Customer Reviews:
 Colorado 400t August 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was concerned with the accuracy issue of this GPSr. I emailed Garmin customer service with my concerns and they assured me that it would not be a problem. I basically wanted some sort of correspondence for proof just in case their was an issue. Then the price became an issue. I tried to order the unit through an online camera shop for a price around 400.00 and found out that what they were selling me was a Japanese (no english installed) no warranty, no topo maps installed unit. How can it be a 400T without Topo maps? Anyway, I went to amazon for a higher price but a more comfortable transaction.
This product is pricey, but I believe that it is well priced for what you get. It hasn't disappointed me yet as far as the accuracy goes. Base maps are preloaded but streetmaps are not. These are separate and will run around 100.00. I went with the SD card street maps and glad I did. This leaves the memory free for geocaches. I was able to load 400 caches along a route and made an insignificant dent in the 256MB memory. Map cards are a no hassle PNP operation. I have been told by Garmin Cust. service, that if you want to have the same maps on your PC Mapsource software (which comes with the unit) as your gps, then you should buy the DVD mapset. With this configuration you can upload the wanted maps onto the unit itself or a seperate memory card. The WAAS works wonders in dense foliage. The external antenna is a must if you are using in the car. Screen protection is a must if you aren't storing it in a case. Screen brightness is not as bad as I was expecting. I usually don't have to turn on the backlight unless It is dark of course or if I am in the shade. Only problem with screen brightness is that you have to reset it after every reboot, as it won't store the setting in memory. Shaded relief maps are nice to have and the topo features are great to have as well. If it wasn't for battery consumption I would have gave it a higher rating.
This unit will go through batteries very fast. For lightweight backpacking you might want to buy lithium batteries, a whole lot of them. Do consider buying rechargeable batteries and the car charger with alkaline spares as I have already found myself hunting down batteries instead of caches. Easy .GPX file transfer with www.geocaching.com and a windows machine but not a linux machine that I know of.
Overall, this is a must for a geocacher
After nearly ten years of service my eTrex can finally take a rest.
One last thing. Phone calls to Garmin customer service are not fun. Expect a 30min wait time before you get to talk to anyone. I am rating their product not their customer service.
 Garmin Colorado 400t - Is Garmin for Dummies... August 17, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's ergonomical, simple to use (thus the dummies part), inaccurate due to a more inferior chipset designed by Garmin (rather than the SirfIII), does not play well with Google Earth, although it is possible with some additional software and alot of technical know-how to export track data to Google Earth! The screen is unacceptable...Poorly lit, you cannot even see it in the dark well! I'm not sure how you are supposed to use it hiking on a highly sunlit trail! This is a major, major flaw! For that flaw alone, I would shave off 2 points! I hate the simple childproof interface...It's not sophisticated enough for serious GPS users, especially on topo! You cannot find roads, addresses or heck, even navigate manually to a waypoint! It's ridiculous...I mean if I want to see the location of a waypoint on the topo map, I just cannot do that, cause it takes you back to your original location by default! I also want to be able to get distances between points! No you cannot do that either...What the heck can you do with it? I mean yeah, this simple minded individuals out there that want to follow the cursor around a JPEG bitmap image of a topo map think this is great, but for the rest of us, we want a little more bang for the buck...Weird enough, the competitor Magelan, uses National Geographic topo maps which offer way more resolution than the basemaps in Colorado or even the latest Garmin touchscreen model Oregon! I can go on and on about this unit! It's slow to acquire signal, slow to start up and try loading geocaches in it and at times they become scattered POI's that are unmanageable. They will show up on the map, yes, but scattered on the map without a management list. I find their software to be at best retarded and without extensive capabilities. I find Google Earth better at keeping your POI's and tracks, etc. than this device! To be honest for $600 + you would expect much much more! You get a simple device that has predefined functionality and no custom features! I find that unacceptable this day and age! I returned mine to the store and got a refund - restocking fee! Perhaps many of those people that find this great in the beginning will have later on decided to probably return theirs! It's just not worth it given the available featureset until they come up with next gen beyond this simplistic, yet dummyproof design! BAD GARMIN!!!
 Nice unit August 12, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have not used this much, but so far it is quite good. I got the extra street map and after a little config. It works great for driving directions. There is a nice mount for my motorcycle and car for this unit and I look forward to many off road jeep trips, national park trips and camping trips. It also suggests local attractions with the add on software which is really nice if you don't know the area.
Pleased August 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I decided to get into geocaching this summer. After reading a number of reviews expressing concern about the screen's readability, both here and on other sites, I was leaning away from the 400. Fortunately, I was able to try the 400 and the 60CSx side-by-side. In direct sunlight, I found the screen on the 400 to be just a little dimmer than the 60 but still perfectly readable. I also found both units to be harder to read when standing in the shade, lots of reflection off the glass.
I've now been hiking and biking with the 400 for just under a month and absolutely love it. I like the jog wheel and find it easy and intuitive. Entering text is a bit on the slow side, but having never entered text on any other GPSr, I really don't mind.
Using 2500 mHh NiMH batteries, I typically get 5-6 hours of life, more if I remember to turn down the backlight when not in use. So certainly take extra batteries into the field if the ones in the unit aren't fresh or you plan on being gone for more than a few hours.
Overall, a great, easy to use GPSr.
Garmin Colorado GPS August 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This unit represents a huge advance in GPS navigation technology. It has a remarkably large and inclusive data base. The sensitivity of the receiver is a great improvement over earlier models.
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