hotspots for my area & these maps have more detail for the lakes they do cover. The fishing hotspot maps probably only has a third as many lakes with detail though, and to get the whole US it's more expensive than the inland lakes DVD.

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/fhs.jsp

 

Thanks to You and g-o-cashers for the kind note on taking the pics. I’ve attached a couple from the Parkers Lake area where there was a significant data hole.

 

 

I don’t believe the mapsets are the same. Per my initial thread at:

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=188049

 

The map file on the 400i gmapprom.img (1,652,992kb) is quite a bit larger than 1Gb.

 

[ Incidentally, By The Way, I DO know the correct spelling for fopaw (faux pas) but I wasn’t thinking globally when typing my comments on the 400i. I have always considered it comical to incorrectly use faux pas and misspell the word erata (errata). Sick sense of humour (humor?) perhaps, so my appologize (apologies) in advance if I have offended anyone. J ] …must be a CrazyViking…

[CrazyViking]

REALLY Pics zoomed 500mi to 20ft

 

Colorado 400i Screenshots

 

Apologies for poor quality screenshots! g-o-cashers posted a response message on the right way to take screen shots with the Colorado in my initial review notes, “No need to take photos. Just press and hold the right soft key when you get to a screen you want to save. The screens shots get saved in [drive]:\Garmin\scrn as .bmp files.” but I didn’t read it until I had uploaded all these files! Guess I better open the operators manual after all….

 

 

It occurred to me that g-o-cashers was right…I ran into a display image capture in my computer directory that I had accidentally snapped during my frenzied attempts to recover from the “Crash” described above. Thought someone might like to see what the crash actually looked like, so am posting now.

 

Also, I note that on the images thread topic I have labeled the images 500mi to 8mi zoom.

 

ZoomPhotos:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=188151

 

Initial notes:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=188049

 

If someone was interested in screenshots looking at the forum while in “outline” mode, they might never realize I actually uploaded the complete series of zooming down to 20 foot scale in sequential 10 image replies to my message. For that reason I am posting this updated info in an outer thread rather than under g-o-cashers kind response. I am also cross referencing this message (via DOUBLE POST) between the initial write-up and the screen shots so a viewer can jump to the other thread if they want

 

 

<ediot: swapped the link labels>

Edited March 16, 2008 by CrazyViking

[+george_k]

Colorado 400i Screenshots

 

Apologies for poor quality screenshots! g-o-cashers posted a response message on the right way to take screen shots with the Colorado in my initial review notes, “No need to take photos. Just press and hold the right soft key when you get to a screen you want to save. The screens shots get saved in [drive]:\Garmin\scrn as .bmp files.” but I didn’t read it until I had uploaded all these files! Guess I better open the operators manual after all….

 

The display is much clearer than shown. The Colorado has a down-angle optimized view, I held it at about -60 degrees and took the picture at about +80 degrees from vertical. I then photo-shopped the skew out and did some hurried color curve/brightness/contrast adjustments (to brighten up the greens…but gave them a yellowish tint). The website photo sizing utility then added the image artifacts. Oh well…the images are hopefully better than nothing.

 

 

Hi CrazyViking,

 

First of all -- thanks for the many screenshots! As they say "a picture is worth a thousand words".

 

Secondly -- actually, you inadvertently did a very helpful thing for some of us. As someone considering buying one of these units, I've been wanting to see more screenshots that actually show how the screens look like in "real life" (not the perfect screen captures you get by letting the unit capture the picture internally).

 

Thanks,

 

George

[CrazyViking]

Hi CrazyViking,

 

First of all -- thanks for the many screenshots! As they say "a picture is worth a thousand words".

 

Secondly -- actually, you inadvertently did a very helpful thing for some of us. As someone considering buying one of these units, I've been wanting to see more screenshots that actually show how the screens look like in "real life" (not the perfect screen captures you get by letting the unit capture the picture internally).

 

Thanks,

 

George

 

“Encouraging the crazy person” issues aside, sincerely your comment was appreciated!

 

The downside with the actual photos is the loss of contrast and the mangling of colors that occurs when restoring some of the contrast. The photos are really not very good. The “internal screen captures” actually do provide a realistic view of contrast/detail/and colors that viewing the screen gives a user, but they show what the display looks like in perfect viewing conditions (very bright sunshine from over your shoulder, viewing the screen with some “down angle” orientation. I agree “Real life” pictures do seem to add information to the mix though. Wished they were available when I was trying to decide which GPS to pick up (hence the original post).

 

I’ve attached a couple more screen captures to illustrate the inconsistent map detailing. One shows another block of aerial imagery/no image boundary. Too bad detail imagery is not universally present (and selectable per user preference since water systems are more easily seen without the image layer). Whether it will work adequately in your particular location of interest is uncertain due to severe inexplicable data holes (e.g. Parkers Lake) and some areas of detail road data info without image (e.g. attached unpaved roads pic). Lake and river shape/routing seems pretty good though. The minority of lakes seem to have depth contours and I’ve noticed some waterfalls are not noted (most seem to be in the data). Aerial imagery, relief, and road data seem to be most inconsistent in coverage.

 

Whichever route you take, have a Gr808! –CrazyViking

 

 

[KD6QZX]

I have the 400t, are the photo maps only avilable in the 400i or am I just missing finding them in my 400t?

 

I am just a noob at the 400t

[+g-o-cashers]

I have the 400t, are the photo maps only avilable in the 400i or am I just missing finding them in my 400t?

 

I am just a noob at the 400t

 

Imagery is only available as part of the 400i and 400c basemap. I'm sure it would on the 400t, but you don't have the map data.

 

GO$Rs

[CrazyViking]

 

Imagery is only available as part of the 400i and 400c basemap. I'm sure it would on the 400t, but you don't have the map data.

 

GO$Rs

 

Have you any wit or wisdom on how to import the images/map data from Google Earth or other? (i.e. Is the image viewer the best we can do at this time?) Or can you please point to any resources that are developing capabilities to augment the basemap images? (e.g. in the direction of GMapToGPX or Marengo and beyond?).

 

We await your sage advice GO$Rs ! THANKS!

 

 

Whichever route you take, have a Gr808! –CrazyViking

[+g-o-cashers]

No. At least not yet. But I'm very interested in learning more about how the 400c/i basemap works.

 

You've got mail...

 

GO$Rs

[CrazyViking]

Looks like DeLorme is doing "Hybrid" maps and I think there is a way to upload custom maps into their units (but perhaps only sections from a DeLorme specific map database?). The Colorado should be even more capable than the PN-20.

 

...hopefully Garmin will get it done.

 

http://forum.delorme.com/viewtopic.php?t=13849

 

No. At least not yet. But I'm very interested in learning more about how the 400c/i basemap works.

 

You've got mail...

 

GO$Rs

[+RJ&K Trackers]

Has anyone tried to install the topo 2008 dvd on the 400i? If so, when running the topo on the 400i, does it look exactly like the 400t or is it missing the shaded relief base map? Or is that base map and DEM data on the dvd? screenshots?