Garmin are release the Oregon 450 and 450t in Feb.

The t model seems to be the same, except it has topo maps for Europe.

Was wondering what people's opinions on these maps were. Are they worth the extra money, or would you be better off just with the regular 450?

Oregon 450

Oregon 450t

That hardly includes the new Irish Top map that 53 Degrees North and Garmin are selling?? Might be worth it then, even if it is about 10 years out of date!

No, I seriously doubt it's the same one.
I don't really know which maps it is tbh, but on the Garmin site it says it has full Topo coverage for Ireland.
Hoping someone more knowledgeable will butt in!

With any luck they got sense and decided to include the full Irish Topo with new units as I don't imagine they were selling any of the maps on their own at the prices they were seeking!

I got myself a 550T eventually with European Topo maps.
They actually aren't bad at all, I was pleasantly surprised

Price... Or should I ask ?

£366 from Amazon.co.uk
Not too bad

I guess we'll find out in a couple of days just how good the maps are

Ebay is selling Garmin Oregon 550t with preloaded european maps and topomaps for around £360 delivered. It seems that the Oregon can hold up to 5000 caches - more than any other handheld devise? I am looking for a good device as I will travel around europe and will use the GPS for work as well - not just geocaching
Any suggestions & ideas & comments?

Dino had posted this link a while ago and I've just got a 450 from them. It's a crackin price for a 550t
http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php/19 ... regon-550t

Buyer beware at all times with eBay....where's it originating from? Hong Kong and it may be a rip-off and you may also get caught for import duty. America and same goes for the import. eBay is good but just be careful

Thanks for theBigAndyT and Dino - Handtech has a much better offer (£279 ex VAT) and they deliver in 1-4 days to Ireland - I am seriously thinking getting this.
Any experiences with the Oregon 550T?

Yep ... very happy with it.
Can't say it's any better than the 450t cause I've never used one of them before.
The only difference I can think there is is a camera.
I have used the camera a good few times when I've forgotten to lift the actual camera out of the car.
Picture quality isn't half bad.

I'm slowly getting used to my 550t. At first I didn't like it at all, coming from a 60Csx.
Maps are pretty good on it (no routing though), and the 5000 cache limit is nice.
Camera quality isn't great, but I find it very useful as it geotags photos. Instead of taking waypoints the normal way, why not take a photo of the location? It will record the co-ordinates with it, making it so much easier to remember which co-ord is what.

The 450t was my first GPS and I think it's perfect for the beginner. I briefly had a satmap and it certainly wasn't as user friendly. I'm almost sorry I didn't pay the extra twenty quid for the camera.

Wouldn't be without my 550t now! A great piece of kit! Does everything I want of it and more! Even works as a basic satnav now too since I added routable maps!
Highly recommend one!

Received my Oregon 550t today - looks good and feels nice - cant wait to go out and check few GC saved my first PQ's onto it - and off we go

I got the 550t in the past week too.
It takes a bit of tweaking to get it right, a few minor glitches but very good overall.
Nice idea, but I'm not sure that I would be a big fan of the camera.

I recon the camera will come in handy when taking photos of found caches - as it records the coordinates where the photo was taken it's weird to use a GPS without an antennae… but seems to work as I was sitting in the house and it still showed the location (with 10-15m accuracy).

This is Geotagging.
If you do not have this feature on your GPS, it works very successfully if the time in your phone/camera is the same as your GPSr.
The timestamps in the tracklog on the GPSr 'align' with timestamp on the photos you have taken.
Google 'Geotagging photos' or similar.