Garmin 550t

[Machaggis]

Hi to all as I'm a newbee I would like some advice on the garmin 550t gps. Does anyone know of any problems with this gps? Santa is bringing it soon. :cheers:

[Bear and Ragged]

Hope Santa can find his way with it! :D

Welcome to the forums.
Don't know that one myself, but I'm sure someone who does will be along soon.

[nobbynobbs]

I'm assuming you meant the oregon 550t?

just did a google search :
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=0&oq=garmin+550t&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4TSEA_en-GBGB289GB294&q=garmin+550t+review

lots of reviews, seems good but expensive.

[keehotee]

We've got a couple of Oregon 550s (without topo) and they're excellent.

Started off with Talkytoasters freeby mapping, which was fine for driving and caching - but have recently put the OS 1:50k Discoverers on them, which just makes them even better.

In automotive mode they work just like a TomTom (without the irritating voice) and take you as close to the cache as you're going to get on the road.
Off road I use either the 1:50k OS map - or I can also put custom maps on, such as 1:25k from Memory Map - albeit only in smallish lumps of about 5km square.

There's a GSAK macro that I use to consolidate my regular 5 PQs into one export - that also sends child waypoints like parking and my finds across as POIs rather than caches. But it'll hold 5000 caches, so I'm not looking to run out of space too soon.

The camera's reasonably useful for taking cache piccies - but I tend to use it more to take pilot pics to later geotag photos from my proper camera. It marks up the exif with location, elevation - and the direction you took the shot - so very handy for things like Geograph.

[Machaggis]

Thanks guys that info is useful, looks like santa's got an order:)

[LondonCacher]

It's a bit of a late response, I know, but santa brought me a 550t too (he must have had a bulk purchase, and wanted to offload them on all the geocachers).

So far, I really like it, although lock-on in the city is slower than my Blackberry (not totally surprising, since my blackberry has assistance from the wireless towers). How are you finding yours?

[Machaggis]

Hi i have ben a bit frustrated with mine due to not doing my research that the oregon 550t only comes with 1:100 recreational maps very limited detail.So now on the hunt for 1:25k topo maps of uk wih turn by turn. This is so I can double up my use as a sat nav in the car and then go paper less on the trail. Any one got any information on maps would be good. otherwise really like the 550t played around with the camera and is ok for what i will use. As a newbie I am still getting to grips with all the functions so again any pointers would be welcome. even thought about a GPs course???:cheers:

[agentmancuso]

You can get free routable Open Source Mapping from talkytoaster (http://sites.google.com/site/talkytoasteruk/ukmaps).

[Machaggis]

Hi I have just downloaded the maps from the link you posted, download fine all maps look ok will give them a try. :cheers:

[Jacaru]

We have had our 550t for 6 months now and we are really happy with it. How are you all getting on with yours?