First Impressions: Garmin Oregon 450

[Pacific NW]

The new Garmin Oregon 450 showed up here today, and it's definitely a keeper! Screen visibility is great in direct sunlight. As others have mentioned here on the forums, it's the mixed lighting of sun and shade that causes the most problems. Even so, it's not as big of an issue as I thought it would be. The backlight at 100% is nice and bright, and the touch screen interface is great.

 

Loaded up some maps (100K Topo, Ibycus, and NW Trails) on the SD card along with some local caches from a GPX file. Even updated the firmware immediately to 3.40. So far, not a single hiccup! The compass calibration was easy, the barometric pressure / altimeter seems to be right on, and map scrolling & redraw is plenty fast enough. Too soon to comment on battery life, and haven't recorded any tracks yet.

 

Pros: Paperless caching is amazing. This beats trying to printout likely caches or trying to lookup information on the fly. This was the primary reason for getting the 450. And toggling between map products is simple with an "enable" or "disable" setting.

 

Cons: Compared to a previous 60Cx and eTrex Vista HCx, the screen is definitely dimmer with ambient lighting. And unless I haven't found it yet, there appears to be no button to immediately hold & mark a waypoint. That is one sorely missed feature. Instead you need to scroll through the menus, checking GPS accuracy first.

 

Overall, this seems to be a great GPS, especially for caching. We'll see how it does in the field soon...

[notnormal]

And unless I haven't found it yet, there appears to be no button to immediately hold & mark a waypoint. That is one sorely missed feature. Instead you need to scroll through the menus, checking GPS accuracy first.

 

On the map screen, tap quickly and a waypoint marker appears. Move the map around until the waypoint marks the desired location. Finally, tap the coordinates information to name the waypoint and save it.

[+Triple Crown]

And unless I haven't found it yet, there appears to be no button to immediately hold & mark a waypoint. That is one sorely missed feature. Instead you need to scroll through the menus, checking GPS accuracy first.

 

On the map screen, tap quickly and a waypoint marker appears. Move the map around until the waypoint marks the desired location. Finally, tap the coordinates information to name the waypoint and save it.

 

Or use the Mark Waypoint or Waypoint Averaging buttons. I use the mark waypoint button for a quick reference and the Waypoint Averaging for a longer sample when taking coords to publish a cache.

Edited April 16, 2010 by Triple Crown

[+salsaguy]

If you want good battery life that dont slowly drain when you arent caching, get some Eneloop NiMH from Amazon and a good slow charger with reconditioning capabilites and you will be very happy

 

http://tinyurl.com/y6cjjjj

[+DonB]

If you want good battery life that dont slowly drain when you arent caching, get some Eneloop NiMH from Amazon and a good slow charger with reconditioning capabilites and you will be very happy

 

http://tinyurl.com/y6cjjjj

Do you know if the these are Sanyo's newest batteries, the ones that they extended the shelf life on? I have some of their original Eneloops and would like to try some of the new ones. The picture on Amazon's site looks like maybe they are the new ones, but you can't always rely on a picture

[+hondaatvrider]

I just got my oregon 450 also. I will spend some time with it this weekend and give my thoughts also. So far so good. Firmware is updated. Topo maps from gpsfiledepot loaded and openstreet maps too. I also put the white background in from the wiki. I got the ram mount on my ATV and the ram windshield mount to. (That is one strong suction cup) . I am using sanyo 2700 mah batteries and have the backlight turned all the way up

[+Styk]

I just got my oregon 450 also. I will spend some time with it this weekend and give my thoughts also. So far so good. Firmware is updated. Topo maps from gpsfiledepot loaded and openstreet maps too. I also put the white background in from the wiki. I got the ram mount on my ATV and the ram windshield mount to. (That is one strong suction cup) . I am using sanyo 2700 mah batteries and have the backlight turned all the way up

 

When I picked up my 450, I bought an anti glare screen protector for it, I find it is great on my ATV, didn't have to adjust the position as much to be able to see it.

 

Also, I changed which icons showed up on the first menu page, profile is one that is on page one of most of my profiles, mark waypoint also, so I don't have to scroll to get the most used items