Sounds like a salespersons's smooth talking about GPS' capabilities in general versus the "fine print" on the actual product itself.
It's probably also partially design-meets-the-real-world.
Personally, even if they said 10' or 100' or 300', or some time period I would normally assume that there was a good chance that real world performance would not match, both for technical and human reasons.
The good part is that it did work.
FWIW, it's nice to see a lessens learned from an actual SURVIVOR. It's also nice to see he survived because he planned ahead.
I suspect there will be some discussion here if he was prepared enough, and questioning the mistakes he made, but the in the end, even though he was only going to be gone for 30 mins, he took a PLB and a space blanket, both of which contributed to saving his life.
It's also nice to see him own up to his mistakes. It takes some guts to say to the world that you goofed up.
He also credits ETS for learning about PLBs. Nice to see Doug's PLB work and crusade pay off.
-john