Garmin Oregon 550 Waterproof Hiking GPS

Gamin Oregon 550 I was used to my old Garmin 12XL and now the entire system is different. It will take some time to learn all the features of this unit. Compact lightweight system is great. I like the quick response time to aquire location. I like the rechargable batteries. The map zoom in and zoom out is a bit tricky. Rating: 3 (Garmin Oregon 550 Waterproof Hiking GPS customer review by Brent Ewasiuk, 2010-07-20)

Special settings There some things you must do to get this unit to work well. First, turn off "Shading if availble" otherwise you will not be able to see the screen in daylight. On a daylight day, but in the shade, turn on the backlight and set it to maximum, then you can see the screen well. Second, use only alkaline batteries. The voltage from NiMH recharable batterie is too low and the screen will dim when taking a picture with the camera. The largest SD chip it will use is 4 GB, so do not install one larger. It is not enough, but there you are. These are my personal observations, others may disagree. I really like it. Especially for geocaching. Rating: 4 (Garmin Oregon 550 Waterproof Hiking GPS customer review by The Packer, 2010-07-17)

Oregon 550 is a Great Machine 1st; I Love and highly recommend the Oregon 550... It does everything well that I wanted/hoped it would do... I bought it specifically for a 'lifetime' trip to Europe and it didn't disappoint. That is; a multi purpose mapping unit that would work on the trail and the road, for hiking, car touring, and cycling. I wanted to create/save tracks our trips and it does that with ease. I wanted to id my pictures by location on a map; again... Perfect. Next; I have/do own(ed) lots of Garmins over the last 15 years... Plane, car, trail, road and mounting/cycling, etc... With the Oregon, there are some expected compromises to the dedicated units. I routinely use an Edge on the bike which is a bit easier and smaller, but not that much. I use a Nuvi in the car and LOVe the audible cues(which the Oregon doesn't have),larger screen, and slightly easier "Where to"/Favorites functionality, but it's too big to carry/ride around with and the battery only lasts a few hours... the Edge has some nice features for cycling (grade%, etc.) that the Oregon does not have. ...but none of the dedicated units can do it all as well as the Oregon 550; including geotagging nice pics, POI (points of interest) and a compass (great lifesaver for mid and cloudy days)... The City Navigator maps are perfect and highly recommended... even the smallest trails jump out... a great de-stress'r... The camera works much better than expected from the reviews I had read... the color balance is excellent for outdoor use with amazing pics taken of the scenery and a joy to push a single button and have the detail map pop up automatically where the pic was taken (GReat for us Alzheimer patients that are always asking "WHere was that?")... For some reason, close up pics of people/skin tones didn't work as well at times and low light shots weren't great either... All in all though, I had a dedicated camera for the fringe/aperature shots; but on this last trip to Euro, I wish I had used the camera much more than i did... The battery life with camera use, lasts 8 hours max, so I packed extra AA's which I used daily and recharged the batteries at night. Do not leave home without alkaline backups... To install/load detail maps requires some extra effort with dedicated cpu time necessary. A call or two to support should be planned on and expected. My guess is that this inconvenience will go away as the unit is on the market longer and the download programs become more robust. I suggest using the unit for a couple of weeks before needing it on a trip. There are so many setup options, it takes some time to sort them all out... Navigating is best learned when the pressure is off... All in all a 5***** rating... Rating: 5 (Garmin Oregon 550 Waterproof Hiking GPS customer review by Mark D. Goodley, 2010-06-02)

Don't Purchase a Garmin GPS I have been a Garmin Customer since they introduced their first hand held gps, I have owned their GPS 12, GPS III, GPS V, E-trex, and my current model GPSMap 60cs. Garmin, as a company, has a ridiculous policy regarding their map products. I have over $700 of their map products and I can only unlock them to one GPS Unit, even though I own several of THEIR gps units. I was recently going to purchase an Oregon 550T, but when I contacted Garmin Support they told me I would have to PURCHASE ALL the maps I currently own AGAIN in order to unlock them to any new unit I purchased. Well, Garmin has lost a long time customer and I recently had two friends who were going to get a gps unit and I steered them away from Garmin and the way they treat long time customers. Good Bye Garmin. Rating: 1 (Garmin Oregon 550 Waterproof Hiking GPS customer review by M. Landando, 2010-05-21)

