Oregon 550t

[+comealong]

Has anyone found a solution to the dim screen on these things? A few years ago I spent a ton of $ on one and it seemed like the Perfect GPS until I found out that even on max screen brightness it's really hard to see if its sunny, I don't even use it anymore because of that. Sure would like to know a fix before I give up and get soething else, my iPhone works great near town, but I still need a real GPS!

[+BlackRose67]

The dim screen is one of the issues that's been resolved with the new Oregon 6xx series of GPSs.

[+Mineral2]

My 450 reads just fine in the sun with no backlight. I assume the 550 has the same screen. Make sure your light source (Sun, etc.) is behind you and reflecting off the back of the screen.

[+Red90]

In direct sunlight, you should not need backlight. You need to turn the screen to face the sun. It is reflective and gets brighter with the light.

[MtnHermit]

My 450 reads just fine in the sun with no backlight. I assume the 550 has the same screen. Make sure your light source (Sun, etc.) is behind you and reflecting off the back of the screen.

Totally agree. The brighter the light the better. Perhaps your 550 has a unique problem. Have you compared your 550 to another Oregon x50 unit?

 

BTW, do you use the any of the light killing backgrounds images that come standard from Garmin? Stones or Foliage? The day I got my 450 (3 years ago) I replaced the background with white.

 

Insert this JPEG in your Profiles folder and select it as a background:

[+sduck]

The earlier version of the 550's had considerably dimmer screens than the newer ones. I had one of the very first ones, but something went wrong with it, and they exchanged me a new one, and the screen is much better. Maybe you can find something similar that requires the unit being replaced?