Garmin Colorado 400i Handheld GPS Unit with US Inland Lakes Preloaded Maps
By: Garmin Average Rating: 3.0 Total Reviews: 1
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 On: 2008-05-11
First, the pictures above are a collage from all the various base maps. This unit can not show the 3D images and has little detail.
First impressions after one day of use. The screen is good and the back-light makes it very readable at night. Fine without the back-light in the day. The menu wheel/push button/rockers are easy to use, After a few minutes of use. Its just a case of pressing one of the menu buttons and selecting the appropriate item. Normally the wheel is the zoom control.
Calibrating the compass and altimeter was easy. And easy to find. All the setup seemed easy.
The geocaching works well with the built in compass.
I checked the navigation marks on Lake Winnipesaukee in NH. They seemed right, from memory, but the map detail is inadequate to be certain. They certainly dont show the whole picture, they miss shoal detail which is absolutely essential if anyone were going to trust this as their main navigation.
In general the built in map is poor. It has little detail, few roads, few geographical features. Not enough detail in the lakes to know for sure that you are looking at the right islands.
The supplied CD shows even less detail than the preloaded base map. Useless. Its just a questionable tool for managing trips and waypoints, it says. They really should have supplied a better map with a $600 GPS. I expect they hope to rip-off the early adopters and then include the topo maps as a package later.
The geocaching site allows you to transfer direct to the connected GPS, including the descriptions if you paid the subscription to the site. Useful. But it would be a lot more useful if the map was any good.
All in all, good product badly let down by bad maps. If the maps had been any use Id have given it 4 or 5 stars. But whats the use of a GPS that cant tell you where the there you are at is on a map?
While the GPS is made in Taiwan the case and all else that I ordered with it, all Garmin, are made in China.
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