Garmin Colorado 300 - GPST
Review
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Price:
£350
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Weight: 207 grammes (including
batteries)
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Features: Handheld
outdoors GPS unit with 240x400 pixel colour display, up to
15 hours battery life (claimed), waterproof, high
sensitivity GPS receiver, USB PC interface, includes base
map, 384 MB built-in memory, accepts data on SD cards, 1000
waypoints, 50 routes, 10,000 points and 20 saved track
capacity for tracklogs. Includes electronic compass,
barometric altimeter, geocaching mode, tide tables, custom
POIs. unit-to-unit wireless data transfer, picture
viewer.
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Who are GPS Training?
GPS Training is a specialist GPS Training consultancy. They run
GPS courses nationwide, can design custom courses to suit you and
your friends and also sell and advise on upgrading GPS Units. More
about them at www.gpstraining.co.uk
What's It For?
The new Colorado 300 sits at the top of Garmin's range of
hand-held GPS units. It's an outdoors specific, waterproof GPS
receiver that comes complete with a worldwide basemap. Additionally
you can add local mapping via an SD card, the most useful of which
for walkers and climbers are Garmin's topographic maps.
It can be used with third party mapping software to plan and save
routes and the topographic mapping option should make it easier to
use as a navigation tool in the field by relating your route to
recogisable geographic features.
Garmin offers more affordable units for basic use, but if you're
after all the bells and whistles, the Colorado 300 is the one to look
at.
How It Performs
We've been using the Colorado 300 for about four months now and
the more we use it the more we like it, Garmin has worked very hard
over the years to not only add 
innovative
features but importantly to give thought on how easy the operating
system is for the user, the Colorado delivers on both counts. The
unit itself fits nicely into the palm of your hand, feels solid and
looks great.
To existing Garmin users the 'Rock'n Roller' input wheel will come
as a bit of a shock replacing as it does the usual buttons and keys,
but give it a spin or two and you'll soon get the hang of the new
menu design by using the one handed single digit operation.
Simply spin the wheel to zoom in or out on the map page or to
select the feature you wish to use from the Shortcuts Menu a single
click takes you to the new screen then you can use the wheel to
scroll around the different menu options
Technology A Go Go
The Colorado is packed with features some tried and trusted, some
new, it delivers a new 65k high resolution colour screen, Electronic
Compass and Barometric Altimeter, 384MB of internal memory with built
in worldwide basemap for storage of your routes, tracks, and
waypoints, 3D view of worldwide mapping and a JPG picture viewer
Arguably most useful is and expandable SD card memory for loading
additional maps like Topo GB and storage of imported images, turn by
turn routing on roads, wireless unit to unit data transfer, and is
compatible with heart rate monitor and bike cadence sensors.
What It Means...
But let's cut through all the jargon and see what that all means
for the average GPS user, we'll explain what each feature offers and
you can decide if it's essential or nice to have.
All
the basic features you would expect in a handheld GPS are to be found
in the Colorado but at an enhanced level, it will store 1000
Waypoints, 50 Routes, and 20 saved tracks in it's internal memory,
the electronic compass will provide bearing information even when
you're standing still, and the altimeter can be used to keep an eye
on weather conditions.
For almost all our customers it's the combination of a handheld
GPS with colour screen and mapping software like Garmin's Topo that
is the complete package. They transfer the OS based Topo maps to a
2GB SD card, and then when the GPS is locked onto satellites it will
locate your position to the centre of the map.
Routes and trails created on your PC in software like Anquet,
Memory-Map and Quo can be transferred to the GPS and will be see
overlaid on the Topo Mapping. The UK Topo maps are available on three
cards priced at approximately £70 each.
Topo opens the door to both on and off road navigation adding an
extra dimension to the Colorado &endash; imagine you're planning at
trip to the Lakes and an expedition over Blencathra. Topo will
calculate your road trip giving turn by turn routing and printable
directions then when you've arrived in Mungrisdale ready for your
walk it will navigate you off road using a saved route perhaps
imported from your favorite online walking site.
For the first time in a Garmin unit the Colorado includes a
picture viewer, what use is that you ask? We have found it an
invaluable tool to deliver information on the hill, any image can
have text added to it and any document can be scanned and turned into
an image they can then be simply copied to either the internal memory
or the SD card of the unit. We ask our students to navigate to a
location then open a numbered image and follow the instructions
contained within the image.
Runners, bikers and fitness enthusiasts can add fitness products
to the Colorado such as a heart rate monitor which will send heart
rate data wirelessly to the device, or bike cadence sensors which can
once again wirelessly measure your pedaling strokes per minute
providing information for optimal performance.
Unsung Hero
There's one item that comes in the box that's unmentioned in the
Garmin promotional material that hits the spot with our customers -
it's the carabiner clip. Specially designed for the Colorado it
allows you to attach the unit safely to your rucksack or clothing yet
is flexible enough to allow easy viewing of the screen when on the
move.
Important Update
We recommend that all our customers update the unit software
immediately after purchasing their new Colorado, why would you need
to do this? Updates supply in the main fixes to operational issues
and occasionally new features, they are free and easily accessed by
visiting www.garmin.com looking for the Support page and updates
& downloads, where you will find the latest update for your unit.
Use the web updater or download the file to your PC and run from
there.
We are impressed by the Colorado and our customers agree with
us, it offers new useful features with the 3D being the most
innovative, overall we think it offers a great package especially
when combined with Topo GB.
Although it's a unit which can be used at a basic level, we reckon
there are others in the Garmin range better suited, but for advanced
users, the Topo map option when combined with PC-based route-planning
software.
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Topo mapping option make unit more versatile than previous
Garmin GPSs
Download needed to make unit UK grid ref' compatible, topo
not as detailed as OS maps.
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Know more or want to?
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product check out our user review system and post your opinions to
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Richard Gear or try a posting to our
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