Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the
global leader in satellite navigation, today announced the Oregon 550
and Oregon 550t touchscreen handheld GPS devices, integrating a 3.2
megapixel digital camera, which creates geotagged images, and a 3-axis
compass into the popular series of intuitive touchscreen handhelds. The
waterproof Oregon 550’s easy-to-use interface and versatile features
make it the ideal solution for customers looking for a multipurpose GPS
device.
“As everyone looks for ways to do more with less, Oregon 550 and Oregon
550t can be the one GPS device you turn to for all of your activities,
in any climate, on any terrain, at any time of year,” said Dan Bartel,
Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “Easy enough for beginners
to master, Oregon will guide you in your adventures, capture the
highlights and bring them back home.”
There’s no need to tote a separate camera in your pack or pocket as
Oregon 550's 3.2 megapixel autofocus digital camera with 4x digital zoom
automatically geotags each photo with the location of where it was
taken, allowing you to mark, remember and navigate back to that exact
spot in the future. With this waterproof digital camera, you can take
and view pictures in landscape or portrait orientation, and 850 MB of
internal memory offers ample storage. These pictures can then be printed
or stored and shared online, making every trip even more memorable. Once
your Oregon 550 is connected via USB, you can use my.Garmin.com to
detect Oregon’s photos, simplify the selection and uploading processes
and then store those photos on Picasa, a popular online photo sharing
community for friends and families around the world.
The built-in 3-axis compass and enhanced sunlight-readable touchscreen
are two other key additions to the Oregon 550 and Oregon 550t (which
features preloaded 100K topo maps for the entire U.S. in
state-of-the-art 3D elevation perspective). The 3-axis tilt-compensated
electronic compass shows your heading even when you’re standing still,
without holding it level. And Oregon’s glove-friendly, color 3-inch
touchscreen display is brighter and easier than ever to read and use in
all conditions, responsive to the touch of your finger, yet resistant to
the forces of nature. Weighing only 6.8 ounces, the Oregon 550 and
Oregon 550t come with two precharged AA NiMH batteries. These batteries
provide up to 16 hours of life on a single charge and don’t lose energy
when not in use. The included battery charger saves you money and
reduces waste as batteries get recharged and reused. Also in the box is
a carabiner clip and USB cable for high-speed USB connections. A microSD
card slot provides even more storage for photos, mapping and memory and
allows you to view pictures from other devices with Oregon's picture
viewer.
Highlighting its versatility, Oregon lets you customize five profiles —
automotive, marine, recreation, fitness or geocaching — making the most
useful features the easiest to access through shortcuts.
On the trail: With its high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS
receiver and HotFix™ satellite prediction, Oregon 550 locates your
position quickly and precisely and maintains its GPS location even in
heavy cover and deep canyons. And you can store up to 2,000 waypoints,
200 routes, 5,000 geocaches and a tracklog of up to 10,000 points and
200 saved tracks. On the mountain: The built-in barometric
altimeter tracks changes in pressure to pinpoint your precise altitude,
and you can keep an eye on changing weather conditions by plotting
pressure over time. On vacation: Explore with confidence, thanks
to the detailed U.S. topographic maps preloaded in the 550t or the
worldwide shaded relief basemap in the 550. On a mission: The
simple-to-use touchscreen interface makes it easy to navigate
efficiently and tackle your task quickly. In a group: With Oregon
550, you can share your waypoints, tracks, routes and geocaches
wirelessly other Oregon and Colorado users. Out geocaching: Go
paperless with Oregon, which can store up to 5,000 caches, by quickly
downloading cache information from Geocaching.com. Oregon stores and
displays key information such as location, terrain, difficulty, hints
and description, so that you don’t have to tote printouts with you. (And
lucky geocachers may even stumble upon a limited-edition Oregon geocoin.)
And Oregon does the work of several devices, just by adding various
accessories to suit your activity or optional MapSource®
microSD cards preloaded with detailed maps.
On the road: Optional City Navigator mapping provides
detailed street maps, millions of preloaded points of interest and
onscreen turn-by-turn directions to your destination, and an optional
Auto Nav kit adds a suction mount and car charger. On a hunt or on a
hike: Using a separate TOPO U.S. 24K DVD or microSD card brings you
the highest level of topographic detail available, with maps comparable
to 1:24,000 scale USGS maps, featuring terrain contours, topo
elevations, summits, routable roads and trails, parks, coastlines,
rivers, lakes and geographical points. On the water: Add
BlueChart® g2 maps, which provide everything you need for a great day on
the water, including depth contours, navaids and harbors. On the run
or on a bike: Ideal for a trail workout, the lightweight Oregon is
compatible with Garmin’s heart-rate monitors and speed/cadence sensors,
and an optional handlebar mount makes it easy to track your speed,
distance, elevation and location.
And wherever you are, whatever you’re doing and whomever you’re with,
you’ll always have Oregon 550’s built-in camera to capture the moment,
record the location and share the memories.
Oregon 550 and Oregon 550t are the latest breakthroughs from Garmin,
which has spent 20 years using technology and innovation to enhance
users’ lives, making Garmin a household name in the automotive,
aviation, marine, wireless, outdoor and fitness industries. For more
about features, pricing and availability, as well as information about
Garmin’s other products and services, go to www.garmin.com,
www.garmin.blogs.com
and http://twitter.com/jakesjournal.
About Garmin International Inc.
Garmin International Inc. is a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN),
the global leader in satellite navigation. Since 1989, this group of
companies has designed, manufactured, marketed and sold navigation,
communication and information devices and applications – most of which
are enabled by GPS technology. Garmin’s products serve automotive,
mobile, wireless, outdoor recreation, marine, aviation, and OEM
applications. Garmin Ltd. is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and its
principal subsidiaries are located in the United States, Taiwan and the
United Kingdom. For more information, visit Garmin's virtual pressroom
at www.garmin.com/pressroom
or contact the Media Relations department at 913-397-8200. Garmin and
Oregon are registered trademarks, Colorado and HotFix are trademarks and
Garmin Connect is a service mark of Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries.
Groundspeak, Inc. of Seattle, Washington, is a privately held company
focused on worldwide location-based entertainment. Groundspeak's
portfolio includes Geocaching.com, Waymarking.com and Wherigo.com. All
other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks
are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
Notice on forward-looking statements:
This release includes forward-looking statements regarding Garmin Ltd.
and its business. All statements regarding the company’s future product
introductions are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based
on management's current expectations. The forward-looking events and
circumstances discussed in this release may not occur and actual results
could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors
and uncertainties affecting Garmin, including, but not limited to, the
risk factors listed in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended
December 27, 2008, filed by Garmin with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (Commission file number 0-31983). A copy of Garmin’s Form
10-K can be downloaded at www.garmin.com/aboutGarmin/invRelations/finReports.html.
No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking
statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and Garmin
undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information,
future events, or otherwise.
