Geocaching Australia

Mine got delivered today and, without having used it for caching yet, I'm very impressed! (Obviously doesn't take much).

Fits nicely in the hand and the touch screen is as responsive as my iPhone.



Looking forward to putting it through its paces!

I have the Oregon 600 for about a week now, and yes its nice but that Capacitive touch screen is very sensitive so you might need to assign a Toggle Lock screen to user-button to avoid tapping functions when you are navigating or hung around your neck etc..

There seems to be a small bug when updating GGZ files not refreshing the internal list, assuming 650 is running same firmware.

Did I read somewhere that these units can store data for over 2,000,000 geocaches, ie every active GC.com cache on the planet (and the one above it)?

yes theoretically unlimited amount, although I haven't (obviously) tested it out,
but perhaps I will try to dump my whole GSAK DB next week and see how that goes...

mtrax wrote:yes theoretically unlimited amount, although I haven't (obviously) tested it out,
but perhaps I will try to dump my whole GSAK DB next week and see how that goes...

I've got a database of nearly 50,000 (we don't really know where we want to go yet, so I am preparing for all eventualities!) for our upcoming North American trip. It'd be nice to put them all on my unit at once. Maybe I can drop my 400t in the next couple of weeks

allrounder wrote:Mine got delivered today and, without having used it for caching yet, I'm very impressed! (Obviously doesn't take much).

Local supplier? My preferred supplier, Highly Tuned Athletes is not showing stock

Andrew

Aushiker wrote:

allrounder wrote:Mine got delivered today and, without having used it for caching yet, I'm very impressed! (Obviously doesn't take much).

Local supplier? My preferred supplier, Highly Tuned Athletes is not showing stock

Andrew

hmm there prices are not all that good for the Oregon 600, johnny appleseed and cartographics have both got better prices try them

I got mine from Johnny Appleseed

mtrax wrote:

Aushiker wrote:

allrounder wrote:Mine got delivered today and, without having used it for caching yet, I'm very impressed! (Obviously doesn't take much).

Local supplier? My preferred supplier, Highly Tuned Athletes is not showing stock

Andrew

hmm there prices are not all that good for the Oregon 600, johnny appleseed and cartographics have both got better prices try them

Oregon 600 prices that I have found ...

Prestige Communications - best price at $410 delivered
Highly Tuned Athletes $449 express delivery included (no stock but)
Johnny Appleseed $423.40 with delivery ... express? (stock)
Cartographics don't seem to stock the Oregon 600

Given the service and back with hassles with Garmin the pass, I am happy to pay the premium with HTA. I also understand that their pricing may change when they get stock.

That said with the Oregon 650 at Johnny Appleseed for $512.40 this might be the way to go as I then don't need to carry the camera.

Andrew

allrounder wrote:I got mine from Johnny Appleseed

Thanks. Looks like they are only dealer selling them at the moment.

Andrew

Aushiker wrote:

allrounder wrote:I got mine from Johnny Appleseed

Thanks. Looks like they are only dealer selling them at the moment.

Andrew

Personally if you have a smart phone I don't see a reason to buy the 650 vs 600.
Btw cartographics did have some in stock you might want to call them they had a discount for geocachers

mtrax wrote: ...Personally if you have a smart phone I don't see a reason to buy the 650 vs 600.
Btw cartographics did have some in stock you might want to call them they had a discount for geocachers

We now have a 650 as well. One advantage they have over the 600 is that they have double the internal memory.

We noticed that Johnny Appleseed is advertising their stocks of the 650 as "exclusive". Perhaps they bought up all Garmin Australia's first shipment? That doesn't apply to the 600, though, as it seems to be widely available.

We're also about to head off to the US, and have loaded about 20,000 caches (so far) in anticipation. One thing we've noticed is that you can't directly search the whole cache database. The limit seems to be about 180km from your present position. However, you can search around a point on the map to find the more distant ones.

mtrax wrote:I have the Oregon 600 for about a week now, and yes its nice but that Capacitive touch screen is very sensitive so you might need to assign a Toggle Lock screen to user-button to avoid tapping functions when you are navigating or hung around your neck etc..

There is a setting to reduce the screen sensitivity.

Also, there is now a wiki site for the 600 series that is very usefull. See http://garminoregon6xx.wikispaces.com/

maccamob wrote:

mtrax wrote: We're also about to head off to the US, and have loaded about 20,000 caches (so far) in anticipation. .

How are you able to do that? I was under the impression it was limited to 4,000 waypoints unless using Opencaching - Garmin Support

Andrew

mtrax wrote:

Aushiker wrote:Personally if you have a smart phone I don't see a reason to buy the 650 vs 600.

Maybe for metro/car based caching but not so sure for buswalking (days) and bicycle touring which is my preferred caching experience or part of it. I also prefer to do my caching on a bicycle and mix in Waymarking, Munzees, GCA, Opencaching as well as GC.com caches.

That said you have given me an idea at least for metro caching. I am now playing with c:geo (unless there is a better option) to download all I need into c:geo (it treats the non-GC caches as stored waypoints so not seamless integration but close) and will see if I can try out a mount on the deadly treadly. DealExtreme.com have a $6.00 mount that actually gets good reviews. If it works I might spend more dollars on a decent mount with more protection. The only issue for me really is weather and battery life and not being able to use full fingered gloves with it.



I suspect that I will still prefer a GPS for caching outside of the metro area/car. Maybe my good old Garmin 60CSX still has life in it (it can work out why it has suddenly stopped fully booting up) and I can use that. Just not that user friendly compared to today's options.

Andrew