Garmin 550t

[+larryc43230]

I think I'm ready to contemplate upgrading my 60CSx to an Oregon 550 or 550t. I'm just beginning to look at the new generation of GPS units, and I'm confused regarding one detail.

 

I currently own a full copy (not an "update copy") of City Navigator North America NT 2010 which is still in the shrinkwrap. I bought it intending to upgrade the 2009 maps on my 60CSx , but when the 550 and 550t were announced, I thought I ought to hold on to this copy and not install it before deciding whether to get a 550.

 

I also own a copy of TOPO USA 8.0, which is installed on the 60CSx and which (someone correct me if I'm wrong) I can also install on a 550 (I believe the license allows me to install the maps on more than one GPSr).

 

On the 550t, how exactly are the US TOPO maps pre-installed? From what I've read, these maps are stored in internal memory, unlike maps bought separately which are stored on the external card. Are these TOPO maps on the 550t upgradeable, in other words, can they be replaced if and when a new version of the TOPO maps comes along? Or are you limited to these TOPO maps for the life of the unit? I could save space on the external card if the TOPO maps are stored internally, but I'm not sure that will make much difference in my case.

 

The bottom line question is: If I already own a copy of the TOPO maps on DVD, is there any real advantage to spending the additional $100 for the 550t instead of the 550?

 

--Larry

[MtnHermit]

The bottom line question is: If I already own a copy of the TOPO maps on DVD, is there any real advantage to spending the additional $100 for the 550t instead of the 550?

Yes but small.

 

The segments are larger on the pre-installed version, this allows the entire USA to be installed. If you use your DVD, you'll only be able to install ~4000 segments, roughly 2/3rds of the US.

[+Cacheoholic]

Small to you is very large to me!

 

That doesn’t include any City Navigator map segments. If you also want City Navigator maps then you are talking less than 2/3 of the USA in Topo US 2008.

[+grateful cacher]

But if you install the topo on an external mSD card, you shouldn't have any problem loading the entire US, given you get a large enough card. I had an Oregon 300 and got the topo 2008 DVD and found that I really didn't use all of it's capabilities (I mostly use mine for geocaching). So I got the 550t but did have to get a new copy of the City Navigator due to their one disc/one device rule (even though I had the previous copy only two months). I installed that with no problems on the external card. One thing I should mention is that the 550/550t handles data differently from the older Oregon units. For example, it will not read any geocaching GPX files off of the external data card, they must all be installed on the internal memory.

 

One thing that Garmin tech support told me is that if you delete the preloaded topo maps, the unit would have to be returned to them to have them re-preinstalled. Also the 550 only has about 1gb total memory, the 550t has 4gb, but both have about the same amount of available internal user memory.

 

[+g-o-cashers]

Actually you cannot load the entire US Topo 2008 onto SD card no matter what size the card is. Size is not the limitation, the number of supported map segments is. Topo 2008 has around 6000 for the entire US, the Oregon only supports 4000. This is not an issue with City Nav, it only requires about 50-60 segments from what I remember and only requires about 1GB of memory.

 

Just like with all the other mass storage based units, the first thing you should do is copy the entire contents of the Oregon drive to computer so that if you lose anything (like the maps) you can recover them on your own.

[+grateful cacher]

Actually you cannot load the entire US Topo 2008 onto SD card no matter what size the card is. Size is not the limitation, the number of supported map segments is. Topo 2008 has around 6000 for the entire US, the Oregon only supports 4000. This is not an issue with City Nav, it only requires about 50-60 segments from what I remember and only requires about 1GB of memory.

 

Just like with all the other mass storage based units, the first thing you should do is copy the entire contents of the Oregon drive to computer so that if you lose anything (like the maps) you can recover them on your own.

 

So how does Garmin preload the entire US on the t-based units? Do they limit the number of segments? What information do they leave out? FYI, for the City Nav, I just loaded the western US from Colorado west, and it took about 400mb plus or minus. Now that you mention segments, I remember that figure is the reason I got an Oregon 300 and the Topo 2k8 DVD instead of a 400t.

 

One other thing that tech support told me about units with topo preloaded, Mapsource wouldn't or couldn't with with it. How do you make changes to the preloaded maps?

