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Colorado 400T review


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I've read terrible reviews about the Colorado 400T - complaints about the brightness of the screen all the way to having difficulties with paperless caching due to "multiple screen" requirements.

 

A friend sent me a Colo400T as a lovely gift a couple of weeks ago. :sad:

 

First, let me say that I only use it for geocaching.

 

My thoughts are as follows:

 

1. I LOVE IT!

2. The screen is rather dark on the default setting, however, the brightness is adjustable and at the highest setting I can see it perfectly well in sunlight or in darkness.

3. It burns through batteries like crazy. I've ordered rechargeable batteries and a charger to try to cut down on the expense.

4. The wheel "navigating" piece at the top of the unit is very easy to use.

5. I LOVE paperless caching. The unit allows me to see cache descriptions, hints, and logs from other cachers. True, I have to switch pages to see the full descriptions, hints, and logs, but that's very easily done. It takes me a fraction of the time it used to take me to get ready to go out and cache. Load the cache and be gone, versus copying and pasting essential elements of each cache I loaded into my Legend onto one Word document in order to save paper, then printing the document.

 

So, there you have my opinion. Unasked for, but there it is.

 

Cache on!

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I agree with RonFisk, after a couple of weeks your outlook may be different. I too have been through four (4) individual units. It's a long and twisted road with these newer Garmin's and I'm sure the Oregon will be no different.

 

With the release of the Delorme PN-40 on the horizon, I hope Garmin feels a little fire (the fire they didn't feel from the Tritons, except maybe to release the Colorado's before they were ready.) to get things straightened out. If not, you may see a shift in some users from Garmin to Delorme. That is assuming that the Delorme will have most of the kinks worked out before it's released. With free streets and topo maps included in the purchase price, and the ability to upload geo-referenced air photo's, it's tough not to take a serious look at the Delorme product.

 

I remember when the Magellan Meridian series was the unit to beat, that shifted to Garmin with the 60 series (a combination of good Garmin products and the not-so-good Magellan explorist line.). Could we be witnessing yet another shift in the consumer handheld GPS market? Time will tell. The pressure's on Delorme to get it right.

Edited by yogazoo
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I am not sure why everyone is failing the Oregon before it even has extensive use. The 60, 72, Legend and Vista units are all good units. Garmin has one bad launch and they suddenly are all garbage.

 

I agree that Garmin is dumbing down their units too much but I have confidence that they can do better than the CO.

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I am not sure why everyone is failing the Oregon before it even has extensive use. The 60, 72, Legend and Vista units are all good units. Garmin has one bad launch and they suddenly are all garbage.

 

I agree that Garmin is dumbing down their units too much but I have confidence that they can do better than the CO.

 

That would be two bad launches....Colorado and Oregon. These units were clearly not ready for retail based on the firmware that shipped with the units. In the Colorado's case, there's no excuse for having to wait 8-9 months for a final release to get major bugs worked out. Why settle with mediocrity?

 

This is comparable with nVidia's problems they had with the lack of Windows Vista drivers with that OS came out. I think it took almost a year to get stable Vista video card drivers.

Edited by ryguyMN
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I think in terms of software maturity the Oregon has benefited significantly from the Colorado. It still has some issues but if I compare where the Oregon is today as compared to where the Colorado was in January it is night and day. For the most part the unit is stable. The issues are related to screen readability in with bright sun -- I'm not sure more testing on Garmin's part would have changed this much.

 

BTW, to project a waypoint look here: http://garmincolorado.wikispaces.com/Waypoints#toc13

 

GO$Rs

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I too have seen tons of negative reviews on the Colorado 400t. Personally, I do not get it. I have been using the unit for about 4 months and I think that it is a great GPS. I added the street navigation maps recently and now it is unstoppable. I also own the PN-40 and have done quite a few side-by-side comparisons and in reality, they perform pretty much the same. Many people have complained about battery life, but even this seems to be a little skewed. I tried running standard AAs last time and I got about 15 hours with back-lighting set to go off after 1 minute of no use. I think that it was a huge benefit to go ahead and upgrade to the latest firmware before I entered the field for the first time.

 

They both seem accurate, reliable, and fun to use. There are some things that I prefer on the PN-40, while others that the 400t does better.

 

Unfortunately, what I have learned regarding these products and many others is that a good majority of product reviews are worthless. People like to complain while those that are happy will typically post nothing. I have found that sometimes you just have to take the plunge and buy what you think will work.

I think the best advice is to do your research and purchase products from a retail location with a good return policy in the event that it doesn’t meet your own personal expectations.

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I too have seen tons of negative reviews on the Colorado 400t. Personally, I do not get it. I have been using the unit for about 4 months and I think that it is a great GPS.

...

Note that you have only had the unit for four months, with the latest and greatest firmware upgrade. Note that your post is 9 months since the previous one.

 

You are talking to people who purchased the Colorado when they first came out ( as I did ) - they have struggled with poor performing units that have had many improvements from when this model first came out, how long has it been folks, over a year now? I was lucky and had a decent unit from the start, but it benefited from firmware updates ( i.e. feature adds ) along the way.

