( 4 reviews )
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Posted: Apr 10 2009
Previous GPS was a Garmin GPS map 60cs and it was great. This one is even better. It's a little different to use at first, but after a short time I quickly liked it better than the 60cs and now use it exclusively for wilderness routing, mountain biking, and geo caching! The screen is a little dim in direct sunlight, but this is not a big deal if you simply change your angle. Having all the U.S. topography maps installed is really convenient, as are the 3D visuals for quick position referencing.
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Posted: Feb 16 2009
Have had my Oregon 400T for several weeks now, love it. use it for geocaching and have not had to print on piece of paper since getting the Oregon.
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( 0 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Oct 10 2008
Have only had product a few hours but WOW! - what a piece of hardware. It is iPhone-like in its touch interface. Very intuitive, very easy to navigate. Very easy to set waypoints, navigate to waypoints, and so on. Fits well in the hand but feels like carrying a small rock-a lot of weight in a small volume. Unfortunately, at least in my area of San Antonio, TX, Garmin must be using an old topo map base like Tiger. Similar to a 2001-era Magellan, the 400t map shows me about 450 FEET!!! to the west of my true position. I have a Garmin Nuvi660 and love it with its City Navigator maps. It uses NavTeq street maps and it is spot on to my true location. Trying City Navigator on the Oregon will test whether it's the base topo map (I bet) or the GPS unit in Oregon causing the inaccuracy. The screen is pretty dim. I'll probably want to use it with the backlight turned up most of the time. Good side is no problem making screen suitably dim at night! I'll update my review after more experience. Edit 9/11/08: Official Garmin reply is that streets are not to be taken as 100% accurate on topo map, get City Navigator if street accuracy is desired, device out of box is for topo use. I find in San Antonio, TX most of problem is that streets are just not up-to-date. Unit is very accurate on older streets. 450 ft mispositioning I reported above is probably due to map source never getting street locations right in my gated community (can't they use satellite info or check other maps?!!). Tracks seem very reproducible and steady. Can trace over same track with high reproducibility and stability (not much tree cover or canyons in SA, TX). Edit 9/14/08: Footnote on 400t topo maps at gpsnow.com site - "* Based on United States Geological Survey topographic maps. USGS topographic maps are primarily intended to show topography which rarely changes. The government does not update them very often to show man made changes such as buildings, streets, roads and trails - many USGS map sheets are over 20 years old." Find in bright direct sunlight, don't need backlight, sun lights screen, easy to see. Bright diffuse light a different story-really need backlight then. Disagree with other reviewer about pushpin. Pushpin very useful to get information about any part of map. Tap screen, easy to move map under pin, easy to rapidly change zoom fairly rapidly (zoom speed increases with tap and hold). Tap pushpin heading, easy to set way point. In Demo mode (turn GPS off in System > Setup > GPS) Easy to set waypoint anywhere in U.S. and make that your map location to examine map in 2D and 3D. 3D View is not so great. Can move and rotate map but cannot zoom in and out(!)-just have close-in view. Lack of resolution in 3D. Map shading interferes with 3D view. Screen can be very dark and muddy in high elevation areas. 3D view best at highest map detail level (Setup > Map > Advanced Map Setup > Detail-Most), which usually gives too much detail for 2D views (too busy). Garmin definitely needs to improve 3D display a bunch!! Edit 9/12/08: Suggestion to Garmin: besides shading control and zoom in 3D view, ability to enhance/reduce Z-axis (elevation) and remove or reduce streets would help. The hills of San Franciso look ~puny in 3D compared to 2D map and the streets, so crowded, wipe out the topo info. No problem adding or removing carabiner clip following instructions. Slides on easily for me. Battery compartment easy to open, too. Device has nice fit and finish. Overall very happy except for 3D view. Would gladly buy again. Plan to get City Navigator for accurate, up-to-date streets and routing on city hikes and for segue back to car where I will use Nuvi for driving.
