Customer Reviews

Bushnell Onix400 Waterproof Hiking GPS

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This is one of those products that can either be a great thing or can be a great disappointment... All dependent on actual need / intended use.

For me, it has been a great product that met my needs. I like to do a lot of camping and hiking in the middle of the woods and all I need from a portable GPS is just the basics. Let me mark locations, get me from the car to the camping site or marked locations and get me back. For this, I don't really need advanced features such as street routing, a POI database filled with restaurants, gas stations, etc. For that, I use the navigation system on my car.

Having said that, pretty much, any of the portable GPS devices meet my requirements but what attracted me to the Onix 400 was the addition of the XM Weather receiver. That extra feature, for me was worth the price as it does come in handy to be able to see when storms are coming, their severity and to be able to estimate roughly when it will be on top of you and how long it will be before it passes once is on top of you.

While the GPS with the Weather feature has been great on my outings, I do have a few complaints, which I did make sure Bushnell knew so that they can improve the product.

1. While XM does seem to work during bad weather provided the device is out on the open, it is useless when one is stuck inside a tent while waiting for the rain to stop. The GPS does have a connector to allow peripheral devices to be connected, including an external antenna, but Bushnell does not offer such an antenna. The closest they have is a headset with an antenna, but is not designed to take the role of a real external antenna. Cable is short and because of it being a headset, I don't believe it will be a good idea to leave it out on the rain for any extended periods of time.

2. The cost of extra batteries. Only Bushnell batteries can be used due to their design. These batteries are not cheap to be able to buy a couple of spares, so one has to trade real time info for battery life. Pretty much, to extend battery life, once you get to where you need to be (Camping Ground),turn the unit off and if the sky shows signs of bad weather approaching, turn it on, wait for the XM signal to update the Weather info, then turn it off again.

For me, this has not been a major issue, as turning the device off is what I would have done anyway with any other portable GPS without XM and turned it back on when on the move. Just thought other users may want to be aware of this.

In summary, if you are looking for a portable GPS specific to outdoor activities and would like to keep an eye on severe weather, this is a GPS for you.

If you want to use it as an MP3 player or for urban door to door navigation...

Have you looked at Tom Tom or Garmin?

Build
The first time I picked up the unit, it felt very natural in my hand. The construction was solid. The rubberized back and glassy front were a nice contrast. The first thing that popped into my head was that this was a military grade device. The bulbous head which houses the antennae and protruding battery pack were pronounced, but had a natural feel to it. After holding it a few times, the unit fell into my hand with my trigger finger wrapping around the battery pack while my thumb held the unit securely in place. It is very easy to navigate with only one hand.
Although I never plan on submerging it, I can see how the waterproofing can come in handy especially in navigating in the rain or getting to a favorite duck hunting spot. I have wiped it clean with a moist towel and there were no problems as expected.
The top access panel houses the port to the external antennae. This is used to connect headphones or more commonly an auxiliary cable from your car radio. The bottom port is used to connect a mini usb port and to charge the unit. Unfortunately the bottom port does not have a swinging hinge like the top port so any day now I will lose the plastic connector that must be removed to recharge the unit.
Grade: A-
Comments:
* It did feel very comfortable in my hand, but it is on the large side
* Including a protective plastic screen cover would be nice. I can see the screen getting scratched with continuous use
* The bottom port cover is easily lost

Buttons and Function Navigation
When navigating, the screen is far enough away from the controls, so there is no screen blocking when moving around the controls. I like how there aren't too many buttons to get confused with. It took me a while to figure out that certain buttons needed to be held down to activate, but once I did, it was a breeze.
Switching between topographical maps and aerial views was easy. The scrolling function on the map was too slow though. It should have an increasing rate of scroll as you hold the button down. This is important if you're semi lost or choosing between a Y in the road. If you want to see a mile to the east, it takes quite a while to scroll that way.
All of the buttons feel good and are easy to reach.
Grade: A
Comments:
* Easy to use
* Not cluttered

Satellites
As the directions note, it takes one or two minutes to acquire satellite locks. I commonly see 8-12 satellites once everything goes green and locks. It is very clear once the unit locks on as the satellites turn green and your exact location and altitude are displayed.

