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Garmin Oregon 400C 3” Touchscreen Handheld GPS Unit with BlueChart g2 Coastal Charts
From Garmin

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from and sold by Mountain Gear

3 new or used available from $547.99

Average customer review:

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Manufacturer’s Description (July 11, 2008)
Easy to learn and simple to use, the waterproof Garmin Oregon 400c features a high-sensitivity GPS receiver and preloaded detailed BlueChart g2 coverage for the coastal U.S. and the Bahamas. The chart detail includes shoreline, depth contours, navaids and port plans. It also offers a high-resolution, color 3-inch touchscreen that reacts as you tap or drag through menus and options. With its high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver and HotFix satellite prediction, Oregon 400c locates your position quickly and precisely and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and deep canyons. It’s also equipped with a barometric altimeter and electronic compass, and it’s compatible with Garmin’s heart-rate monitors and speed/cadence sensors.

The Garmin Oregon 400c.

The Oregon 400c lets you customize five profiles–automotive, marine, recreation, fitness or geocaching–making the most beneficial features for each activity the easiest to access through quick shortcuts. The tough, 3-inch color touchscreen display is easy to read even in direct sunlight, and the Oregon’s easy-to-use interface means you’ll spend more time enjoying the outdoors and less time searching for information.

It also plays well with others, allowing for wireless exchange of tracks, waypoints and geocaches between other Oregon units and Garmin Colorado models.

This unit has a built-in electronic compass that provides bearing information even while you’re standing still, and its barometric altimeter tracks changes in pressure to pinpoint your precise altitude. You can even use the altimeter to plot barometric pressure over time, which can help you keep an eye on changing weather conditions.

With the preloaded BlueChart g2 Vision maps, you’ll get aerial reference photography with "real world" photos of ports, harbors, marinas, waterways, navigation landmarks and other points of interest, offering the mariner another powerful tool for navigating unfamiliar waters. The Mariner’s Eye View perspective provides a bird’s eye view from behind the boat showing the chart information for a quick, reliable and easy position fix, while the Fish Eye View 3D perspective provides an underwater view that visually represents the sea floor according to the chart’s information. Auto Guidance technology searches chart data to suggest the best passage to a destination.

Conveniently plug in optional preloaded microSD memory cards for all your outdoor activities on land or water. The card slot is located inside the waterproof battery compartment, so you don’t have to worry about getting it wet. Just insert an optional Garmin MapSource card with detailed street maps, and the Oregon provides turn-by-turn directions to your destination. Add optional topographic maps to take advantage of the Oregon’s 3D map view which gives you a better perspective of your elevation.

Garmin’s HotFix capability automatically calculates and stores satellite locations, greatly reducing satellite acquisition time so that you can turn the unit on and get going. Geocaching is even easier with the Oregon, which quickly downloads online information for every cache, such as location, terrain, difficulty, hints and description, so that you don’t have to tote printouts with you.

Garmin Oregon 400c screenshots.

Features and Specifications

• Preloaded with BlueChart g2 Vision maps
• Built-in 3D DEM (Digital Elevation Model) basemap
• Wireless exchange of user routes, tracks, waypoints, geocaches and images
• MicroSD card slot for optional mapping and data storage
• Track log: 10,000 points, 20 saved tracks
• Electronic compass, barometric altimeter, temperature sensor
• Display: 3-inch color touchscreen with 240 x 400-pixel resolution
• Batteries: Two high-capacity or lithium-ion AA batteries for up to 16 hours of use
• Unit dimensions: 4.5 x 2.3 x 1.4 inches
• Weight: 6.8 ounces with batteries

Customer Reviews

Mariners Don’t be Fooled
This unit might be OK for short trips where you already know where you are going, the touch screen is cool and handy and the chart details are fine.

However, if you want Marine features, read on.

My first clue was the word "Chart" does not appear anywhere in the menu system. That is because this unit is really an outdoor map unit that was adapted for marine use.

Sadly, that means that there are missing features for mariners the most important being chartplotting. Chartplotting is where you drop a series of waypoints on to a chart, make sure there are no obstructions in the way, collectively they are strung together to create a route. It is all done on the chart so you can see details of your route. You can’t create a route in one step on the chart with the Oregon or Colorado series of Garmin Handheld GPS Units.

With the Oregon, first you need to create a series of waypoints, each which should be named so they make sense as to their location. Then go to your menu system and choose another page that contains the list of waypoints, but not where they are on your chart. Choose a series of waypoints to string together as a route and then you can go back to the Map (their name not mine) and inspect your route on the chart to make sure you don’t hit anything.

If that is not enough to convince you, go ahead and buy it. It is a nice toy.

Here is what I suggest instead: NOTE: not as fun as a touch screen but functional and almost 1/2 the price: Lowrance iFinder H20 C GPS (Blue) and NP-USA NAUTIC PATH MAP CHART

Capt. JD
I bought a Colorado 400c in April and loved it, then I saw this a month ago and fell in lust. I accidentaly immediatly ran over my Colorodo with my car (I had bought a protection plan) and it was replaced with the Oregon 400c. This is an absoulutly outstanding product. The touch screen is responcive, readable and bright. I belong to a sail club in Boston for boats 25-45′ so carrying my own charting gps from boat to boat is (for me) manditory. Boston Harbor is loaded with rocks, shoals, flats, shallows, narrow channels and tides ranging 10-12′ and now that I have a month of use behind it I can’t find anything to fault. It’s better than the commercial systems on the ferries I drive. I could vote to make this mandatory on all small boats.