Customer Reviews

Garmin Oregon 300 Portable GPS System

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read some of the comments about the problems with the Oregon, but I think they were played down. I went from a 60csx to an Oregon 300.

I use my handheld gps for backpacking, day hikes, and street navigation.

Oregon pluses I noticed:
1) 3d view shows elevation even in street mode
2) shaded relief
3) touch screen
4) smaller size
5) screen lock feature is nice
6) sat initial lock is very fast and strong
6) Battery life is pretty good for a touch screen. Lithium batteries will get you about 15 hours.

Oregon negatives:
On the map screen you have the option of two fields or no fields
1)can not flip from screen to screen without exiting to the main menu and then selecting the other screen ( seems like they could just let you slide you finger left or right at the bottom of the screen to go to the next or previous screens. The do basically this on the main menu screen.
2)battery meter does not read correctly
3)car power adapter that is recommended by Garmin is not correct. I has a 90 degree turn that is the wrong way. Works but is not correct.
4)No preview of your pending turn when the system beeps to let you know a turn is coming.
5)If you are on another page other than the map page you get a beep warning that a turn is coming but no preview. You just see the page you are on at that time.
6)should you miss your turn the Oregon is sporadic regarding how fast it will correct your path. Maybe immediately maybe a few blocks, maybe never.
7)Can not manually stop, edit, or recalculate your route from the map screen, you must exit the map screen to the main menu then go to active route screen.
8)Screen is very dim. In full sunlight you can not see the screen to read it. I light cloud cover it is hard to read.
9)Not many search options. With the Garmin 60CSX you can search by almost any criteria you can think of.
10) You can not customize the Oregon much, 60csx you could customize everything.

Bottom line: If you have not had a gps before or you have had a low end unit you will like it. If you have had a high end unit like a Garmin 60csx you will be disappointed.

I returned mine and got another 60csx.

I bought the Garmin Oregon 300 after owning a Garmin eTrex Legend CX for the last year or two. Alhough initially sceptical of the touch screen, it actually works well. I like the menu system too. My main criticism of the Oregon is the fact that the screen (at max brighness) is not nearly as bright as the Legend screen. The Oregon screen is almost invisible in bright light, even when the screen itself is shaded. This is a significant issue in Australia. My other critism is that the customisation of the navigation screen is limited, with one fixed field at the top and only 2 adjustable fields (Legend has up to 4 adjustable fields).

I purchased the Garmin Oregon 300 primarily for hiking and for mountain biking. Recently, I used the hand held in Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park, CO. Reading several reviews, I decided to purchase what I felt was "current" technology rather than spending less money on a unit that has been on the market several years. Here are my observations:
- In most reviews you'll see complaints about mapping software. It is true that the Maps are very expensive, I ended up purchasing two City Navigator and US Topo. I considered the National Parks West mapsource, however as each of these additions are $100 or so it starts to get more expensive than I'd like.
- I felt the US Topo map was "good enough" for my hiking in the National Park. Many of the trails were visible but not much detail on them, but for what I was doing it was OK. I marked each trail head that I was traveling, and used the device to track my travel time, rest time, gain in elevation, and captured my "tracks" for future reference. As I returned from the trail end to the trail head, this gave me a good estimate on ETA, and sunset times.
- The touch screen is a great feature (i do have an iPod Touch and like this interaction).
- The battery life is OK. I purchased the auto charger and be careful that it has an "L" shaped connector that doesn't fit well into the Oregon (It's made for other units). After the fact, I saw reviews that recommend getting a third party charger.
- The size of the device is very good, feels comfortable in the hand. Built very well, seems sturdy.
- The 300 built in base map is not very useful, I'd recommend looking at the others that may include maps that you'd need to purchase built in.
- The menu's are OK, but I've found that the City Navigator is challenging me to route using Freeways, continually wants to route me as the "crow flys".
Overall this is a quality product, however, expensive when you consider the cost of the additional maps. I'm hoping that we can use the US Topo for biking. Our local trail system would be nice to be able to overlay onto the US Topo as well as the snowmobile trails in the eastern Upper Penn.

I received my Oregon with firmware version 2.70. Once I installed the Mapsource software I bought from back in 2003 (Topo) I updated the firmware to version 3.10 (the latest non-beta to date).

Having owned many other GPSrs from Garmin, including the etrex, etrex venture, etrex legend, etrex vista, GPS V, GPS III+, and the GPS 90, I will say that the Oregon is a much welcomed evolution of Garmin's trail line-up. The touch screen is great, not too sensitive, not too resistant. It is resistive not capacitive (iPhone for example is capacitive). Because of this, you need to touch the screen a little harder to input something. Accuracy is on par with most modern GPSrs, about 10-20 feet on average without WAAS. Track reliability and accuracy is good. Little variation or drift that I have noticed, although some people claim that this unit drifts a bit when recording tracks. I have not seen this happen and have been on several 3-4 mile hikes so far.

