Picture perfect: Garmin® Oregon® 550(t) with built-in camera offers touchscreen GPS for all seasons

Garmin, the global leader in satellite navigation, is pleased to announce the Oregon 550 and Oregon 550t touchscreen handheld GPS devices, integrating a 3.2 megapixel digital camera 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 if you’re looking for a multipurpose GPS device.

Andrew Silver, Outdoor Product Manager for Garmin said: “As everyone looks for ways to do more with less, Oregon 550 or 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.

 “Easy enough for beginners to master, Oregon will guide your adventures, capture the highlights and bring them back home for you to share with friends and family.”

There’s no need to carry a separate camera in your 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 the 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.

Once your Oregon 550 is connected via USB, you can use myGarmin.com to simplify the selection and uploading process of your photographs and store them on Picasa – a popular online photo sharing community.

The built-in 3-axis electronic compass is tilt-compensated and shows you your heading even when you’re standing still, or not holding it level.

The enhanced sunlight-readable touchscreen is a key addition to the Oregon 550 and Oregon 550t. The Oregon 500t also features a preloaded 100K topo Full European map in 3D elevation perspective.

Oregon’s glove-friendly, colour 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.

The Oregon 550 and Oregon 550t Weigh only 193g and come with two rechargeable AA NiMH batteries and a charger. These batteries provide up to 16 hours of life on a single charge and don’t lose energy when not in use.

The battery charger saves you money and reduces waste as batteries get recharged and reused. Also in the box is a karabiner clip and USB cable for high-speed USB connections.

The Oregon’s 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, precisely and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and urban landscapes. The built in barometric altimeter tracks changes in pressure to pinpoint your precise altitude, and you can store up to 2000 waypoints, 200 routes and a tracklog of up to 10000 points and 200 saved tracks.

Using a separate TOPO GB DVD or Garmin GB Discoverer™ microSD card brings you the highest level of topographic and Ordnance Survey map detail, with maps featuring terrain contours, topo elevations, summits, routable roads and trails, parks, coastlines, rivers, lakes and geographical points.

On the road: Explore with confidence when you add Garmin GB Discoverer™ or City Navigator mapping to your Oregon 550, providing detailed street maps, preloaded points of interest and onscreen turn-by-turn directions to your destination, an optional Automotive kit adds a suction mount and car charger.

Out geocaching: Go paperless with Oregon, store up to 5,000 caches, by 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 take printouts with you. You can even share your cache information wirelessly with other Oregon and Colorado users out in the field. (Lucky geocachers may even stumble upon a limited-edition Oregon geocoin.)

On the water: Add BlueChart® g2 maps, which provide everything you need for a great day on the water, including depth contours, full charting, navaids and harbours.

On the run or on a bike: Ideal for a 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.

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, 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.co.uk

About Garmin
The global leader in satellite navigation, Garmin Ltd. and its subsidiaries have designed, manufactured, marketed and sold navigation, communication and information devices and applications since 1989 – 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 media centre at www.garmin.co.uk/mediacentre. Garmin is a registered trademark of Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries.  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 29, 2007 filed by Garmin with the Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission file number 000-31983). 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.
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