Help!! Question about Oregon 550T

The unit comes with a base map which is not great, and I'm generous here. You will need to get both 24K topo maps and road navigation maps.

If you get maps on a micro SD card, you then can only use one set at a time, well, you could load some maps (not from a uSD card) in the unit memory too, but IMO that complicates things. My preference is maps from a DVD as you can combine sets and have the best of both worlds.

Now check out www.gpsfiledepot for 24K maps of your state and/or area. You can also get OSM maps for road navigation and get POIs from the POIfactory. All these are free, THe OSm maps may be quite good depending on the areas chosen.

As eluded to by SARLABS, get your maps on DVD rather than built-in. In other words buy the Oregon 550, without the 'T', then buy City Navigator North America on DVD as well as whichever version of Topo map you want (US 100K that covers the entire US or the regional 24K maps) and load just the areas you need from your computer. Don't buy your maps on memory cards, SD/microSD.

The Oregon series, and this is true of all the handhelds, does not do voice navigation. If that is important to you, you will need one of the automotive nüvi series units. Be aware that the nüvi series are unsuitable for hiking purposes though. The batteries don't last long enough for a full day's use, and aren't interchangeable like they are in the handhelds, and don't include the ability to load and manage tracks for trails like a handheld does in addition to a few other features that are missing for trail use.

If you had to pick just one GPS for use both in vehicle and on the trail, stick with a handheld Oregon. If you can afford it though, buy one for each purpose. An Oregon for on the trail and a nüvi for use in your vehicle, that's what I ended up doing.

Try the WebUpdater application. When I plug my Oregon 450 in to my computer and launch WebUpdater their is a button labelled 'Reinstall'. I've never had to use it but it may do what you need.