Garmin Oregon 550T hiking GPS is just a phone away from full convergence

Anonymous Anonymous

#1 – 1:52 PM May 7, 2009

The other major component is the ability to have lots of offline maps. This is especially useful when hiking in rural areas where there is rarely cell coverage.

Alan

#2 – 1:59 PM May 7, 2009

Ah, but the real GPS difference between this and an iPhone is that this can tell you exactly, to the foot, where you are, and an iPhone will get you kinda there maybe. And for Geocachers, that's a big big difference.

Jaycatt

#3 – 10:20 AM May 8, 2009

I agree with #1, although I don't have an iPhone, so I'm not sure. Are they true GPS devices? Or do they triangulate with cell towers?

Occasionally, it is nice to use a real cell device, especially here in Oregon. I do a lot of driving around in the mountains looking for trails and waterfalls, and typically there is no cell service.

And last time I took the Amtrak Coast Starlight down to LA from Eugene, it was fun to have the old Garmin along to spot exactly where you were up in the Cascades.

Joel Johnson

#4 – 10:25 AM May 8, 2009

The iPhone 3G has a real GPS, although it gets all its map data live from Google at the moment. But you can bet your ass with 3.0 comes out that there will be third-party solutions that let you load maps up directly on the device. In fact, I'd be surprised if Garmin didn't offer one themselves.

Brian D. Watters

#5 – 6:36 AM August 15, 2009

The 550T will not loose signals in deep canyons, has a very fast refresh rate and required NO PAID data account. It also comes with 850mb storage, waterproof and shock proof, takes AA batteries, so it need not be recharged on extended hikes, or geocachin and stores tonnes of waypoints. IPhones will not download geocache data directly from www.geocaching.com

Peteo

#6 – 9:09 AM August 25, 2009

The 550t has an unreadable display in sunlight, Please before you buy, test it out side in sun light!!!
"IPhones will not download geocache data directly from www.geocaching.com"
This is false, The geocaching app does download directly from geocaching.com

iPhone is great for geocaching, as far as a hiking GPS, the few hiking apps are not that great. If you have a 3GS the built in compass helps allot but most of the apps have to cache maps (Download from opensource maps), or have incomplete maps with no way of editing or adding trails. Still hoping for this. Plus the GPS takes for ever to find you if you have no cell signal (the cell towers assist in speeding up of acquiring a GPS signal AGPS)
TomToms gps add-on might work with other apps so maybe this will help.

There are plenty of battery addon's for the iPhone, but I do wish it had a removable battery