Geocaching
I am a novice geocacher, but when I entered the coordinates of 3 caches, I was able to find one. What I didn't realize is that besides entering the coordinates, you should also read the description and hints which would've made me three for three. There is a geocaching mode or set of settings which I didn't look too deep into. I believe that other GPS systems have a true geocaching mode with logging and cache maintenance. I'm not sure how important that would be for a casual cacher as myself.
Grade: B
Comments:
* It seemed to work fine

Off-Roading/Trails
This was my most anticipated use for the GPS. I recently bought an off-road capable truck as well as a guide for off-road trails in my area. These trails were very detailed and also included GPS waypoints for each trail. Since many of these back country roads are poorly marked, GPS waypoints are vital. I set the waypoints for each trail. It was nice to be able to have long names for these waypoints. For example, I can name 01 Switzerland Trail through 05 Switzerland Trail and then connect them all by using the route feature.
The aerial maps were a big help for off-roading as well. When there was a fork in the road, the aerial view showed me which way each trail went. I could then either follow to my waypoint or compare the coutours of the roads to the maps drawn in the book.
I could have used a louder beep when the way point was reached, but there may be a setting that I missed.
The downside was that my book listed coordinates in days, hours and minutes, while the Bushenell GPS companion required the coordinates to be input as decimal hours. I had to go online and convert all of my waypoints into the appropriate format before I entered them into the GPS. This can be very time consuming. There should be a feature to switch between the three coordinate types.
Grade: B+
Comments:
* Creating waypoints and linking them together was easy
* I need to see if I can increase the volume for waypoint arrival

Car Driving
Although this unit is not designed to be a driving direction assistant, it does have major roads on the base map. With the aerial view downloaded and overlaid, it can be helpful when driving in unfamiliar areas. The car mount would be needed so I don't have to look down at the screen.
Initially I was disappointed to hear that there was not a rooftop car antennae adaptor so I figured it couldn't be used inside a car. Although it is marketed as a handheld hiking and hunting device, it would be helpful to have an external antennae so that driving to a favorite hunting or hiking spot would be easy. More importantly for me is driving on off-road trails. Luckily I found that if the satellites were acquired outside of the car and I placed the unit on the dash, it would keep locked about 90% of the time. If I lost a signal, I would push it forward on the dash.
Grade: B
Comments:
* Not its primary function, but works well enough
* Need an external antennae

Maps
I do like the idea of downloading individual maps, but as I begun to do more of it, I found it to be a pain and tended to be quite expensive. Other models offer entire regions for hundreds of dollars, whereas this unit had the ability to only purchase what was needed. I bought $25 worth which equates to 25 map sections.
From what I can tell, not all areas have L2 and L1 maps, but it still allowed me to purchase them. On average, an off-road trail will take about 8 sections of L1 maps due to the meandering of the trail. Combine that with both topographical and aerial views and its $16 per trail. There are dozens of trails in the area so that can add up. Alternatively if I could download all of Clear Creek County for $40 that would be a bargain and save me a significant amount of time downloading and transferring maps.
Grade: C
Comments:
* Too expensive for downloading a lot of maps
* Relatively cumbersome

Firmware Upgrades
The upgrade process was fairly painless. My unit was a bit outdated and it took about 5-7 minutes to update it. With the update came a newer base map which was more detailed as well as some minor tweaks to the software. All that needed to be done was a two step process of dragging and dropping certain firmware files into the proper directories on the unit while it was connected via the usb cable. Although I was told it was normal, during the upgrade the screen flickered quite a bit which can be disconcerting.

Overall, the Onix 400 is a big clunky GPS with user-unfriendly software and procedures. As a GPS it falls far behind Garmin. As a radio, you'd do better with a $4 Walmart special. Getting weather at home is better with a Blackberry or Accuweather. In combination, however, the Onix 400 can provide a combination of information I haven't seen anywhere else.

I have some experience with GPS as a pilot and as a biker. Plus I like to hike and ski and I have used my Garmin Edge 305 in all of these settings. (I have an old Garmin 150 in my plane that I still like.) I like Garmin for all of the varied purposes because it seems to adapt well, but I was intrigued by Bushnell's integration of weather through XM. Also, the idea of being able to hear satellite radio in the middle of nowhere was pretty inviting.

