Garmin 300

Product Review
The Garmin 300

reviewed by ngauger

Up until now, FioraY & I were using a 60CSx and a PDA to Geocache. They both belong to FioraY.

Whenever I had the opportunity to cache while she was working, I had to rely on printed out cache pages and my Etrex legend. This worked as long as I wasn’t trying for too many caches at a time. Plus printing them out and sorting through them in the car was not really a good thing.

I saw the ad for the Garmin Colorado Series, and did a bit of research. I saw that the biggest selling point was it seemed to be designed for Paperless Geocaching.

This warranted a closer look. Since it was not released at that time, I had to rely on “Previews” of the people that were lucky enough to get the first ones made, or were they "lucky" enough???

During my research, I found a thread on the geocaching forums, that made me a bit nervous about the Colorado series. The first run of 500 was plagued with poor average battery life, software challenges and navigation errors... not too good for a Garmin product line. More on this later.

As I mentioned, these were not the first Garmin GPSr’s I have used and I was a bit taken aback, that Garmin would essentially let the first 500 buyers (at $400.00 & $500.00 per unit) beta test their units.

After reading some more and researching a lot more information, I decided that since I’ll use it almost exclusively for driving and geocaching, I should try one.

I chose the Colorado 300 since it was the least expensive offering and I had discovered the main difference in the 300 & 400 – as far as geocaching – was the pre-loaded maps.

The 300 arrived and I immediately removed the battery cover and looked at the serial number.... It’s below 500... I have one of the “trouble” units...

The Garmin site says, that they will support downloads and software updates as they become available, they even have you download a program named "Web-Updater" that will automatically search and download software right into the Colorado when you have it connected to your computer – PC only – Sorry Apple users...

After reading the directions, I installed the software and connected the GPSr to the computer.. and was immediately inundated by the resulting adrenalin rush....

The computer connected, loaded the software, then opened up 2 windows, one for the memory card I had installed and one for the “Internal memory” of the Colorado – more on these windows later.

Everything was and is – hands off automatic... This makes the Colorado a great unit to Geocache with. I use GSAK to manage my waypoints, so I immediately opened that and created a few databases for different caches and locations...

After exporting a database to a GPX file, I realized that there is a “gpx” folder in the Garmin window.. I clicked it and a window opened and in that window was a gpx file.. this is good and bad....

Good news: In oder to load the geocaches and the corresponding information into the Colorado, you simply delete the gpx file in the Colorado’s folder, then drag and drop the new GSAK’s gpx file into it.... 30 seconds later you have up to 2000 geocaches loaded in with all supporting information. This includes, waypoint, coords, difficulty, terrain, etc etc etc... even hints and the last few logs

Bad news: You can only have ONE gpx file in the unit at a time. And since the file is self sustaining, you can NOT delete individual geocaches out of the unit. If you have 2000 in the GSAK gpx file – that’s all the geocaches you can have.

There is a way through a sequence of button presses that will allow you to log a cache inside the unit as “Found, DNF, Needs maint, etc.. that will move it from the main search screen. Then through another button sequence, you can see all the caches you marked as "found".

This, of course, did not sit well with me. I finally realized that GSAK can be used to edit, copy and delete waypoints... You set up a database, Mine are named: Colorado1, Del, NJ, PA and Main300.

This allows me to move waypoints from one database to another and finally into the main300 and export whatever I need into that single GSAK gpx file... I also leave 20 or so spaces open just in case. So the maximum I load is 1980 Geocaches.. Way more than enough for a normal day of caching.

Now, remember that "sequence of buttons" comment??? There is a sequence of button presses needed for almost every function. But here Garmin really made it easy. Once you get the hang of it – it’s really easy... They put a wheel at the top, which has 4 buttons (at 3,6,9,& 12 o’clock) and the scrolling wheel.. This makes it insanely easy to navigate. Plus they separated the “Functions” Automotive, Geocaching, etc so you can customize the main menu to whatever you want to use the most. All you do is use the setup menu and customize the scroll menu.

What does all this mean? You can buy the map software, have the Colorado on “Automotive" mode – street view is fantastic by the way. Navigation is a bit better than the CS60x.. You take it out of the car, change to geocaching mode, and after a few buttons you have a map, showing the bearing (arrow) to the cache and distance.

As far as navigation, the Colorado has no trouble finding WAAS and Satellites... It’s accuracy has been down to 4 ft, of course, this was 4 ft to where the original placer’s GPSr “thought” GZ was.. In other words, if a placer’s GPS is 20 ft off, when the waypoint averaging was done, I could be off by 24 ft.. or 16 ft. So in a lot of cases, accuracy is an abstract number.

When you do find the cache, you “mark it” as found and a button appears “Find nearest” – this is usually used for the car, uh, you “DID” mark the waypoint for the cache vehicle, when you left it, didn’t you?????

Marking a waypoint is a wheel turn and a button push away.. way too easy...

Now, the bad stuff..... The battery life is variable by how bright the screen is.. When you are in street navigation mode, the screen is mostly white, so you can turn down the brightness. In the woods, or shade you have to have it “bright”.. This burns away the batteries in about 15 hours... Plenty you say??? Not for 2 days worth of caching.. It took me 2 weeks to decide to buy the car adapter on e-bay.. I’m very glad I did.

Rechargeable batteries are a must..... unless you own stock in a battery company. Also the electronic compass must be calibrated every time you change the batteries. Yes, hold the unit flat – push the button, turn around twice, slowwwwly.....

The first 500 units have another bad perk, you have to download the latest software upgrade, this stops the insanely long startup boot process. It’s about 30 seconds after the download. Also another problem, it seems that the glitch with all those button presses actually signals the Colorado to turn off. I’ve done it twice now, I’m really watching for the one single button/wheel/button sequence that shuts it off.

Another aggravation is that the first 500 Colorado’s have an attitude, in that, they randomly stop navigating toward a cache. This seems to be absolutely random, but I think it has something to do with the gpx file being loaded. If some information is lost during transfer, the Colorado doesn’t like that. My fix? Take the coords and re-enter them as a waypoint....problem solved. Also you can stick with loading in 1000 caches to minimize the data transfer errors.

And last – This is an interesting one... If a cache name has any special characters in it Ex: % ^ & * ( ) the Colorado shuts off when you select the cache. But again this is a random occurrence. Yes, the fix is to edit the name of the cache in GSAK.

So, what is my recommendation??? After using and abusing this 300 for close to 2 months, I recommend it. By now, the first 500 have been sold, so you should get one with little problems.. Buy one, register it, download the Web Updater and software, load in the GSAK gpx file and go find the caches!!!!

The more Geocaching and driving you do – the better this will be. But remember Garmin has made a statement that the Colorado was never meant to be an upgrade for any previous GPSr. – It was intended only to be a GPSr with a PDA built in. It’s not much more than that. So you have to decide if you need a PDA to get rid of all that paper or if you really need a potentially better GPSr...

If you need one or both, you should consider the Colorado or Oregon Series. By the time you purchase the PDA and get the software running, you could be using the Colorado - which has everything all in one unit.

~~ Ngauger