Garmin Oregon 300

I use a 400t and I am happy about some things, yet not others. Many features of the 300 are similar so I will comment on a couple of my dislikes. I got the 400t as a replacement for a Magellan eXplorist 500. The Garmin interfaces with my mapping programs much more readily and stores 1000 waypoints compared the explorists 500 points. A big drawback is that the 400t only offers 1 file for waypoints. The explorist allowed multiple waypoint files to be saved to the SD card and then selected from the unit. Dont know why garmin does not support this. The 400t allows zoom to 20' compared to 100" on my explorist, but the backlight absolutely sucks on the 400t. The other complaint I have on the 400t is the inability of the cursor to track accurately at slow walking speeds. The cursor does not orient in the proper direction, and forget about using the track up feature at very low speeds, as it will never orient properly. I think garmin needs to address some things to make this a great unit worthy of its price tag.

Great unit... except, as mentioned the back light sucks, very hard to see in bright sunlight, the battery life is terrible, you will have to invest in some 2650 mAh rechargeable batteries to get some decent use time for things like caching.

BTW, I put multiple .gpx files consisting of up to 2000 waypoints (caches) on the card and the 300 reads them without problems, just a bit slower.

The paperless caching is awesome.

Latest update, a few new features added:
http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4571#...

Sorry about the long link.

There is no way to switch between multiple files though.. Is there????

You are correct, No you can't switch between files, they are all loaded at the same time.
The way I use the multiple files is to change the .gpx to .gp so it only reads the files for the area that I need at that time and ignores the others.

I have version 3.20 in my Oregon 300.
Except for the back light it is working good for now.

I've had my 300 since January. Love it! The backlight issue isn't all that some people make it to be. Adjust the angle and I can see it fine. I have the Garmin 24K Topo map for my area loaded and it works great.

Anyone have any comparisons with a GPSMAP 76 series?

I cant find a cash with my new GPS Oregon 300.
I must be doing somthing deferent?????

Got the 300 and love it. My backlight seems to be all right even in direct sunlight. I would rather give up my 755 than the 300.

Speedy,

Can you provide details of how to do this? I have contacted Garmin and they say that the maximum number of waypoints possible is 1000. Can you write the .gpx file to the card in the 300 and then edit the file extension without connecting to a computer?

Regards ...

The number of Geocaches that can be stored on the unit is separate from the number of Waypoints that can be stored.

http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Geocaching#FAQ-GC4.%29%20...

GC4.) How many geocaches can I load onto my Garmin Oregon?

The Oregon 300 and 400 support up to a maximum of 2000 geocaches (in addition to the 1000 waypoint limit). The Oregon 450 and 550 support up to 5000 geocaches. All Oregons support a maximum of 200 gpx files. If you exceed either the geocache limit or the file limit the Oregon will warn you. If you exceed either limit, caches will be omitted from your Geocache list and it is not predicable as to which caches will be dropped.

GC5.) Can the Garmin Oregon load geocaches from multiple gpx files? Is there a limit?

Yes, but there is a limit of 200 gpx files. If the gpx files are overlapping (i.e. contain the same cache) then only one instance of the cache will show up on the Oregon.