Anyway, I bought the Bushnell Onix 400 as an Xmas gift to myself and began to play with it. Overall, it needs a lot of improvement. Compared to Garmin, some of the GPS functions and the software are back in the dinosaur period.

First, the good stuff:

I really like the combined navigation, direction, breadcrumbs, radio, weather window. This is much like a "glass cockpit" where you can see a lot of information all at one time. The fact that weather radar overlays on current location is great and a cost savings. The compass moves, keeping north at north. The GPS seems sensitive and holds onto the GPS signal. The ability to customize windows also helps. It feels rugged. It's easy to charge and I've bought a car charger for the times I'm driving to nowhere. The graphics on the trails are good and clear.

Problems: (Many)

1. Setting up the system is horrible. Unlike a Garmin, this system isn't very intuitive. You have to flip through a million windows and have to read the instructions ten times. Even then, if you forget, you have to go back and reopen the manual.

2. Downloading maps is a pain, expensive and doesn't seem to work until the 7th or 8th try. The website instructions are cumbersome and require a lot of dragging files. For every step, there are 10 possible mistakes and I think I made them all trying to find the right combination.

3. When downloading, each mistake takes you back to the start, meaning you have to start over from scratch, trying to locate a ten mile square on the map of the US. It's even more cumbersome.

4. Or then again, signing up for XM radio and XM weather could be a trial by fire. I have XM in my car, and so I was "eligible" for discounts. But all I wanted was XM Weather. I had to buy the stations, for $130 a year. Then I was told I would receive a discount for the weather, making it only an extra $4 a month, but I had to go through another telephone number to actually have it downloaded. I had to wait on line for half an hour (due to unusual volume at Xmas). I couldn't sign up on-line --- which of course makes no sense if the only requirement is my credit car and sending a signal. Then I was told that it would actually cost $10 a month and there was no discount. In other words, it all now costs me $250 a year to know if it's going to rain where I am. I'm trying to get this straightened out with XM.

5. The PC Companion is difficult to use. It isn't responsive; it also isn't intuitive or user-friendly. Again, a mistake requires you to go back to the beginning, which I've discovered is in the Atlantic Ocean at longitude 0. Sometimes I found when I pressed a trail, I ended up in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It's curious.

6. Once I actually started using the Onix 400, I found that while it was easy to follow the cursor, it was difficult to flip back and forth to end trails and start new ones. Some disappeared. I found myself pressing one window, then a sub-window, then the hot-button, then finally anything that seemed right. I'm sure I made some mistake, but I didn't discover the mistakes until later, after I lost the very information I wanted to save. I couldn't record my trail, as Garmin easily allows (so long as I don't affirmative erase the information).

7. While the unit is supposed to be somewhat waterproof, the cover on the internet access and charging port falls off with a gentle shake. I had two of them. Now the unit is no longer waterproof. I temporarily fixed the problem with duct tape, but it would be an easier fix by Bushnell by doing (again) what Garmin every camera maker does: put on a permanent port. For something so clunky, the losable cover defeats all of the other efforts at making water resistant. I have a tough time believing that the engineers didn't think this through better.

8. Getting access to the radio is far more difficult than I imagined. Outside, walking, it's erratic at best. In the car, it's also erratic. In the plane, it works only if I hold it to a window. The weather function seems to do better. Bushnell needs to provide an extended antenna that can pick up both GPS and XM.

9. Unlike Garmin, you can't measure the distance traveled. And you can't calculate grade. This seems like such an obvious feature for this type of GPS, again I can't believe the engineers didn't consider it.

In short, I think the Bushnell Onix 400 is ok, but not great. The folks at Bushnell need to learn from the other GPS manufacturers, especially Garmin, how to make things simpler and easier to use. Bushnell has a great idea, but the product needs a lot of work. Bushnell Onix400 GPS XM Receiver

[...]