Satellite lock is incredibly fast with the Oregon! Wow what a difference from my other Garmin gpsrs. By the time the unit boots up and hits the home screen the GPS will have already gained a 3D lock with about 6 satellites or more. First time lock was about 1 minute. Again, very good. Battery life is very good as well with the Oregon. With the compass turned off, WAAS off, battery save on, and backlight at about 40% I am getting about 14 hours with cheapo AA alkalines. The Oregon is said to do better with NIMH rechargeables > 2500 mAH. FYI, compass drain is about 20%, and WAAS is about 5%.

Build quality of the Oregon is one of my favorite selling points. It feels very substantial in the hand, with a very ergonomic, rounded back design and high quality plastics used throughout. The screen is solid with a thin plastic protective layer over it. It is also recessed about 1/8 inch for extra protection. There is only one hard button on the unit, the power button, so this unit should prove to resist wear and tear very well. Overall, very durable design. The battery door is also brand new for Garmin. It has a brushed aluminum latch that locks into the unit. Very nice and secure.

Feature wise, the Oregon is about on par with other GPSrs around this price range. You get full mapping capability, roads, topo, water etc. Screen is high-res. There are 4 data fields available for the map page (Garmin just added this ability in the firmware update). The altimeter works great, records pressure/time, pressure/dist, elevation/time, elevation/dist. It is self-calibrating and has the option of recording pressure with the unit off for weather predictions.

Overall, incredibly pleased with the unit. There are a few quirks with it, such as the mediocre visibility of the screen when not viewed orthogonal to the sun. It is viewable, but difficult to see. This would have been a deal breaker except for the fact that the brightness can always be turned up (does help a lot at the cost of battery life), and the unit can be tilted towards the sun for better viewing (very good visibility in direct sunlight). Also, the battery meter is not accurate. Garmin is working to fix this. As of right now, it is OK, but tends act in a non-linear fashion (first 3 bars go in about 2 hours, then the last bar lasts about 8 hours). Aside from these minor software issues (which will be ironed out with free firmware updates) the GPS is fantastic.

Pros:

+ Outstanding build quality
+ Lots of built-in memory for maps (850 mb)
+ Fits well in the hand
+ Battery life is good
+ Uses AA batteries (no sealed, rechargeables here! Thank god...)
+ High-res screen
+ Super fast satellite locks
+ Accuracy

Cons

- Battery meter is buggy
- Screen visibility is mediocre

I really like the Garmin Oregon 300. However, I bought it knowing it was meant for Trails, Hiking and the like but not for Street Navigation. For Trails and Hiking it is a great unit with a lot of excellent features. I consider it to be a good basic modern (WAAS) GPS unit. The Compass works quite well and is insensitive to angle from the horizon. Other GPS units that I have tried required that the unit be held flat for the compass to work.
The Oregon does not come with any really usable maps so if you are expecting street level navigation, try another unit or buy a car navigation unit. It has a US basemap but this only covers major roads.
One big plus is that the Oregon acquires the satellites quickly and even worked while driving with the unit in my coat pocket.
I plan on using it with a 12v power adapter on an ATV most of the time but also for hiking. If you are going to use it on battery power, make sure you have spare Alkaline batteries with you. As yet, I cannot find a rechargeable NiMh battery that will work, even when you set the unit for NiMh batteries, the gauge reads incorrectly. I am hoping that a software update might fix that problem.
The value of the Oregon 300 depends on what you paid for it. I would not pay over $300 as I don't feel it is worth more than that. The reason is that as sold the Oregon 300 lacks any usable maps but for me that was not an issue as I don't need any additional maps.

The Garmin Oregon 300 GPS picks up satellite signals very quickly. I have even tested the sensitivity by checking for satellite signals while in my basement, without any windows nearby and it still picked up enough satellites to provide coordinates within 15 feet. I took this GPS on a hike in NY and found it to be very easy to use and very accurate. However, the screen is not very bright and not visible in direct sunlight but shading it with your hand allows it to still be usable. My only true disappointment is that I didn't purchase the 400t with the pre-loaded topographical maps. The Oregon 300 can be loaded with these maps but it will cost you another 80 bucks or so. I have seen the 400t on-sale for around 400, which is only 20 bucks more than what I paid for the 300 without the maps. I think the topo maps are what would make this GPS much more useful and if you look around, you can find a good deal on the 400t instead of buying this one.

