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I recently objective bought 2 current Garmin GPS units to upgrade my aging Garmin Myth (Unusual Model) . I was hesitant to recall the Oregon due to the mediocre reviews on Amazon, but ultimately I decided to hold a chance.
First I bought the Garmin Dakota 20, and I really liked it. Slight, Battery Efficient, Easy to Consume, and Paperless Geocaching using the touchscreen. Generous stuff. I called my friend who likes to have the latest and greatest, and he told me he had purchased the Oregon 400t when it first came out last year. I took a drive to his house to compare it to my current Dakota 20... Very similar in capabilities, only smaller and less resolution on the shroud. After seeing his unit, and how well it ran I found myself craving the higher resolution mask, and 3D Terrain features, so I went up and bought another one, this one, the Garmin Oregon 550. I decided against buying the Oregon 550t because the 550 had a diminutive deeper discount than the "t" version. Ultimately I chose to bewitch the 550 since it was around $60 off retail, VS. only $1 less than retail on the 550t. I figured I could add the TOPO maps later. Plus I had also impartial purchased the Dakota 20, and the $160 contrast in cost was sounding aesthetic fine. I have completely busted my aroused money for now.
Ultimately I score this unit to be correct in line with all of the other Oregon models software wise... it works exactly the same procedure. So go and read some reviews on the other Oregon models sine this unit doesn't have many reviews yet. It is VERY similar in capabilities, but this one has a few added goodies.. 3 Axis Compass + 3.2MP GEOTagging Camera (Helpful stuff) ...
Another observation between the fresh 550 and 550t models... Garmin's specs say the these models have equivalent storage, but in fact this is not the case, the 850MB seen in the specs relates to the free set after taking into story the included maps. In reality it is more like 550 = 1GB, 550t=4GB internal memory. Mostly a non-issue since both have a Micro-SD slot unhurried the battery, which happily approved an inexpensive 4GB SDHC card, and since SDHC was supported I would question you could add an even larger one.
Like the other reviewer stated I noticed that the roads on Garmin's 2008 TOPO maps are slightly off.. this is easily recognizable if you load a driving procedure, calculate a route, and then disable the driving contrivance, you will witness the driving route is not exactly on the road. To me this is all the more reason to objective acquire the 550 model (at this point) without the TOPO maps. You can add them later once the road data is fixed. On second notion, the TOPO features themselves on the 2008 plan seem glowing, only the road data is a itsy-bitsy off, so if you are using the maps as they are intended this is probably a non-issue. At the time I unprejudiced felt like the 550 was a better bargain, only $90 more than the Dakota 20 I had honest purchased, which also was mild at the corpulent $350 retail heed since it is calm a notice unique model.
The only other glitch was with the Compass calibration, which went haywire for a moment, but resolved itself after a reset, and hasn't happened since. We'll look if it becomes an divulge.. but I doubt it. The reset was very hastily as this unit boots up very speedily.
I decided to acquire these purchases since my girlfriend has expressed an interest in "Re-Taking Up Geocaching", we really haven't done it in a while (Since '02), and its such a vast outdoor activity. The current point in making these purchases was the ease at which you can add Geocaches into the unit directly from the website with a single mouse click. She was having grief getting venerable to adding the co-ordinates into the traditional Garmin Fable with that puny joystick, it was VERY Uninteresting.
So now she has the Dakota 20, and I have the Oregon 550, and we can easily transfer geocaches abet and forth wirelessly, and it is easy as pie to download them from [...].
To me, these novel Garmins are a enormous upgrade from my faded "Sage", and they are waterproof and rugged as ever.
I would have given this product 5 stars had it not been for the couple of dinky glitches, which I interrogate will be fixed in the future via a firmware update / way update from Garmin.
Truely.. the recent touchscreen Garmin units are to GPS's, as the iPhone is to mobile phones. In a class by itself.
I have had this for a couple days now and have to admit, I'm "underwhelmed" by it so far. I had very high expectations of the 550 and ordered it with the 24K Topo maps from Amazon. Here's my issues:
1. This is my first Oregon unit, but the hide seems runt....I'm a expansive guy, it feels like my thumb covers half the cover when navigating.
