plriddle1 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I am going to purchase a gps for geocaching and use it in the car. I know I will need to purchase the city navigator, but I need to know is the oregon worth spending the extra or do I just get the colorado. Any help would be great. Thanks Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 The only "real" difference is touch screen versus buttons. A personal choice really. Quote Link to comment
+Tequila Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I am going to purchase a gps for geocaching and use it in the car. I know I will need to purchase the city navigator, but I need to know is the oregon worth spending the extra or do I just get the colorado. Any help would be great. Thanks Spend some time reviewing the various forum threads here. You will quickly see there are several problems with the CO that do NOT exist with the OR. Buy the Oregon. Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 You will quickly see there are several problems with the CO that do NOT exist with the OR. Buy the Oregon. Really....that is complete hogwash. Tequila is just a Colorado hater. He spends his days looking for Colorado threads to start up a bash fest. I've used both. They both work perfectly fine. There are some differences in software layout and a few other minor points, but overall the major difference in in the input method. Quote Link to comment
+Teddy2k Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 You will quickly see there are several problems with the CO that do NOT exist with the OR. Buy the Oregon. I agree with Red90.... this statement is completely untrue. OP, I have a Colorado and it works wonderfully for geocaching with no problems. In fact, the Oregon is missing the geocaching view that the Colorado has, which I find very handy. In my opinion, I'm glad that I saved almost $200 by buying a Colorado. Quote Link to comment
yogazoo Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 (edited) I'll say this. After owning a Colorado and now an Oregon, the biggest difference besides the input is the physical design of the battery cover. I have to say that the Colorado can be a real pain in the arse to get open. My wife physically can't open the battery compartment to throw freshies in. I swear that battery compartment design for the Colorado is the dumbest. The engineer who designed it must have been smokin' his breakfast. The Oregon's battery compartment literally opens in a snap! That said, I prefer the Oregon and the touchscreen interface. Nothing wrong with the Colorado however especially at it's current street price. Edited January 16, 2009 by yogazoo Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 (edited) I've never had a problem with the battery cover on any Colorado I have used. Maybe you have a bad one. It IS a silly design, but it works fine. This is one of those "minor" differences. Edited January 16, 2009 by Red90 Quote Link to comment
+The Yinnies Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I am going to purchase a gps for geocaching and use it in the car. I know I will need to purchase the city navigator, but I need to know is the oregon worth spending the extra or do I just get the colorado. Any help would be great. Thanks One thing you could do is to get either one, but get a Nuvi insead of the city nav. You can set it up to find caches and where the road ends use your handheld. You can get a Nuvi for a little more than the city nav. Quote Link to comment
+Map Monkey Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 The only "real" difference is touch screen versus buttons. A personal choice really. huh? There are more "real" differences, dependant on what you really need as a feature/benefit on your GPSr eg external antenna connection etc. A good comparison of features can be found here ==> http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Colorado+vs+Oregon If i was using the GPSr in the vehicle constantly, the touchscreen Oregon is much nicer to use. mm Quote Link to comment
+GeekBoy.from.Illinois Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Spend some time reviewing the various forum threads here. You will quickly see there are several problems with the CO that do NOT exist with the OR. Buy the Oregon. I have seen some software issues of things that don't work "right" on my Colorado that do work "right" on the Oregon. I have even submitted some bug reports to Garmin on most of these issues, and they still remain unfixed. Some f these issues include several power issues, the 3D view bug (fixed in the OR), Backlight setting not saved (fixed in the OR), alpha search in the Geocache list ... Even with that, I do believe the quoted statement is a bit extreme. There are software bugs in the Colorado that have not been addressed in the last several months, but most of them are minor inconveniences and not "show stoppers" when it comes to using the GPSr for geocaching. I've owned my Colorado for about 11 months now, and have found 400-500 caches since I got it. It must work reasonably well for that to happen. Having used an Oregon I can tell you that there are things where the OR is easier to use, and things where the CO is easier to use (for me). I do like the CO caching screen flow, but that's probably more because I have used it for almost a year. The CO text entry method is so painful for me that I don't use it for anything more than short abbreviations. I used to think that sending a text/SMS message was bad until I used the CO text entry. Mostly it's a matter of preference. I have been recommending the Colorado to people recently based on the price/feature set. Quote Link to comment