I have worked with a number of Garmin GPS receivers in my instruction programs. I readed a number of reviews and wanted to provide some comments. The accuracy of the receiver was tested against a Garmin 76 MapC, and Garmin 60Map. The receiver were set side beside for 30 minutes with WASS enabled. The latitude differed .00011 from the 76 and .00005 from the 60, longitude varied .00003 on each model. Hence, I have to reject the reviews that say the Oregon is not as accurate. I did find that when over zoomed the track did not line up exactly with the streets and road background that came with the receiver. When zoomed out, it looked fine. I did find that the EPA error for the Oregon was always about 5 feet higher than the 76 or the 60. It did take a while for the Oregon to get connected to WAAS the first time. After that it worked equally well.
I love the touch screen, it is very intuitive, and would highly recommend it, if you struggle with the menu's on older models. I love the ability to arrange the main menu so you have right what you want on the open screen.
I wished it had the ability to accept an external antenna. I haven't found a way to delete all tracks at one time, and it will not calculate area when you save a track. It does have an area calculations, but you have to us that function and walk the area to get area calulations.
It does not have an external Markway point, so you have to return to the opening screen to create a waypoint. Changing the name and informationon for the way point is greatly improved over the older software. Very simple and straight forward. The ability to average, to create a more accurate location of a waypoint is no longer included in the software.

For those using DNRGarmin, it worked great. The Unit does not come with MapSource, Trips and Waypoints like other Garmin receivers did. I purchased the 300 rather than the 400 because I wanted to be able to load more accurate Topomaps into the receiver. Mapsource worked well in uploading the files.

By turning the backlight on high, I did not have any trouble reading the screen, but that will shorten the battery life slightly.

I have a Rhino 530 and decided to go to the Oregon 300 for the larger screen and a couple other features.
Big mistake! The screen is totally not readable in cold weather! I have used it about 10 times when the tempters have been between 25 and 5 degrees F and the screen just disappears.
Also there have been software problems. I was not able to view more than one track at a time on the screen. I was instructed to update the software and that has created more problems.
One positive point for Garmin, their customer support has tried to be very helpful. My problem now is how do I return a product that will not function in the cold environment where I work and play.

I spent a lot of time reading reviews before I bought this product and do tend to agree with both the plusses and minuses of other reviewers. I have found it to be wonderful for paperless geocaching and very intuitive to use compared to my Garmin Vista. It does go through batteries much faster, and it is harder to read in the sunlight. Seeing the screen isn't a problem when following the compass marker, but reading the small details like the map icons can be somewhat challenging. It says something, though, that this is the unit I chose to use when geocaching even though I stil have my other one.

I actually love my Garmin. This is a handy little gadget and was exactly what I needed in a handheld GPS system.

I bought my Oregon 300 three months ago and have now used it extensively for hiking and traveling on the road. It's portable and easy to use. Based on other reviews, I bought the 300 instead of the 400t, and also purchased a separate Base Camp software DVD with complete West topo maps. The software also allows me to search trails on my laptop, select the portions of the western maps to upload onto my Garmin and transfer waypoints to the device. Base Camp interfaces with Google Earth that is very cool. If you want the flexibility of manipulating maps on your computer, I suggest buying the 300 plus the Base Camp Topo map you'll need, rather than the 400t which doesn't come with a DVD you can install on your computer.

A principle reason for buying the Oregon was to have a GPS system with me while I traveled in France. The Oregon has an automotive mode, and the directions and graphics are very clear. I also bought the France/Benelux MicroSD card map and used the Garmin throughout Paris and the south of France. It was able to navigate me to the tiniest of towns and all throughout the countryside - all without a paper map of any kind. I never would have had the confidence to wander all over random roads without my Garmin. There are no spoken directions, just beeps when you come to a turn, but I have managed to do fine both solo and as a navigator while my husband drove.

I used it in Paris, too, and numerous times it saved me from getting lost in all those narrow winding streets. The Where To feature is very cool. I used it to find my way to museums, monuments, my hotel and metro stops. It sometimes didn't like it when I was in the midst of tall buildings, but then, no handheld GPS system would be flawless under those circumstances.

Other reviewers complained about the brightness (or lack thereof) of the screen. You CAN adjust the brightness, but you will sacrifice battery life. Just reduce the brightness after you don't need the maximum level. With the car charger, brightness is not a problem - the car charger takes it to the max. In the sun, if you hold it at the wrong angle, the screen is dim. Just adjust the position. This is counter-intuitive, but the screen actually is brighter if you angle it toward the sun.

The user guide says you can get up to 14 hours with the battery - yeah, maybe, if you don't use it too much. I bought 3 pairs of rechargeable batteries and always charged them up at night. Sometimes one pair would be enough for all day, and sometimes I would have to switch them in the afternoon. I never went through 3 pair in one day. All in all, I've been quite satisfied with the battery life.

Good product, and fun to use. I recommend it highly.