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

The bottom line question is: If I already own a copy of the TOPO maps on DVD, is there any real advantage to spending the additional $100 for the 550t instead of the 550?

Yes but small.

 

The segments are larger on the pre-installed version, this allows the entire USA to be installed. If you use your DVD, you'll only be able to install ~4000 segments, roughly 2/3rds of the US.

 

You are correct here, but with the latest software [beta] updates, I believe you can load the maps into multiple files (by region) and then only select the region(s) you need as long as you keep them below the segment limit. I have not tried this myself, but it seems to me that this software update is the one thing that makes those old claims true (OR 300 + Topo 208 DVD + SD card = OR 400t).

[+g-o-cashers]

So how does Garmin preload the entire US on the t-based units? Do they limit the number of segments? What information do they leave out? FYI, for the City Nav, I just loaded the western US from Colorado west, and it took about 400mb plus or minus. Now that you mention segments, I remember that figure is the reason I got an Oregon 300 and the Topo 2k8 DVD instead of a 400t.

 

One other thing that tech support told me about units with topo preloaded, Mapsource wouldn't or couldn't with with it. How do you make changes to the preloaded maps?

 

The preloaded maps are slightly different in that they are broken up into fewer segments, somewhere around 400-500 if I remember correctly. Map data is nearly the same.

 

Garmin does not support a way to use the preinstalled maps in Mapsource but there is a hack:

 

http://www.gpsfix.net/how-to-using-preinst...s-in-mapsource/

 

It is easy to replace the maps if there is an update, its a matter of deleting a file on the GPS.

[+g-o-cashers]

You are correct here, but with the latest software [beta] updates, I believe you can load the maps into multiple files (by region) and then only select the region(s) you need as long as you keep them below the segment limit. I have not tried this myself, but it seems to me that this software update is the one thing that makes those old claims true (OR 300 + Topo 208 DVD + SD card = OR 400t).

 

Has anyone tried this? Even with the "any name" map file support I still think the 4000 segment limit applies. Enabling and disabling maps really doesn't help because you can't enable/disable each file, it is still a per map layer switch. Even if you disabled a particular map layer (ie. Topo2008) I don't think it helps because the 4000 limit applies to all the maps you have installed on the card, not the maps that are enabled.

[MtnHermit]

You are correct here, but with the latest software [beta] updates, I believe you can load the maps into multiple files (by region) and then only select the region(s) you need as long as you keep them below the segment limit. I have not tried this myself, but it seems to me that this software update is the one thing that makes those old claims true (OR 300 + Topo 208 DVD + SD card = OR 400t).

Has anyone tried this? Even with the "any name" map file support I still think the 4000 segment limit applies. Enabling and disabling maps really doesn't help because you can't enable/disable each file, it is still a per map layer switch. Even if you disabled a particular map layer (ie. Topo2008) I don't think it helps because the 4000 limit applies to all the maps you have installed on the card, not the maps that are enabled.

Clearly a test is in order, as in: "One test is worth 1000 expert opinions." I can think of no person more qualified than Scott. It'll take several hours to build the massive gmapsupp.img files with ~4000 segments, but maybe while the BoSox are playing, lots of commercial breaks.

 

I'm still at v 2.90 on my Colo 300 so I can't yet test the renamed img files. Will upgrade to 2.9x when the track manager shows in beta.

[+grateful cacher]

 

 

The preloaded maps are slightly different in that they are broken up into fewer segments, somewhere around 400-500 if I remember correctly. Map data is nearly the same.

 

Garmin does not support a way to use the preinstalled maps in Mapsource but there is a hack:

 

http://www.gpsfix.net/how-to-using-preinst...s-in-mapsource/

 

It is easy to replace the maps if there is an update, its a matter of deleting a file on the GPS.

 

I was told by Garmin tech support that if the preloaded maps were deleted, the unit would need to be sent back to Garmin for "repair". Given my track record with their tech support lately, I would tend to think that is not so. But I wonder if the only file you would delete would be the .img file, or what others would need to be as well. Also if you put other maps on in their place, how would those files other than the .img would be created. If you look at the file structure post I put up, you can see what files are on the 550t when it ships.

[+g-o-cashers]

The topo maps on the "t's" are stored in \Garmin\gmapsupp.img . If you delete this file and you have a backup saved on your computer you can simply copy it back onto the unit and all will be well. I recommend backing up the entire device however because there are other critical files, which if deleted, will have an impact on how the device functions.

