Customer Reviews

Wonderful for the Amateur
I'm not one of those extreme high-end geocachers. I just love a walk in the woods. However, I want to find the cache when I go to look for it. Last year I upgraded from a Garmin Explorer to a 60CSX and was in love. Unfortunately that got stolen. I've saved my money and now have the Colorado 400t. It's everything my 60CSX was and more. The new rocker control is a lot easier to use than the controls on the 60CSX or the Explorer. The accuracy is fantastic. With the City maps plugged in the road navigation is wonderful. This really is the best GPS unit I've used for hiking & caching. I'm really impressed with the ability to swap between profiles, using the Automotive until I hit the trail and then switching back to the Geocaching mode. Start up time & satellite acquisition are good. They're now supporting SD instead of the mini-SD cards and that's a good choice on Garmin's part. A lot of the new interfaces are improved over the old ones plus, like the old ones they're customizable.
Like everyone else, the fact that only one cache at a time is visible is a pain, but all the other features quickly wash that away. I haven't found the maps to be inaccurate, but then I mainly use it for off-road hiking and the hills, mountains & streams are pretty solidly in place, even in Massachusetts. It is a little dim in bright sunlight.
Despite these small shortcomings, this is a wonderful GPS unit. I intend to get years of use (and hang on to it more tightly).

UPDATE: Garmin released a software patch that fixed the problem with displaying multiple cache's. That's one less of the few and small negatives to worry about. I'm still loving this GPS unit.

Accuracy unreliable
This would be a fantastic unit if the accuracy was there. The Geocaching functionality is great, the 3D topo maps are beautiful for a base map, and the unit is fun to use. Compared to Garmin's star product, the Garmin GPSMap 60CSx 2.6-Inch Mapping Handheld GPS, it's a little harder to figure out how to do various things such as enter a route, and figure out the distance between two points. I would have kept the unit if only it were accurate. I had trouble finding a cache and noticed the location of the cache kept bouncing all over the place. I started to test the unit by taking a reading and checking it against Google Earth and Nat Geo Topo! software, as well as another GPSr. It was off by as much as 400 ft, and only as close as 40 ft. I also tested it with a few known benchmarks. At that point I did some research to determine if there was some calibration I could do to solve the problem, and found that other people have experienced the same problem. Several people reported it as a recurring problem cured by a power reset. My guess is the new chip Garmin put into the Colorado is not as reliable as the SiRF Star III chip used in the past. If that is the case, an update will not cure the problem. I personally want a unit I can rely on and needed to purchase now, so I exchanged it for the well regarded but older Garmin 60CSx, which contains the trusted SiRF Star III chip. If you really want the new features and can hold off buying, I recommend you wait until the accuracy has been tested by consumers for a longer period of time. If you don't mind an occasional reset, and having to guess if your unit is giving you accurate readings or not, this is a good GPSr.

Fantastic, but not perfect.
I bought this item with the understanding it had flaws. It is a new line, and it is a big step to take. Almost like moving from Windows 98 to Windows XP. It takes a lot of getting used to, and it is cumbersome to set up. I spent over 3 hours backing up the maps that come on the unit (not viewable on the PC, but do back it up because if lost they are not recoverable), customizing the "profiles," and rearranging the shortcuts to an actual usable rotation.

The unit runs off of shortcuts, rather than buttons on the front of the unit (like to 60C series). One button pulls up a menu of options to scroll through. You can change profiles to bring up different sets of shortcuts and settings.

I.e. I start in Automotive, which has a map viewed form above, with on-road auto-nav to a location near a geocache. Once I find a parking spot, I press the shortcuts button, and change to "geocaching" profile. It automatically switches to 3d topographical, "off-road" map that I follow to the cache. When I get close I shortcut to the option of compass o get right to it.

I have not had the bad experience of draining batteries. I accidentally left it on the first night after using it, and even after caching with the backlight periodically on, it still had bars left on the gauge the next morning.

Accuracy is not an issue (it is quite phenominal, 7-10ft 90% of the time) and I get full strength GPS signal inside the middle of my house (never ever got that with my 60CS).

The basemap roads are off significantly, but since I purchased the city-nav software with the unit, I only had to deal with the basemap for the ride home from where I bought it :). 80ft accuracy on the topography mapping is not so hot when driving (which side of the knoll am I on?), but when hiking it is more than accurate enough with the path tracking turned on (if 80ft off gets you lost while hiking, you probably shouldn't be hiking off the path).

The geocaching options are fabulous, being able to view the full name, description, previous logs, and an option to view the hint is great.

My only complaints are that geocaches don't show on the maps (only waypoints do). You can't edit/delete/mark-as-found geocaches at all. The marketing for this unit is a complete lie when they say "bright display even in the sunlight". Truth be told, on a sunny day like today, even in the shade, with the backlight fully on, it is hard to see the details on the screen. Also, only certain mini-usb chargers will charge the unit. The one I use to charge my cell phone puts the unit into "computer linking" mode rather than as a power supply (rendering it unusable as a GPS). Other phone charges work fine for some reason, there must be a difference between Type-A mini USB and Type-B mini USB that the unit is sensitive too, while most cell phones and the like are not.

Overall with the 400t, city nav 2008, the dash mount (60cs version doesn't fit), new car charger and protective case, it came to a ridiculously high cost, but understand this: I would buy it again. If you do so, just remember that the effort you put into setting it up to fit your needs makes a huge difference. Take the time to learn it inside and out and you will experience how the complexity of it turns into versatility and enjoyment.