The Explorer
2nd March 2008, 10:36 AM
Ok - Received Colorado 300 (C300) a few days ago (purchased from US) - can't say Ive got it complety sussed out but getting there. I have a Garmin 60Cx as well so any comments relating to a comparison refer to this unit. Note: some comments are purely my personal opinion - others users may have different thoughts.
Screen: C300 is about 1cm longer and 2mm wider that 60cx
C300 appears to be clearer to look at. Maps are displayed in different colours/shades and IMO are presented better on the C300
Weight: C300 is 5 grams heavier that 60cx
Size: About 1.5cm shorter than 60cx due to smaller aerial protusion from top of unit.
Basemap: The unit has a worldwide basemap and despite being from US has all main cities and major regional towns in addition to main highways and some side roads for all of Australia. Established in first 15 minutes that the data used to create the roads on the basemap is at least 15 years old as the main highway past my house was not shown. No big deal as I will be using city Navigator and OzTopoV2 anyway. The basemap has shaded elevation (DEM) and gives you a broad idea of terrain in general area. Not much use where I am as it is relatively flat. Looks good in hilly/mountianous terrain.
Other Maps: Other maps load in usual fashion. Unit has ~384 MB. This in addition to the SD card slot means no shortage of memory.
Data storage: Still figuring this out - unit acts like an external memory device in similar fashion to the Magellan eXplorists. Interfaces with Mapsource with no problems, though waypoint/track managment is different to any I have encountered before.
Waypoints and Tracks are all automatically saved to a combined GPX file called current.gpx. Any waypoints or tracks you create when usung GPS in the field go here as one file. If you send a waypoint or track to the GPS from mapsource it goes into a file called temp.gpx. When you disconnect GPS from PC and turn it on Waypoints in the temp.gpx file are combined with the current.gpx file and all your waypoints displayed on the GPS map screen. Tracks sent from mapsource appear to be saved to a seperate file called saved.gpx in a new folder called Garmin/GPX/Archived. The contents of this file can then be displayed by using the Where To menu.
If you use OziExplorer you just use the SAVE - Export to GPX file function to send waypoints - if you wish to combine them with existing data save as Temp.gpx in the Garmin/GPX folder and they will be combined with existing data (in Garmin/GPX/Currrent folder)when unit started. The Colorado doesnt appear to recognise gpx track files created in OziExplorer. To get them to work I had to reopen them in Mapsource and send.
Will add to this as time goes on.
Greg
Screen: C300 is about 1cm longer and 2mm wider that 60cx
C300 appears to be clearer to look at. Maps are displayed in different colours/shades and IMO are presented better on the C300
Weight: C300 is 5 grams heavier that 60cx
Size: About 1.5cm shorter than 60cx due to smaller aerial protusion from top of unit.
Basemap: The unit has a worldwide basemap and despite being from US has all main cities and major regional towns in addition to main highways and some side roads for all of Australia. Established in first 15 minutes that the data used to create the roads on the basemap is at least 15 years old as the main highway past my house was not shown. No big deal as I will be using city Navigator and OzTopoV2 anyway. The basemap has shaded elevation (DEM) and gives you a broad idea of terrain in general area. Not much use where I am as it is relatively flat. Looks good in hilly/mountianous terrain.
Other Maps: Other maps load in usual fashion. Unit has ~384 MB. This in addition to the SD card slot means no shortage of memory.
Data storage: Still figuring this out - unit acts like an external memory device in similar fashion to the Magellan eXplorists. Interfaces with Mapsource with no problems, though waypoint/track managment is different to any I have encountered before.
Waypoints and Tracks are all automatically saved to a combined GPX file called current.gpx. Any waypoints or tracks you create when usung GPS in the field go here as one file. If you send a waypoint or track to the GPS from mapsource it goes into a file called temp.gpx. When you disconnect GPS from PC and turn it on Waypoints in the temp.gpx file are combined with the current.gpx file and all your waypoints displayed on the GPS map screen. Tracks sent from mapsource appear to be saved to a seperate file called saved.gpx in a new folder called Garmin/GPX/Archived. The contents of this file can then be displayed by using the Where To menu.
If you use OziExplorer you just use the SAVE - Export to GPX file function to send waypoints - if you wish to combine them with existing data save as Temp.gpx in the Garmin/GPX folder and they will be combined with existing data (in Garmin/GPX/Currrent folder)when unit started. The Colorado doesnt appear to recognise gpx track files created in OziExplorer. To get them to work I had to reopen them in Mapsource and send.
Will add to this as time goes on.
Greg