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Gear Reviews

Dial wheel and two buttons control everything

Garmin Colorado 300 GPS (2008)

£400.00

LFTO rating
Owners' rating

When it comes to navigating, I’ve always steered clear of GPS. They present two fundamental problems: instructions (which I can’t be bothered to read) and batteries (which I don’t want to buy or carry). Then they have a habit of losing contact with satellites when you need them most.
And, let’s face it, the outdoors is the very place to escape technology – using a map is precisely 23.8 per cent of the fun of getting up a mountain.
So I was unexpectedly excited to get my hands on the Garmin Colorado 300, which is intuitively easy to use and packed with really interesting features.
It’s the large Rock ‘n’ Roller wheel that makes this such a novice-friendly device. Press the top right button and you use the wheel to scroll between different features. Spin to ‘Trip Computer’ and you get stats for your most recent trip. Spin to ‘Compass’ and you get a digital needle to direct you to your next waypoint. Spin to ‘Map’ to see your location and next waypoint.
And with the dial wheel it was easy to whisk through the Colorado’s glut of features. This has functions for geocaching and for sailing. Cyclists can use it to monitor their cadence, runners can measure their heart rate, hippies can check the next full moon, and backcountry types can use it for huntin’ and fishin’. And it offers vision-only satnav in your car.
My first taste of using it outdoors was on the bike. Garmin describes this as a high-sensitivity receiver, and I was very impressed with how quickly it located my position; but one reviewer on our website was less impressed with both this and the unit’s accuracy (see www.lfto.com). Clipping it onto my rucksack with its overtly fashionable Garmin karabiner, I could keep an eye on speed, distance covered and elevation.
Out on the hill it works brilliantly. The dial wheel is easy to use even with gloves on, and it’s far less fiddly than devices such as the Road Angel Adventurer 7000. I’d happily use this in winter when functionality and ease of use are vital. But, unlike the Road Angel, Garmin’s GPS doesn’t come with OS mapping. Only a few years ago, GPS units gave you little more than a flashing pixel on a screen; but these days, full colour maps are a minimum requirement. We’d been supplied with an SD card packed with Garmin’s MapSource Topo vector mapping. That means contours, shaded relief and enough features to easily relate to your surroundings. It works fine and uses OS sourced data, but still doesn’t feel quite ‘right’. Still, it’s easy to zoom in and out, using the superb dial wheel.
This device is clearly designed for the US market and will appeal to people who do lots of stuff outdoors. And it’s great for walkers as it’s functional and easy to use. But as a dedicated hill GPS it doesn’t quite match the Satmap Active 10 (£300) for all-out functionality.

Price £400
Receiver high sensitivity receiver
Size 6.0x13.9x3.5 cm
Display 3.8x6.3 cm
Power 2xAA batteries
Battery life up to 15 hours
Computer interface USB
Extra mapping Garmin MapSource Topo on SD cards (not included)
Number of stored waypoints 1,000
Number of routes 50
Weight 207g (with batteries)
Made in Taiwan
Stockists (023) 8052 4000; www.garmin.com

Verdict
Very easy to use. This is a feature-packed device that performed well for us on and off the hill. But vector mapping feels a bit drab; some reviewers on www.lfto.com have had issues with its sensitivity. Overall, a great device for all-round outdoors people, but perhaps not the first choice for dedicated hill-walkers.

Review by Matt Swaine
First published in Trail magazine August 2008

Users' Overall Rating (2 reviews)

Colorado 300

ukpooka

User's Overall Rating

Show Details

Performance
Build quality
Value for money

I have had the Colorado for months now and use it mainly for Geocaching as well as two other Garmin units, the Fortrex and eTrex (we have a large family) and can honestly say it just fantastic. You can upload directly from the Geocaching web site into the Colorado all the information regarding the Geocache points. I use both Memory Map and Garmin TOPO to sort the route out before we set off and download the days walk back into the computer. We can then review the walks on both programs and upload into Google Earth, brilliant. The only down side is battery life as you can only get and good days outing on one set of batteries but then as we use rechargeable AA we just swap them out and replace them if need be. You can now use Garmin TOPO using Macs so its a good all-round solution.

(Written by: ukpooka)

09 September 2008 08:15
Garmin Colorado 300

Webwyze

User's Overall Rating

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Performance
Build quality
Value for money

I own a Garmin GPSMap60C and love it. I received a Garmin Colorado 300 for my birthday and after 1 outing, I hate it. The unit is built for outdoor use but cannot be used without the backlight on. My GPSMap60 would last at least 2 outings but because of continually having to use the backlight on the Colorado, I needed to change the batteries after just 7 hours - useless. As a user of this GPS unit my advice is not to purchase one until the screen visibility is improved dramatically.

(Written by: Webwyze)

25 August 2008 21:02