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Garmin Oregon 550 3-Inch Handheld GPS Navigator with 3.2MP Digital Camera | 
| Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
List Price: $499.99
Buy New: $424.86
as of 7/31/2010 16:03 CDT details
You Save: $75.13 (15%)
New (44) from $424.86
Seller: Universal Mania
Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 1334
Media: Sports
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Display Size: 3
Size: 550
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 2.3 x 1.5 x 4.5
MPN: 010-00697-10
Model: 010-00697-10
UPC: 753759084356
EAN: 0753759084356
ASIN: B0029LL5IY
Release Date: July 20, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Capture locations and memories with a 3.2 megapixel autofocus digital camera with 4x digital zoom | | • | Tough, 3-inch diagonal, sunlight-readable, color touchscreen display | | • | Built-in 3-axis tilt-compensated electronic compass shows your heading even when you're standing still, without holding it level | | • | Barometric altimeter tracks changes in pressure to pinpoint your precise altitude, and can help you keep an eye on changing weather conditions | | • | Comes preloaded with a worldwide built-in basemap with shaded relief; add more detailed maps with a MapSource microSD card |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
The navigator with the photographic memory--Oregon 550 combines rugged outdoor touchscreen navigation with a 3.2 megapixel digital camera. Add high-sensitivity GPS, barometric altimeter, 3-axis electronic compass and microSD card slot. The result? A multipurpose device that will make your biggest adventures even more memorable.  Oregon 550 combines rugged outdoor touchscreen navigation with a 3.2 megapixel digital camera. Click to enlarge. |  3.2 megapixel autofocus digital camera with 4x digital zoom. Click to enlarge. |  Preloaded with a worldwide built-in basemap with shaded relief. Click to enlarge. |  3-inch diagonal, sunlight-readable, color touchscreen display. Click to enlarge. | Take Pictures and Save Locations
Capture locations and memories with Oregon 550's 3.2 megapixel autofocus digital camera with 4x digital zoom. Each photo is automatically geotagged with the location of where it was taken, allowing you to navigate back to that exact spot in the future. Snap and view pictures in landscape or portrait orientation. With 850 MB of internal memory, you'll never miss a photo opportunity. To store online, simply connect Oregon 550 via USB and log into my.Garmin.com to upload and store your photos at Picasa, a popular online photo sharing community for friends and families around the world. For more storage, insert a microSD card; you can even view pictures from other devices on microSD with Oregon's picture viewer. Touch and Go
Oregon 550 makes rugged navigation effortless with a tough, 3-inch diagonal, sunlight-readable, color touchscreen display. The interface is easy to use, so you'll spend more time enjoying the outdoors and less time searching for information. Both durable and waterproof, Oregon 550 is built to withstand the elements. Bumps, dust, dirt, humidity and water are no match for this rugged navigator. Get Your Bearings
Oregon 550 has a built-in 3-axis tilt-compensated electronic compass, which shows your heading even when you're standing still, without holding it level. Its barometric altimeter tracks changes in pressure to pinpoint your precise altitude, and you can even use it to plot barometric pressure over time, which can help you keep an eye on changing weather conditions. And with its high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver and HotFix satellite prediction, Oregon 550 locates your position quickly and precisely and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and deep canyons. Add Maps
Oregon 550 comes preloaded with a worldwide built-in basemap with shaded relief. Adding even more detail is easy: just insert a MapSource microSD card preloaded with detailed maps. Oregon can accept a variety of maps for any navigational need. Add detailed street maps to get turn-by-turn directions to your destination. Add select topographic maps to take advantage of Oregon's 3-D maps and elevation detail. Or add BlueChart g2 maps, which provide everything you need for a great day on the water, including depth contours, navaids and harbors. Find Fun
Go paperless with Oregon 550 by quickly downloading information from Geocaching.com for up to 5000 caches, such as location, terrain, difficulty, hints and description. No more manually entering coordinates and paper print outs. Slim and lightweight, Oregon is the perfect companion for all your outdoor pursuits. Share Wirelessly
With Oregon 550 you can share your waypoints, tracks, routes and geocaches wirelessly other Oregon and Colorado users. Now you can send your favorite route to a friend to enjoy or the location of a cache to find. Sharing data is easy. Just touch "send" to transfer your information to similar devices. What's in the Box
Oregon 550, AA battery charger, 2 AA NiMH batteries, carabiner clip, USB cable, owner's manual on disk, and quick start manual
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 Gamin Oregon 550 July 20, 2010
Brent Ewasiuk
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.
Special settings July 17, 2010
The Packer
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.
 Oregon 550 is a Great Machine June 2, 2010
Mark D. Goodley (So Cal.)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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...
 Don't Purchase a Garmin GPS May 21, 2010
M. Landando
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
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.
Garmin Oregon 550 May 11, 2010
Mark (SW MO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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