7 weeks hike with the Oregon 700

Discussion related to the Garmin Oregon 7x0 series GPSr
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Plato
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:58 pm

7 weeks hike with the Oregon 700

Unread post by Plato »

I have been hiking for 7 weeks in the Spanish Pyrenees with my Oregon 700 (firmware v3.30), a brief report how it performed:
  • I used the 700 in Classic mode with the latest OSM based Topo Spain/Portugal (Freizeitkarte 1707) and Topo Spain v6).
  • I used it as simple as it can be, no track recording, just checking my location on the map during the day for many times.
  • Normally I would leave the untit turned on for 10-12 hours with the screen turned off. Batteries were charged with a small solar panel (Silva Solar I) on top of my bacpack, only solar power for 7 weeks!
  • I also marked some 100 waypoints.
My observations:
  • Overall the 700 appeared to be very reliable and it replaced my paper maps and compass for 95%.
  • The only spontaneous crash I had was when I was autorouting with City Navigator but that was no surprise for me as this happens at home too occasionally.
  • Battery life is not great (Eneloop 1900mAh), I never use backlight and even with the screen turned off I could use it for max 12 hours. I know the Eneloop 2500 will last a bit longer.
  • Somtimes, after changing batteries, the 700 re-indexes all maps and turns on all of them. If this happens I would have to turn off all maps I don't use again (some are overlapping the same area).
  • Sometimes (it occured about 10 times in 7 weeks) after turning the GPS on and getting a good fix (accuracy 3m) the Location Pointer on the map appeared to be frozen on it's location and direction. Turning the GPS Off/On would solve this. Lock on road is always turned off but even with this option enabled the pointer would move. I never had this issue before at home!
  • I prefer Classic Mode but the Red Pin you get when touching the screen is very annoying! On option to turn it off permanently would be a huge relief Garmin!
  • getting a cold fix in the mountains often took very long! On many occasions it took 1-2 minutes to get a fix, even with no high/steep mountains nearby it often took very long. Even a warm fix took much longer than I expected. The 700 is not getting a fix faster than my old 600.
    I used GPS and also tried GPS+GLONASS but didn't see any differences in fix-time or accuracy. WAAS/EGNOS was off since this is of no use in the mountains.
Last edited by Plato on Sun Oct 29, 2017 6:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
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EddyG
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2017 8:07 am
Location: Rhenen

Re: 7 weeks hike with the Oregon 700

Unread post by EddyG »

The option to turn off the red pin is simple.
On top there is an info area.
In that info area there is a grey 'X', just touch that 'X'
Eddy

Forerunner 305, Edge 305, Colorado 300, Oregon 450, GPSmap 62s, Montana 650, Oregon 600, Oregon 750t
Plato
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: 7 weeks hike with the Oregon 700

Unread post by Plato »

That's not what I meant.
When zooming in/out and panning the screen you always get the red pin if you don't do this very accurately. I constantly get this pin when I don't want it and every time I have to disable it again, very annoying!
I would like to have the option to totally disable the red pin.
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GPSrChive
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Posts: 3881
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:29 pm

Re: 7 weeks hike with the Oregon 700

Unread post by GPSrChive »

Option to disable red pin on map screen added to Feature Requests.

Thank you for your excellent report. It sounds like you had more fun for those 7 weeks than most of us did!
Plato
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: 7 weeks hike with the Oregon 700

Unread post by Plato »

gpsrchive wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 4:28 am It sounds like you had more fun for those 7 weeks than most of us did!
I use Garmin handhelds for more than 15 years now and I am well aware of all sorts of problems that one can experience with them. During this trip I used my 700 in the most basic mode that's possible and I think that's important to realise in relation to reliability. 90% of all 'modern' possibilities that are built in I didn't use! It was the first time in my hiking-life that I left all those paper maps and my compass at home!

I added one more point to my list of observations:
  • getting a cold fix in the mountains often took very long! On many occasions it took 1-2 minutes to get a fix, even with no high/steep mountains nearby it often took very long. Even a warm fix took much longer than I expected. The 700 is not getting a fix faster than my old 600.
    I used GPS and also tried GPS+GLONASS but didn't see any differences in fix-time or accuracy. WAAS/EGNOS was off since this is of no use in the mountains.
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