Mostly there are cons about this unit:

The biggest con is that this unit uses a proprietary format for image overlays (aerial as they call it), tracks/trails and topo maps (which are open to public use in electronic form from the USGS). None of the formats is documented. Looking at the image format, it appears to be a modified JPEG EXIF format with some header information removed and some other proprietary data used at the begining of the file. There is no other software that I have found that can create or upload information to the unit besides the accompanying software, which doesn't load popular formats for trails/tracks. This leaves you to manually input waypoints. Supposedly GPSBabel is working on the format but the last post I saw about it was months old.
Aquisition of satellites is comparatively slow to popular car GPS models
The lower cover that goes over the charging and USB ports is not attached. I lost it after two days. Is the unit weather proof now?
The unit shipped with the ear phone cover/insert out of the jack and I have not been able to get it in the jack. Weather proof?? It is attached to the casing though, wonder why they didn't do it for the charging/usb ports.
The charging port uses some sort of proprietary connector rather than some standard DC connector. It cannot be charged from the USB port. So, solar charging without an inverter is not an option (that I am aware of certainly).
The electronic compass doesn't seem to work at all. If you turn around in place, the compass needle will turn in all sorts of directions.
The USB rate is incredibly slow. It took maybe a half hour to load the firmware update. Interestingly, a portion (part 1 of 2) of the firmware available on their website is older than my unit's firmware.
When you "safely remove hardware" in windows, the unit still thinks its connected and leaves up a do not disconnect screen. If you try to shut the unit off at this point, it just gets hung with a "shutting down" message. So far, the only thing I can do is remove the power cord and battery to get it back into normal operating mode.

The software is horrendous.. It amazes me when someone can design a fairly complicated piece of equipment and then put out such horrible software which is comparatively simple to implement. If you can't make good software, at least publish the file specs so others can create useful software for the device. In this case the bean counters were obviously intent on selling maps rather than a quality device and software. The help menu only has a typical "About.." item. There are folders for overlays, topos and trails but no menu option to add any of those items. The only thing you can do is manually enter way points.

The only good point I can speak to at this point is that the battery seems to last fairly long and the device itself is easy to use. I had it on in GPS mode, no XM, no other power saving, with backlight on and it stayed on most of the day. I suspect it will work significantly longer in the "Safe Track" mode. Although, I have tried it in safe track and found that, at least in a car, when the unit is turned on, it still takes some time to figure out where it is. I thought the whole point of Safe Track mode was that it was supposed to stay aquired without using much battery.

My only hope is that myself or someone at GPSBabel will be able to bring out the true capability of this hardware.

**Edit 5/3/2010
Just now I am figuring out that this unit does not automatically display overlays (topo or aerial) for your current location. You can only pick an image, by filename, at which point the cursor location goes to wherever the location of that image is. So if you happen to be on a hike without a pre-programmed route and you want to explore the trails in your vicinity, you better have images that are labeled/named with the bounding coordinates. Even my cheapo tom-tom can display overlays in my current location. This is a sad product and it amazes me that Bushnell continues to sell it.

This is an overall great unit for what I use it for. I don't use the XM or Weather functionality yet but I will in the near future when I start using it on my kayak for ocean fishing. I give it 4 stars simply because I don't know how XM and Weather work yet. For everything else it's 5 stars all the way. (For outdoor activity use. I wouldn't use it for road navigation.)

I've used this for Geo Caching, Hiking, Hunting,and Kayaking and so far it works great. The aerial maps from Bushnell are very detailed and provide a great perspective on the land around you. The downfall is that you must purchase the maps only from Bushnell. Not a big deal overall but they are a bit tricky to download initially. Once you learn how to do it it's not bad. The ability to customize the display and layer maps and info on top of each other is awesome. Additionally, its very comfortable in your hand and has one of the largest display screens available for a hand held GPS.

A minor inconvenience is that you must use the proprietary battery that comes with the unit rather than generic AA's. This hasn't been an issue for me since the battery life is quite long with the Lithium rechargable battery supplied and I haven't been able to deplete it yet with over 8 hours of continuous use on most days. I recommend using the battery saver function of the unit if you really want to get long length out of it, it greatly improves the amount of time you have. I plan on buying an additional battery in the near future for longer trips and for ensuring I have enough juice for the weather function when I'm out in the Gulf of Mexico. They are availabe both directly from Bushnell for $44 and also on Amazon for around $34.

For Geo caching it's a good unit once you load in the locations, however, you have to manually enter each one. If you want something specifically for Geo Caching there are other units with more specialized downloading ability and you will probably be happier with them.

