Product i received had problem staying up. It abruptly shutdown without warning fewminutes after power up. Amazon sent me a replacement. The replacement fared better But after a couple of days wouldn't work saying "Cannot find system software" OR "Missing system software". I am trying to work it out with the customer support.

The Garmin Colorado is a LONG way from being all that it should be for th price ov over $400.. Read the review if it on BACKPACKINGLIGHTWEIGHT.COM

I STILL haven't got my 300 model's SD card loaded w/ the topo map. Don't use an "Ultra" SD card. Garmin says they don't work well with this unit. It would have been nice if they would have SAID SO on the box or the tiny instruction leaflet so I could have known before I bought one.

Garmin's customer service is helpful but you MUST call them to learn how to use all the features properly. The included instructions are so basic as to be laughable. In short, this may be a good GPS in about a year - after Garmin gets the bugs out.

This replaced my 60csx. The detail on the screen is a big improvement. NIMH battery performance has improved with recent firmware upgrades. The back cover is extremely hard to get on and off. After a couple of weeks of daily use, the back battery seal tore. Garmin support via email (3 day response time) said I had to return it for warranty repair. Instead I took it back to REI and they exchanged it no problem. This happened again and am now on my third one. Now, I never fully close the back cover unless I am in a situation where it could be submersed in water. This has prevented the seal from tearing, and makes the back cover much easier to get on and off. Also you do not have to remove the carabiner to get the cover off with this method. TOPO and City Navigator work great! I recommend this unit but be careful with the back cover!

I have used this GPS on hikes with navigational requirements and just general testing. These are my conclusions after a few calls to Garmin Support and searching GPS forums. The good news is that it is well constructed, has many features. If you buy the city, topo, and marine mapping, you can probably do it all. It has a fairly basic ease of operation (after you get the settings customized). The bad news is that the manual is way too general and if you want to do basic custom setups, you might have to call Tech Support but the unit is so new that even they don't always know the answers (do not e-mail them questions, call instead. Much better support). That's were the GPS forums can come in handy. The problems I have encountered is first and foremost how difficult it can be to view the screen outside (especially topo detail) unless you have the sun shining directly on it. The backlight under low light conditions (shade, early morning hours) outside will not help. The altimeter does not seem to be the most accurate at times and when you have the unit turned off, drive to a new location, turn it on, the altitude can sometimes still read your last location until you recalibrate it. Even with it set to auto calibrate and full satellite bars. NMHI rechargeable batteries do not work well with this unit if you value the backlight. There is a bug in their firmware (hopefully they will get it fixed soon) that will turn the backlight off permanently after a very short time and in some cases, that I have been reading, completely shut the unit off even when the batteries have a full charge. Some people have had problems with the current time not updating even after the GPS has locked into satellites and have been told to return the unit for an exchange, but mine has worked fine. The manual tells you how to access settings but gives no detail as to what the settings mean, leaving you to experiment, dig, accidentally find what you want, or call tech support for even basic things as transferring archived (saved) tracks to your PC, transferring topo map detail, or deleting archived tracks. Some of the things I have mentioned are bugs that will hopefully get resolved with firmware updates but right now, I can only moderately recommend this GPS. It has taken me a lot of time playing with this unit, experimenting, calling tech support, and reading blogs to operate it to my satisfaction (minus the bugs).