Well made some tests. Really disappointing, I must say. Every touch on the screen influences the elevation record, if you use the barometric measurement (Setup=>Altimeter=>Barometer Mode: variable Elevation).
See the two records, exact the same route. Once with the screen left untouched the entire way, the other with 20 touches (10 zoom in, 10 zoom out) at kilometer 2,4,6,8,10. These touches falsify the total ascent/descent heavily, in the shown examples it gives:
Digital Map 1:25000: ascent/descent +94/-73 meters
Oregon 300 untouched: ascent/descent +90/-80 meters
Oregon 300 with touches as described above: ascent/descent +438/-424 meters
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What the hell were these engineers at Garmin thinking?
It's quite a pretty obvious issue that if you build a closed case and retrieve the elevation inside it over a pressure sensor, there is an influence, since the touches on the screen compress the air inside, changing the pressure. It's also no help removing the rubber usb-plug cover, also this does not enable a flow between case inside and the outside.
Would be easy to fix, enabling the case with a kind of pressure "communication" with the outside. Some covered holes would do it, as it was the case on the Edge 305 for example, to take account of this problem. That's an indeed poor performance/design by the Garmin engineering section.
Does this same crap apply to the Dakotas and the new Montanas? Would be hard to believe if this bug had not been recognized when designing the new Montana.
regards