Overall, I love this GPS and will be loyal to Bushnell for a long time because of it.

(If you get one you may want to ensure you get a "Gen 2" version if it's available. It has everything the 'Gen 1" does but also includes a function that shows peak fishing and hunting times.)

(Also- If you don't need the XM or Weather functionality I'd look at the Onix 350 since it's much less expensive but with all the other features of the 400.)

Great GPS unit! The ability to show either base, arial, and topo maps is really nice. With the XM functionality, you can see weather coming in on the radar, as well as 5 day forecasts. It takes a little time to learn how to download and manage the maps but once you get it down, it's a piece of cake. We use it while camping/hiking/fishing. It really comes in handy to have the arial views when you're visiting new parks. It helps to scout out new camping or fishing areas. The XM radio functionality is a nice extra but tends to eat the battery a little quicker.

This unit may or may not end up being useful, but the getting started curve is way too high.

First, it is not Mac compatible. If you plug the USB port into a Mac, it won't recognize or mount it. The internal memory is an SD card, so you could probably plug it into an outboard SD card reader; I haven't tried that, not having a reader handy. The product box and literature doesn't say "PC Only" anywhere that I saw.

Second, the map download interface is clumsy and simply doesn't work. You outline a map area, save it to some kind of browser pseudo-folder, drag that into a download box, and click download. Nothing happens. You then read the on-line help, which says to turn off popup blocking. Do it all again, and you'll get a popup telling you to please select some sort of directory first. (And it suggests the wrong one, if you're running Vista or WIn7.) And that's it. Poof. No download, no files, no place to select directories, nothing. (This is using Firefox, I refuse to use IE for simple web browsing.) And, just to piss you off, the "Contact Us" emailer from the downloader page produces a "no such email address" message after you've typed in your message and clicked send.

The unit itself seems a bit slow, and responds erratically to the arrow buttons; sometimes the left and right buttons don't seem to work. The battery life seems poor, I ran it down halfway just playing with it for an hour.

So far, it's been a dud.

Pros:
- comfortable to hold
- rugged construction
- nice large display screen
- display is bright enough to see in the sunlight.

Cons:
- Not waterproof: rubber port cover falls off and will get lost eventually.
- Not standard format. You must manually enter trails and waypoints, as it is not compatible with any of the major GPS formats.
- Inaccurate. On a recent hike, the GPS unit says the river is about 1 mile away. I was standing on the riverbank at the time.
- Useless basemap. The map this item ships with is absolutely useless. Only low-res maps with major highways and large waterways are included. No side streets, no creeks and streams, no landmarks.
- Proprietary EXPENSIVE maps you must purchase. Again, it is not compatible with any of the major standard formats; you must purchase maps from Bushnell's Web site. And they're pretty expensive: $1 for
a 10km x 10km map.
- Software is abysmal. The proprietary software that comes with the unit is extremely non-user-friendly, and seems to be about 5-10 years behind technology-wise. The Web site is just as bad. I was never able to successfully download a map.
- Unit occasionally does not shut down, and requires a hard-reset by removing the battery.

My verdict: Fail. The XM functionality is a neat add-on, but the device does not fulfill it's primary purpose (navigation), so you're basically just stuck with an expensive radio.

I am thoroughly disappointed with this product. The software for use with a PC is difficult to use and understand, and instructions are not helpful. To make this unit useable, you must purchase and download maps- well, my unit goes into a coma and will not respond at all unless I remove the battery. It does show position well, but is hard to navigate with the controls. About all I can get it to do is show me an aerial photo of the Washington monument. It is huge. All of the efforts they took to make it waterproof were a waste because the headphone jack and data port openings have near useless and ineffective caps. After having owned a Garmin etrex legend, it would be hard to imagine a more cumbersome, difficult to use, USELESS and expensive piece of garbage. In addition to making a great Ping Pong paddle, I think it would be a great target for sighting in a rifle.

I have no idea how well the ONX 400 device functions. I found that the documentation to be poor at best. My major problem has been my inability to download maps to use with it. I have found Bushnell's GPS web site to be clunky, poor quality. You go through the download process and my system hangs and I do not get the maps. When you try to email for help using the website I get an error saying the bushenell email address is bad. So far this product has been a waste of time and money.