Garmin Oregon 550 Overall I am very pleased with this product. I've had it for about 8 months now and have taken it on many camping, hiking, floating, and mountain biking trips. I also use it in my car almost daily. I use 24K topo for Missouri. The large resistive HD touch screen is excellent. I am afraid that the screen will scratch more easily, but I am very careful not to find out! I do not find the screen too dim to read. The battery saver feature is very handy--I can set an amount of time after which the display turns off to save battery. I use this for all applications except in the car. I have no complaints about battery life, but I put in a freshly charged pair of NiMH before each trip. I have discovered that new NiMH hold a charge longer than old NiMH batteries, especially in this device. I am still using the NiMH batteries that came with the unit and they last many hours. I have not actually time them. The routable feature with 24K topo works well. No complaints. The three axis compass is fantastic, but in the car it will often be off by as much as ninety degrees when I am stopped. After experimenting, I determined that this is due to the metal shell of the car. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It is not a real problem because when I am moving the GPS compass kicks in. I plan on experimenting more with this and reading up on the oregon wiki I mention later. The profile feature is great for my many applications. However, I find that sometimes my tracklog will automatically change settings, like from record to do not record when I change profiles frequently. This is only minor to me as well because I reset the track log at the beginning of most trips anyway, so I check this too. A few complaints about reseting tracks and the trip computer: I can clear the track log from the track menu, but I have to go to setup to clear the trip computer. On my old Legend, this could be done easily at the same time. Also, I have accidentally cleared all my waypoints because the clear waypoints button is next to the resent trip computer button! Next, I can only save whole sections of tracko--basically a day's worth. I cannot chop tracks on the unit, but it can be done on Basecamp or Mapsource. Also, I'm not sure how tracks are sorted on the track menu. It doesn't seem to be alphabetical or by date. I probably have around thirty tracks saved, but sorting through them isn't really a big deal. I like Basecamp fine. I use it mostly as a backup for tracks and waypoints. Occasionally I will plan a route or trip and it works fine for that. The camera is great compared to what I feel are other similar options. I don't like taking a nice camera with an optical zoom on floating trips, and I feel that the pictures I get with my Oregon 550 are comparable to what I would get with a disposable camera, plus it is waterproof. It leaves a little to be desired, but not enough to make me carry a second camera. This sealed the deal for me. The hotfix satellite prediction is also great. I usually get a signal within 5 seconds of turing on the unit in the same locaton I turn it off within 3 days. Meaning, I turn it off when I get home, and in a day or two turn it back on on my way out of the house and my signal is there! I can get satellite reception sitting in a room with no windows in my house. The ability to overlay jpeg images and make custom maps is really cool! If you have a map of your favorite trail area, you can follow the directions on this website, which is very helpful all around: [...] The jpeg quality has to be very good, though, or your custom map looks grainy. I began by looking at the 200, but it did not have an electronic compass. I used to feel that is was unimportant, but in tight woods it is hard to move long enough to get a heading. So I looked to the 300 (the 400x are basically a 300 + maps, and I already own maps). The 300 lacks the 3-axis compass and the camera, so I went with the 550. If you mount the unit in a car, ATV or bike, the 3-axis compass is a must. I didn't comment on many of the features, which I do not use. If this unit lasts for years to come, I will consider it a great purchase. I paid $440 on Amazon.com. New 300s are selling for around $400 right now, so the extra features were worth the cost to me. Rating: 4 (Garmin Oregon 550 Waterproof Hiking GPS customer review by Mark, 2010-05-11)