flyjazz Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 The CO text entry method is so painful for me that I don't use it for anything more than short abbreviations. I used to think that sending a text/SMS message was bad until I used the CO text entry. I too find the text entry something of a chore. It surprises me that Garmin doesn't do a simple software upgrade to the spell option where the text can be input in the same manner as the calculator number entries. So as one can appreciate what I'm getting at,simply open the calculator and imagine that the numbers are letters. I recall that's how it worked on my previous Etrex. Quote Link to comment
+Teddy2k Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 (edited) ....Backlight setting not saved (fixed in the OR).... You can't call that a problem or an issue because that's how they were designed to work prior to the OR. My old Venture HC reset the backlight settings everytime I turned it on, just like my Colorado does. A correct statement would be that they improved the functionality of the backlight on the OR.... saying that it has been "fixed" would be inaccurate. Edited January 16, 2009 by Teddy2k Quote Link to comment
+Tequila Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 You will quickly see there are several problems with the CO that do NOT exist with the OR. Buy the Oregon. Really....that is complete hogwash. Tequila is just a Colorado hater. He spends his days looking for Colorado threads to start up a bash fest. I've used both. They both work perfectly fine. There are some differences in software layout and a few other minor points, but overall the major difference in in the input method. There is a very long list of Colorado owners throughout these forums that had several (I had 3) defective Colorado's before they gave up and Garmin replaced their CO's with Oregons at no charge. Garmin has admitted that the back cover on the CO has waterproof issues and has given some users new modified back covers to address this problem. Garmin also changed their description to say that the battery compartment on a CO is only IPX5 instead of 7 as originally advertised. Do I hate the CO? YES. Because I had three units that had waterproof issues. One unit that died with 'System Software Missing". The Canadian Repair Centre could not fix it and did not have replacement units for 5 weeks. I went without my unit for most of the summer. Garmin U.S. finally sent me an Oregon and I have had no problems with it since. I know of several local cachers that have had to have the CO's fixed and several have been supplied replacement Oregons by Garmin. Quote Link to comment
+Tequila Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I've never had a problem with the battery cover on any Colorado I have used. Maybe you have a bad one. It IS a silly design, but it works fine. This is one of those "minor" differences. Thought you said the only real difference is the touchscreen?? Seems to me a "silly design" back cover, which reduces the CO's waterproof rating to 5 is a "real" difference. And one that cannot be fixed with firmware. Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Thought you said the only real difference is the touchscreen?? Seems to me a "silly design" back cover, which reduces the CO's waterproof rating to 5 is a "real" difference. And one that cannot be fixed with firmware. The issue was the SD card o ring, which was fixed..... We have already been through this. Give it up. Quote Link to comment
+Tequila Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 I never had problem with the SD card. I found water inside the battery compartment. And since I use my GPS units in a search and rescue environment, having batteries or the unit short out is not acceptable. And we search in all kinds of weather conditions. I have given it up. I got rid of my CO. The original poster asked for advice and I gave it. No one has to believe me. There are lots of posts by lots of other people in this forum that echo the problems with the CO. You even have a fellow Calgarian who posted that he went through four or five units before giving up. I just want to see the OP make an informed decision. Quote Link to comment
+mty55 Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 The only "real" difference is touch screen versus buttons. A personal choice really. I believe its more than just the touchscreen. The other major differnce in the two is the chipset. The Colorado useds a MediaTek MTK MT3318 chipset. The Oregon uses a STM Cartesio STA 2062 Chipset .There are a lot more differences in the wiki page below. https://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Colorad...+Oregon?f=print Quote Link to comment
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