What are your thoughts on the Oregon 400t?

[+PeoriaBill]

I recently purchased an Oregon 400t GPS. I waited out the Colorado situation and had hoped for much better performance from the Oregon 400t. Here is my rant...Tell me what you think?

1. Despite the glowing reports on REI.com, the screen is NOT readable in sunlight.

2. Alkaline batteries work till about 50%, then only dimly light the screen.

3. The MicroSD retainer clip fell out when I opened the unit. I put it back so I could install memory.

4. The menus are not intuitive. When you find a cache, the next steps would logically be..find me another cache and mark this cache as found. In order to accomplish this you have to navigate back through the menus to accomplish the task.

5. The TOPO map is not the latest. It seems to be wide of the mark on locations that my 60CSx nails solidly.

6. The instruction manual, what there is, does not explain the way to upload caches (*.gpx) file to the unit. The manual is general features and provides no specific user instructions.

7. At $600 I should not have to compromise and squint at a screen.

In my humble opinion this unit was not ready for prime time and unfortunately is headed back to store. I guess I still hope that Garmin can get it right again. Maybe by the time they get to Illinois. Meanwhile my 60CSx remains my mainstay.

 

Please no personal attacks, I am just stating my opinion.

[+Night-Ranger]

I wrote a "glowing" review on REI.com. I still love my Oregon. I have had nothing but good experiences with it. Let me see, as good as the 60CSX is, I still could not upload all my found caches to GS, get the full cache description with hint, show pics of my last trip, enter text extremely fast with the touch screen, or even play the Wherigo cartridge called Tour de Greensboro that is my favorite cache experience to date. And to top it all off, my OR even keeps up with my total # of caches found!

 

I am not trying to flame anyone as we all have our own opinions, but from my personal experience with both units, the Oregon has everything else beat, hands down. I let my buddy-very close friend, borrow my OR for a weekend. He was a staunch supporter of the 60CSX. Notice I said was. He is now saving for the OR.

 

It is not the ultimate GPS in all areas, I will agree it has shortcomings. You mentioned the lighting and the menu navigation. I honestly don't feel these are shortcomings that are deal breakers. I use mine in daylight and nighttime use without any problem-ever. I have gotten used to navigating the menus very quickly. If you will think back to when you 1st got your 60, you will remember how confusing the menus seemed until you got used to them. Then they seemed very intuitive. Same with the OR. I use rechargable eneloop batteries and don't "waste" $ with alkalines. I have no idea about what happened to your battery clip. If mine fell out, I would probably be returning for exchange. I also have no idea what you mean by the topo map being "latest", but mine does just fine for my caching experiences. The manual probably could include more input but I hAve not even needed to use the manual as the msg boards are giving me more than the manual ever could. GSAK is awesome for uploading caches to any gps and the OR with the macros is no exception.

 

However, I am a staunch supporter of looking at the overall picture and hands down, the OR is awesome! Plus the accuracy of the unit seems to be better than the 60 at this point. Is that not what we really want from our GPSr? Who am I kidding, I want it all!

Edited September 20, 2008 by night-ranger