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

You are correct here, but with the latest software [beta] updates, I believe you can load the maps into multiple files (by region) and then only select the region(s) you need as long as you keep them below the segment limit. I have not tried this myself, but it seems to me that this software update is the one thing that makes those old claims true (OR 300 + Topo 208 DVD + SD card = OR 400t).

 

Has anyone tried this? Even with the "any name" map file support I still think the 4000 segment limit applies. Enabling and disabling maps really doesn't help because you can't enable/disable each file, it is still a per map layer switch. Even if you disabled a particular map layer (ie. Topo2008) I don't think it helps because the 4000 limit applies to all the maps you have installed on the card, not the maps that are enabled.

 

I made some time for testing this last night and felt appropriate to come back and admit that you are correct.

 

I originally thought that you could put the Topo 2008 maps into 4 different segment files, and "activate" the maps in segments based on which file/area you needed. When I ran my test, I saw that my Oregon 400t managed to "automatically" merge the segment files into a single map set. Since I did not have the time to load the entire country into multiple files, I did not exceed the segment limit but I would have if I had loaded the entire country into different files. In this case, it shows how just using Mapsource to build the IMG files and send them to the SD card, then renaming them will still not allow you to load the entire Topo2008 map from the DVD to your GPSr without problems.

 

Here are a couple of other observations I made in the process. First off, the Topo2008 maps that were pre-loaded on my Oregon 400t did not merge with the Topo2008 maps that I was loading from my DVD. This tells me that the unit definitely sees them as different maps. Second of all, in my case, the Oregon did not save the map enable/disabled state across a power off/power on cycle. Every time I would turn my GPSr back on, all maps would be enabled, so I would go in and disable maps. This second observation might be an error in the way the beta software is working, so I will try to get a report off to Garmin on this. I am not sure if the any of the other observations I made in my testing merit a report to Garmin or not though.

[+RonGerth]

 

.....

 

One thing that Garmin tech support told me is that if you delete the preloaded topo maps, the unit would have to be returned to them to have them re-preinstalled. Also the 550 only has about 1gb total memory, the 550t has 4gb, but both have about the same amount of available internal user memory.

 

 

What are the implications for the amount of memory available? I am waffling between a 550 and a 550T and since I own a copy of MapTOPO I was thinking I would get the 550 and load my own topo maps onto it. If the memory difference though is significant I might have to rethink that approach.

 

Thanks

 

Ron

[+grateful cacher]

[

 

I made some time for testing this last night and felt appropriate to come back and admit that you are correct.

 

I originally thought that you could put the Topo 2008 maps into 4 different segment files, and "activate" the maps in segments based on which file/area you needed. When I ran my test, I saw that my Oregon 400t managed to "automatically" merge the segment files into a single map set. Since I did not have the time to load the entire country into multiple files, I did not exceed the segment limit but I would have if I had loaded the entire country into different files. In this case, it shows how just using Mapsource to build the IMG files and send them to the SD card, then renaming them will still not allow you to load the entire Topo2008 map from the DVD to your GPSr without problems.

 

Here are a couple of other observations I made in the process. First off, the Topo2008 maps that were pre-loaded on my Oregon 400t did not merge with the Topo2008 maps that I was loading from my DVD. This tells me that the unit definitely sees them as different maps. Second of all, in my case, the Oregon did not save the map enable/disabled state across a power off/power on cycle. Every time I would turn my GPSr back on, all maps would be enabled, so I would go in and disable maps. This second observation might be an error in the way the beta software is working, so I will try to get a report off to Garmin on this. I am not sure if the any of the other observations I made in my testing merit a report to Garmin or not though.

 

Would there be any advantages/disadvantages to installing the Topo DVD to an SD card on a 400t/550t?

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

Would there be any advantages/disadvantages to installing the Topo DVD to an SD card on a 400t/550t?

Disadvantages would be that you can't load the entire map set onto the SD card (it is more than 6000 segments, and larger than 4GB). Advantages might be it would allow you to free-up internal memory on the GPSr for maps that you use more regularly.

 

I know I was using my 400t for testing only because it is the only Oregon I have available to me right now.