Oregon 200 Review

I've had alot of questions about the Oregon 200 over the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the unit.

As my personal weapon of choice, all I can say is "I LOVE IT". The Oregon 200 has revolutionised our caching thanks to its 'paperless geocaching'. How accurate is it? Well, on saturday this week we hit up Oberon. And by hit up, I mean we did 42 regular caches in a day! We had no problems with accuracy (apart from the usual toing and froing that goes on in a hunt!) and found all 42 caches. It would have been 44, but the other 2 had been muggled!

The only thing that took a bit of getting used to is the distance to cache vs the accuracy. I recommend having these next to each other. Basically, I find that if the distance says 4m and the accuracy is approximately 4m then you can bet that you're practically standing on it.

The touchscreen interface is awesome, it's smooth and intuitive. Once you've installed some quality maps such as Shonky, Open Street Maps & Contours, you'll have all the info you need for even the most difficult hunt. In honesty, I've tried the colorado and the interface is quite clunky in comparison.

The main difference between the 200 and the 300 is the electronic compass and altimiter. Are these important? Most cachers I've spoken to turn these off anyway. So in a word, no! The 300 has more memory, but frankly pop a 4gb SDHC card into either unit and you won't know the difference.

The 300 is still a serious upgrade, but comes with a seriously increased price tag.

Why is the unit discontinued by Garmin?
Usually when you think of a product being discontinued, you think it's because its faulty or out of date. This is not true in this case, Garmin Australia made the decision to drop the Oregon 200 and the Colorado 400c simply to make way for their new range coming out in the next 12 months or so. This was a decision from Garmin Australia only and not worldwide. The unit still has the same warranty, the same parts are available and it's still receiving updates like all the other units.

The difference? It can be had for a STEAL of only $399 including a screen protector, 2gb memory card and a DVD containing all the free maps you could ever use!

Aaron's rating?
Interface: 10/10
Stability: 8/10
Accuracy: 8/10
Value for money: 11/10

Track-a-Bears on their way!

Also, just letting you know that the next shipment of 200 Track-a-Bears are on their way. We're expecting delivery sometime in the next 2 weeks, so you can start ordering these again.

We've lost track of the number of great emails we've received from people who loved these great aussie trackables.

Stay tuned for our new Aussie products coming soon!

New Coins & Restocked items

The post arrived!

Just a quick post to let you know we've just restocked on heaps of items and added some beautiful new trackable coins!

Our next Groundspeak order will be made in about 3 weeks time, our next coin orders in about 4 weeks. Don't forget if there's a coin or pin you really want, we'll get it in for you.

Please keep in mind, we're just a small store run from our house, we can't afford to keep thousands of dollars of stock, so we do what we can. Sometimes there are delays with special order and preorder items.

At the end of the day, we're running this store as a hobby, so try to remember that when there are delays! ;)