Garmin Oregon series: 300 or 400t ?

Hi everybody,

I am planning to buy a Garmin Oregon next month but I have a couple of
questions regarding the two models above: looking at tables the only 2
differences between the 300 and the 400t are:
1) 300 has an internal memory of 800 MB, whereas 400t has 4 GB
2) 300 comes with no pre-installed maps whereas 400t has some sort of
TOPO maps preinstalled (although several reviewers keep saying that
the preinstalled maps are old, inaccurate, and not comparable to the
City Maps or the regional TOPO you can buy apart)

Now, considering the difference in price (around 100 $) between the
two models, and that probably I will never use the pre-installed maps
on 400t (because of their inaccuracy) here are the questions:
1) How much important (in your opinion) is to have huge internal
memory, since I could put all the Maps on external Micro-SDs and plug
in those ?
2) Might I use the 800 MB of 300 to store waypoints and routes
internally ? In this case, are 800 MB enough or is anyhow better to
have 4 GB ?
3) The interaction between Micro-SD and internal memory in Garmin
models is not completely clear to me...can I store waypoints and
routes also on Micro-SD ? I other words, what is the advantage of
having more internal memory (I have really no problems with Micro-SD,
IF I can put all maps and personal waypoints on them).

Thank you for any advice !

Diego

Diego B wrote:

Well, if you don't want to put maps on the internal memory it is basically
irrelevant. Other GPS data can be basically ignored when considering size
unless you do _really_ strange stuff.

I personally have the 400t model and what I like about having _two_ large
memory pools is that I can put the maps that rarely change on one medium and
those that frequently change (more detailed, whenever I go to a different
place I put those maps for that area there) on the other one. Since all
maps need to be rewritten on a media if you change the map coverage this
allows me to keep the ones that rarely change on one media while having to
rewrite only the much smaller set of maps that frequently change.


According to the specs you can store a maximum of 1000 waypoints. Typically
one waypoint needs less than 200 bytes of storage. This sums up to 200KB.

According to the specs you can store a maximum of 50 routes. I am currently
nor sure how many segments a route can have but lets assume the maximum is
1000 here as well. One segment needs less than 100 bytes of storage. This
sums up to 5MB.

According to the specs you can store up to 10.000 trackpoints and save 20
tracks (I assume each one with 10.000 points). Each trackpoint uses up
about 100 bytes of storage. This sums up to 21MB.

Summing up waypoints, routes, and tracks gives a maximum used capacity of
less than 30MB. Thus I'd say this should not be a criteria to choose
between the 800MB model and the 4GB model.


I don't know whether you can store other things than maps on the SD card
since I never tried. Taking the limitations above into account makes this
quite irrelevant in my opinion though.

Robert

and
l
o

Yes, I agree with you that having 2 different locations is always
comfortable and can be helpful in
many occasions. Beside, I like your habit to use external SDs for
temporary maps and the internal
for the longer used ones.
The more I consider the matter, the better I like the 400t than
300 : )

Thank you so much for your explanations and for having shared with me
your experience,

Diego

Diego B wrote:

Your better off with either the 60CSx or 76CSx!

Interesting, why better off?

Kees.