 

Your current Colorado experience has benefited from the complaints and feedback that these people have passed along to Garmin.

Edited by nicolo
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I can't find the "project a waypoint" function in this top-of-line model. Can others confirm this, or have I missed something?

 

It is there, but not in what I would consider to be an intuitive place. You can only do a projection from a waypoint. The easiest way is to mark a waypoint, go into the waypoint manager and select the waypoint, then in the menu, one of the options is to do the projection. It would be nice if you could project from a geocache as well, but you can't, only from a waypoint...

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We purchased an Oregon 300 and used it for a couple of months, then a friend was looking at units and we went to REI with her. They had Colorado 400T for a great price and after about an hour in the store we got it. We've since sold the Oregon with no regrets. The touch screen was AWFUL, too sensitive and not sensitive enough, every time I tried to "go back" I ended up marking a waypoint, some times it takes a light touch, next minute it takes pounds of presure. The Colorado has been great. I realize that we have benefitted from upgrades, fixes, etc. but the unit is great. As easy to use as our old 60, but paperless. We've added city navigator and the ease of only having one device is fantastic. We used to load caches into the Nuvi for car navigation, then the PDA, then the 60, took forever to get ready to go. Now everything is in one place, takes seconds to be on the road. The navigation is great, both on streets and using the compass to actually find the caches. It would appear that Garmin is putting all their future into the Nuvi and Oregon, but I wouldn't take another Oregon if they paid me. Having used all three, we highly recommend the Colorado, then the 60 (if you can do without paperless on 1 device), and lastly the Oregon.

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I too have seen tons of negative reviews on the Colorado 400t. Personally, I do not get it. I have been using the unit for about 4 months and I think that it is a great GPS.

...

Note that you have only had the unit for four months, with the latest and greatest firmware upgrade. Note that your post is 9 months since the previous one.

 

You are talking to people who purchased the Colorado when they first came out ( as I did ) - they have struggled with poor performing units that have had many improvements from when this model first came out, how long has it been folks, over a year now? I was lucky and had a decent unit from the start, but it benefited from firmware updates ( i.e. feature adds ) along the way.

 

Your current Colorado experience has benefited from the complaints and feedback that these people have passed along to Garmin.

 

I'll give you that one, however, I am not just basing my opinion on what I have read here, I am looking at lots of sites that have posted poor reviews of the Colorado, some as recent as hours before I posted this response. Also, in the last 4 months, I have used my Colorado quite a bit. I typically go caching at least 4 times a week. Sometimes just after work and other times all day when the fish don’t appear to be biting :blink: . In the last 4 months, I have also been backcountry hiking 6 times with two trips being overnight in the mountains. I think that is a pretty good test.

 

I also agree that the Colorado has benefited from the customer feedback, as with lots of products. Even the Delorme, my other GPS, has had major firmware revisions since I purchased it and all have been great improvements in both GPS accuracy and geocaching features.

 

Overall, I just felt motivated to post a good review as these appear to be few when it comes to the Colorado. I think that we can all agree that when people are unhappy with a product, they want to tell the world… When we like something, we often say nothing.

Edited by david5kfull
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I think I've posted about it before in another thread like this But I'll say it again...

 

I'm really enjoying my Colorado 400t I'm getting better and better with it (no where near you guys I'm sure)... When I 1st got it, I really did not know how to read it or trust it and now I'm getting better at reading and interpret what its telling me

 

My biggest complaints on it are the Battery life and Screen Darkness especially when I'm in the truck driving somewhere its kind of hard to read unless the backlight is jacked way up, which again shortens the battery life...

 

I'm considering ordering one of these Vehicle Adapters for it...

 

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=1350

 

Questions on that are:

 

1.> Will that work with Non-Rechargable Batteries (not sure if it just powers the unit or if it tries to charge it too) I don't want the two to conflict and blow it or the batteries up...

 

2.> Will it Power Down when I unplug the power cable each time when I go to get out of the truck with it?

 

When I unplug the USB cable that connects it to my PC, it powers down... That doesn't bother me though thats usually when I've pushed a bunch of Cache or POIs into it and I'm heaed out the door to see if I can find a few or packing it up for a trip...

 

Or I could just keep using my Nuvi for Navigating in the Truck and the Colorado for field usage...

 

Again, I'm really enjoying mine... I've went looking for caches 3 days this week after work (found like 5 or 6) and can't wait to go again, but might not be till this weekend...

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Exactly what I wanted to know... Thanks folks!!!! After I do some bills, if there is enough left over, I might order one tonight... Can't wait... Garmin, is usually pretty quick on the shipping too...

 

Thanks again.

 

Adapter will work with any kind of battery in the unit. Using the adapter allows the unit to draw from the external source and save batteries.

 

The unit will stay on (or query you) when you disconnect.

 

On external power, the backlight is MUCH brighter and makes auto use many times better.

 

Other things to keep in mind for screen visibility.

 

- Turn off the terrain shading to give a white map background

- Use a light coloured background picture.

 

http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Miscellaneous#toc7

 

The Colorado will not charge any batteries through USB. You'll need a separate charger for that.

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