2. Compass accuracy is questionable, or at least it seems very "tremulous". If I disappear an lag, it rotates design more than I did.
3. Not definite why, but it's hard to peruse in the shade. Outside on quick-witted sunny days and it's easier to examine in tell sunlight than in the shade.
4. Having diagram problems....can't point to a 3-D idea of my draw (originate case with Garmin encourage) .
5. All the manuals are on CD and the CD had issues loading in my computer. Had to obtain a PC that would read the CD and copy to my hard drive.
What's honorable about it...
1. The camera. While 3.2MP is not "hi-def" by any means, it is nice to only carry one design and have my pictures geotagged. The resolution and quality is safe.
2. Unit feels very durable....I fish a lot so it's nice that it's somewhat weather / waterproof.
3. Comes with some nice accessories....I was surprised that Garmin included NiMH batteries and a charger.
4. Battery life is grand. Although I'm using 2700mA batteries (not the included batteries) I fetch almost 20 hours from a space of AA.
Maybe I'm being a cramped too hard on Garmin and I generally like their products. However, for $600 (Oregon 550 and the Topo Method) I was expecting an iPhone like experience....an oohhh ahhhh kind of moment......hasn't happened so far. Not clear if I'll retain it...it's not a "abominable" contrivance, honest don't know if it's worth $600. I was on the fence about giving it two or three stars....I gave it two because of the trace and some of the frustrations I've had getting the maps to work correct.
** Update (8/16/09) : I did collect the arrangement snort resolved....turned out to be a software glitch with the Topo maps, but I did earn it corrected. Took this unit on a 3 day streak to the Pike National Forest in Colorado. I would upgrade my rating from two stars to three stars as the GPS was extremely correct when geocaching....but I didn't even gain a bulky day from one space of batteries and the pictures I took with the 550 were hardly usable. It was wintry that they were geotaged, but radiant terrible in quality. Because of the note, recount quality and outrageous battery life, it's going attend. There are better options for less money.
My wife and I have heavily dilapidated our Garmin 76CSx and loved it for the last 2 years. Long fable short, we sold it and bought this one after a lot of research. Even after the research, I was very surprised by how titanic the improvements were over the 76CSx.
* The touch mask made navigation a night and day experience, especially typing in addresses or other POI.
* The calculation time for routing is very grand improved. The boot time is longer than the 76CSx but it can lock in satellites remarkable faster and in areas with more interference (ei. in a basement of a house) .
* One of the biggest improvements that I didn't realize with my research is the resolution of the conceal. Having twice the resolution made viewing maps great easier. You don't need to zoom out to gape the detail you need. This is very determined with topo maps.
* The coloring schemes are also worthy better for City navigation maps.
* When you prefer a pictures it marks it area on the scheme and comes with GPS coordinates which my dad would like for his snowmobile trips.
* Enabling and disabling maps is so worthy easier. On the 76SCx, when you loaded topo maps and CN maps, in menu under procedure setup it would list every image blueprint that you loaded, which with topo maps there could be hundreds listed. To notice the topo maps you need to disable/enable the CN maps, to do this you would have to scroll through a very limited window to fetch the CN blueprint image then disable it. This was a vast wound and time engaging. On the Oregon 550 it lists the maps in blueprint packs, not images. This is a improvement.
Another point of information, the sdhc memory uses fat32 memory type which is the type of memory this GPS uses can bear can only have files sizes of 4 gigs. This is a requirement/limitation of the fat32. Also, Garmin has a restriction of only 4,000 (it might be unbiased over 4,000) way images per design transfer. In topo maps, it is popular to come the 4,000 plot images than the 4 gigs limitation. However, the Oregon 550 can handle at least 2 draw packs images. I haven't tested for more. You unprejudiced load on scheme pack to the GPS or memory card. After it is done, rename it from gmapsupp.img to gmapsup1.img. Then transfer the other contrivance image pack. It will read both device packs as one. So, you can have 8 gigs of maps on your GPS. You unprejudiced need to do it the suitable plot. You might be able to add more design packs, but I haven't tested it.
The only down side is the battery consumption is noticeably higher than the 76CSx. But with a car charger it makes it considerable easier on the batteries. I also fancy how they include rechargeable batteries with the GPS.
