Oregon Scientific RA123 Handheld Altimeter and Digital Compass

I just now got it and haven't had it out on the trails yet, so my present 3 stars could go one way or the other once I have used it a couple of times. But first off, how could a bunch of people sit down designing a thing that will be taken out in the woods along a trail and come up with a battery cover that requires removal of 4 tiny (really tiny!!) screws with a fine point phillps screw driver. Why wouldn't they have sensibly closed the batteries in with a snap-off, snap-on cover as with my Garmin GPS. Just imagine being out in the forest with low batteries and in removing and replacing the teeny tiny screws one or more of them falls into the ground cover and is/are forever lost. Second off, the icons across the top are halfway hidden under a black border surrounding the display area. And third off, as other reviewers have noted, why in the world would a design team come up with a thing powered by batteries that never shuts itself off. I am hopeful that it functions well once I trail test it a couple of times. Stay tuned!

I bought the RA123 just before leaving for a 21 day kayak trip. I give this a 1-rating for the clip & alarm clock. The rest of it is trash, not even the temperature was accurate and was sent back to Amazon this week even though I had gone past the 30day return. They gave me a partial refund which I happily take over a $60 digital alarm. I set it to Sea Level twice (different days & places) and it could not even hold the reading for the day. It might read 15' or 35' above Sea Level and I had not moved and tide had only changed a few feet. The Barometer was worse with the same problem not able to hold a reading. I wanted to calibrate this with my many standard dial Barometer's at home, but there is no option to do that. It does give the option to change the weather icons which just doesn't make sense to me. Instructions are not at all helpful for me and after the trip I wrote and asked Oregon Scientific if they thought it might be defective. They answered with "the unit has to calibrated each time it is used. Since the unit is always on, I took the answer as "we got your money, don't bother us". I had originally wanted this for the barometer and had picked this model over a competitor because Oregon Scientific states their's gives a 12-to-24-hour advanced forecast. I took this to mean you might be able to toggle between or see two readings. Not even. One barometer reading that never seemed to give me a sense it was later that day, or week or whatever. I had taken one of my standard dial barometer's and was lucky I did. But the alarm clock worked!

I bought this and the altimeter and compass function is ok. I will say 70% accurate. The compass goes out of calibration pretty much every time you use it. The altimeter has to be calibrated every time before you use it as well.

There are lots of bad reviews of this. Yes it is not perfect on altitude but it's pretty damn close. I bought a couple of these for my wife and I when Eddie Bauer sold them and they lasted a couple of years. One went in the wash the other slid down a hill with me on top or they would probably still be working. If you set these at the trailhead they are pretty close on altitude. If you want perfection then go pay a couple hundred dollars for a good one. They are a great buy for the price

I picked this up before we went on a family vacation -- where are travels took us through coastal regions, hill country and the Rockies. Wow! It was fun for us all. I will probably share this handheld altimeter with my extended family.

This is an all around unit just perfect for the hiker,hunter,search and rescue type of person. All of the emergency information one would need. can hang it from beltlop,or a tab on backpack.

I bought the RA123 for a family roadtrip to Colorado. We carried it everywhere and had fun using it to check our altitude. It is important to remember that the pressure altitude displayed by the RA123 will differ from the actual measured altitude because of weather related variations in atmospheric pressure. It seems a bit heavy to carry on backpacking trips.

This altimeter doesn't turn off and the battery died too quickly. Plus, the reading was different from signage on the road. We haven't replaced the batteries and it is now just taking up space in the glove compartment of the car.