I've been a user of GPS units going back to the early 90's. Come to think of it, that is now more than half way back to Disco. The first GPS I had the pleasure to use in the course of my work was a Magellan 3000, used to locate automated weather stations. Once we had to find one of these weather stations on the salt flats of Utah in the dead of an overcast night. When you're driving at night on the salt flats it is hard to tell you are even moving. Below is white, everywhere else is black, and not much changes. GPS was a relatively new technology at the time, and the publicly available GPS units were subject to drift because the government and military actively limited the accuracy of the system.
On this particular night, we already had the coordinates of the station, and just had to perform a simple upgrade. It was my job to use the map, and GPS to relay to the driver which way to go, and when to slow down for fear of destroying the weather station. The display of the Magellan 3000 consisted of an LCD screen with Latitude and Longitude displayed.
As we neared the station, we had to start watching out the windows quite early on to make sure we didn't run into it. The remoteness and uniqueness of the experience made it feel like we could have been on the moon. That's what navigating by early GPS units felt like, like you were piloting your way to the moon with a computer with less ability than todays calculators.
The Magellan 3000 was like that dark remote night, and the GPS units available today are simply brilliant in comparison. It was like one of those early TI calculators with the red numbers that you could only see if you spent 2 minutes lining up your view just right, compared to a new HP-50g. What I wouldn't have given at the time for a GPS with a back lit topographic display boasting less than 3 meters positional accuracy.
My latest GPS, the Garmin Oregon 400t is nothing short of brilliant. If I had one of these I could have told the driver to stop when the station was actually in view without even looking out the window! My interest in GPS has changed over the years. Early on I was interested in marking the positions of stations for mapping purposes. Later I used a Magellan 315 to create tracks of rivers, canals, and streams to make maps for water quality models. Now my interests are purely recreational.
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Preloaded topographic maps -
Built-in 3D DEM (Digital Elevation Model) basemap -
3D elevation view -
Wireless exchange of user routes, tracks, waypoints, geocaches and images -
MicroSD card slot for optional mapping and data storage -
Track log: 10,000 points, 20 saved tracks -
Electronic compass, barometric altimeter, temperature sensor -
Display: 3-inch color touchscreen with 240 x 400-pixel resolution -
Batteries: Two high-capacity or lithium-ion AA batteries for up to 16 hours of use -
Unit dimensions: 4.5 x 2.3 x 1.4 inches - Weight: 6.8 ounces with batteries
The display is fantastic. I've read other reviews dissing the screen, but I don't think they ever found the brightness adjustment. It seems just as bright as other models, and I don't think you could ask for better than a 3 inch touchscreen. I'll have to publish an update in the summer to let you know how it does as a bike computer.
My first outing with the Oregon 400t was for cross country skiing. I traveled to the Beaver Creek trail in Northern Utah to make a 10 mile trial run into Idaho and back. The GPS started up and locked on fast and away we went. The GPS was tucked into my outer pocket when I wasn't actively using it, where it ended up getting very cold and wet. I only fell on it once.
It was easy to start a new track, and save segments. Being able to touch and drag the map display in order to look ahead was very cool. The elevation plot was useful, considering the amount of climbing we were doing. It would have been nice to view the elevation plot in “Landscape” mode rather than always in “Portrait”.
When hiking and camping, I have a tendency to pack too many things. Funny enough a calculator has been one of them. There's no denying the engineer in me. Luckily my calculator doubles as an alarm clock. The Oregon 400t has many applications, and two of them are an alarm clock and a calculator. If the battery life were longer perhaps I'd be tempted to use them.
The image viewer is a neat feature. Sure, you have to get the Oregon 550 in order to take pictures with your GPS, but I just wanted to be able to take some of my pictures with me. When I'm away camping for a week, it's nice to have pictures of my wife and kids, and the fish that didn't get away, and the bald eagle you saw, and the pictures of the terrain from last time, and anything else you might want to have with you to look at or show people along the way.
I have to admit. The clincher for me was the 3D elevation view. I knew this feature would inevitably make its appearance at sometime, so I had been waiting to buy a new GPS that did 3D. The 3D is very rudimentary, and can only display the immediate area. Still... it's very cool. Scrolling to a new area using the touchscreen is possible, but difficult and slow. I'm sure over the coming years this particular feature will mature a lot, but until it does I'll have no reason to upgrade. This is the perfect GPS for me.
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