Customer Reviews

Coleman Digital Compass

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am an outdoorsman and would not recommend this for several reasons.

1. It is battery operated with no on/off switch! If in the woods for any period of time you must remove the battery to conserve and then reinsert and recalibrate. Ridiculous. Would be difficult in the rain, snow or very cold temperature or if dropped in the snow.

2.Directions for setting this unit up is very cumbersome and you would have to carry the directions because they are so complicated. If you took battery out to conserve then it would have to be set up and recalibrated everytime. I know I can not remember which button to push and in what sequence.

Plus side is it is easy to read and appears accurate.

We bought two of these for our scouts on an urban engineering challenge. They had never used compasses before, let along digital ones. We showed them how to press the mode button to get to the compass function and to hold it flat. They had absolutely no trouble using them, one of our groups even took first place in the challenge! The only reason I docked the units a star is that it seems silly to have alarm clocks and other functions built in, but not to include a battery saving on-off switch. That said, it is a rather simple matter to insert the battery upside down for long periods of no use.

These compasses are very accurate, easy to read, and well worth the $15 we paid for them. If kids who have never used a compass can take one of these and win an orienteering challenge on their first go, then it serves its purpose well.

Decent product with a few areas for improvement:

1) User Manual hard to follow

2) You can not turn the unit off.

Concur on the complex setup and nearly unreadable instructions. Buttons are laid out and labeled

CLK MODE

ALM SEL

But in the instructions, they're referred to as:

B D

A C

"Press button D to the Compass mode. Press and hold button A to enter calibration mode 'CAL' then press button C to start. The ring will then display and turn."

Of course. Obvious to the meanest intelligence, right? (The best thing? "Button D" actually takes more letters than even MODE. What was the writer thinking? Why did he bother?)

Only a dim, blurry photo relates labels to letters on the instruction sheet.

This is typical of the user interface and the instructions.

Even more important is the lack of both a sight, with which to find the heading to a distant object; and a straightedge, to align with a map.

One star, because no matter how accurate it is, it's useless if it can't be operated or read. I do not care about the other features if the primary one is no good.

I would never never again buy a product such as this. The directions are so complicated and difficult to understand that this product was TOTALLY UNUSABLE AND A TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY. The directions must have been written by a egg-head engineer for another egg-head engineer. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT UNTIL THE DIRECTIONS ARE WRITTEN IN PLAIN ENGLISH FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON -- NOT AN ENGINEER!!