EricRJones

As far as ruggedness, I clip my 550 on to a tie-down loop on my canoe when I go downriver racing. It's survived two significant swims, as well as being banged around on the portages. See, e.g., http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=661697 (pretty easy to see where we went swimming). The only problem I had were some passing issues with the USB connection after the Zoar Gap swim. This may have been the result of the rubber gasket at the bottom not being closed completely and some water getting behind it. I'm not sure. For a short period of time, my PC wouldn't recognize the unit. However, the problem went away and it hasn't returned. And, as you can see, the Oregon recorded the track just fine both before, during and after getting dunked and banged around.

The Oregon has a anchor drag alarm, an off-course alarm, and an alarm clock. I'm assuming the Colorado is similar. You know when the alarm clock is going off, but the other two are single beeps. Thanks to the touch screen, it's somewhat easy to set these inadvertantly on the Oregon if it is just bouncing around in your pocket (or if you have children who enjoy setting the anchor drag alarm). I imagine that is less true on the Colorado.

Battery life isn't great, at least on my unit. I always carry a couple of sets of spare rechargables just in case. I seem to get in the 6-8 hour range. I think that is low compared to some. I keep WAAS on just in case, although it's pretty hit or miss as to when it is working. I often keep the backlight on, which drains the batteries as well. Finally, the camera drains the battery and kids like nothing better than to play with the camera. I find the unit excellent in direct sunlight (sun hitting the screen). It's also fine when it's dark. The problems are when the sun is out but not hitting the screen for whatever reason (overcast or wrong direction). It's not awful, but you'll need the backlight, which affects battery life. There's bouncing around and there's bouncing around. I'm confident I know where I am on the planet earth within 40' and probably within 10' (the estimated error being only a guide). My sense, however, is that the unit is less confident about exactly where it is. The 60Cx would get a fix and that's basically where it thought it was. It might actually be off by 20', but the unit didn't vary from its determined location by very much no matter how long you stood there. The Oregon gets a fix and then seems to want to "fiddle" with it. In my experience, almost all of its "guesses" are within a reasonable circle around a particular location, but it makes things look jittery when the Oregon is saying "We're here...wait, no, we're actually 5' west...I mean 2' south...or, maybe 7' east..." Anyway, that overstates the situation by a lot. The only time it comes up at all is when we're caching. If you aren't careful, you can start "bouncing" around yourself. It's unrealistic to expect any unit to drop you right on top of a cache, but my experience with the 60 was that you would get to 0 and it would stay at 0. You might really be 20' away, but at least you had a fixed center point to search from. On the Oregon, the 0 moves more frequently. So I reach the cache coordinates and start looking, and then the unit says I'm 10' away, so I move, and then the unit says you're 7 feet away in the other direction, and then I stop using my brain and eyes and become a GPS zombie, which is my fault really. Also, it's possible I don't have some setting optimized (like waypoint averaging?). I think the unit is great, and I think it is very accurate. I just wish it had more self-confidence in its accuracy!

I have an Oregon 550, and I really like it (the touchscreen is nice). It replaces a 60Cx. The only cons are that the screen is less easy to read, and I find it is slightly less consistently accurate than the 60. By that I mean, the unit can be just as accurate, but it does to tend to bounce around a little more especially when you are under cover. I'm not talking 100s of feet or anything, just that tracks are somewhat more jittery. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, and I wouldn't ever go back. My seven year old son likes it too, and has discovered many more features than I ever knew existed. We now have stored tracks that lead us to waypoints like "The Middle of Nowhere". Some points to consider. The Colorado (and I think some of the early Oregons) are being discontinued. While Garmin will likely continue to support them with firmware updates, it may not support them as quickly. Second, recent rumors suggest (to me anyway) that Garmin may be close to announcing new units to replace the 60CSx/76Csx. Those units are considered by many the gold standard in terms of handheld GPS, so if Garmin introduced true replacement units (in terms of accuracy), they would be eagerly anticipated to say the least. I realize that's a lot of ifs, and you may not want to be an early adopter even if all of them are true. It is something to consider though. My two cents.

You can monitor solar activity at http://spaceweather.com/ It looks like it's been pretty quiet. See http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5m.html for an explanation see http://spaceweather.com/glossary/flareclasses.html

Dropping it was entirely unintentional I can assure you! Ironically, I looked at the 76CSx, but the 60Cx was cheaper. I figured, what is the likelihood that I will care that it doesn't float. Life's funny that way. Of course, the Oregon doesn't float either, but I'm going to be a much more careful this time around. When I was researching the issue, my only concerns with replacing the 60 with an Oregon were (a) accuracy and ( screen visibility. I haven't noticed any accuracy issues. It is annoying that WAAS doesn't seem to work right, but even without WAAS I find the unit very accurate. Given that Garmin changed the chipset in the 60CSX/76CSx units, accuracy doesn't seem to be a reason to pick one over the other any more. Screen visbility is something of an issue, but I find the unit fine with the backlight on (though you might want to carry a spare set of batteries). And it is so easy to use and customizable that I wouldn't go back. Again, I'm using a x50 unit, which is supposed to have a slightly better screen than the x00s.

I had a 60Cx. It was a great unit. Unfortunately, it's at the bottom of the Erie Canal. I've replaced it with an Oregon 550. As far as I'm concerned there is no comparison. I find the Oregon to be as accurate as the 60. It's also much easier to use, has more options, has a larger screen, allows custom maps, etc... I only have two minor caveats. One is the screen brightness issue. I find the screen very easy to read in direct sunlight (with the sun on the screen), but in other conditions you may have move it around to get the best angle. That's not really an issue if you are hiking, but I can imagine it could be a problem hiking or biking. To be honest, I just run it at max backlight most of the time. I think it's perfectly readable with the backlight on. That leads to the other caveat. I find it chews through batteries faster than the 60Cx (probably because I'm running it with the backlight on). Anyway, I was worried about going with the Oregon as a replacement. I'm really glad I did, and I wouldn't go back. I would suggest looking at the 450s or 550s, however, as I believe the screen is slightly improved over the x00 series.

Thanks, this was indeed my problem.

I have an Oregon 550. I'm using the Northeast Topo United States from GPSFileDepot. In some of my profiles, the water shows up on the map as blue and in the rest of the profiles the water shows up as white. I've tried disabling and enabling different combinations of maps without being able to figure out why. I even reinstalled the maps. If there is some setting that sets the color of the water, I can't find it. It's possible this is a new problem with the latest firmwhere update (which I do have installed), but I can't swear to this. In any event, I can't figure out why it only affects some of the profiles. Anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks. I was hoping some basic information from the river guidebooks was included. It's often hard to remember when you are paddling that the book said "after 1.5 miles, stay river left to avoid the large hole". Or if you do remember, to figure out to where the heck "after 1.5 miles" is. Outside of giving waypoints descriptive names, though, I wonder if something like that is even possible.

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has used either of the US TrailMaps products that are available from Garmin. There is a Whitewater map set an an Equestrian one. I'm interested in the Whitewater map particularly, although I'm happy to hear about experiences with either one. For instance, do the maps just indicate put-ins and take-outs, or do they include the location of significant rapids and river-running notes. I'm using an Oregon, and I live in Southern New-England if that is helpful information. Thanks