Oregon 450T, 550T or GPSMAP 62st

I'm looking to replace my old etrex vista (original version). I'm leaning
toward the Oregon. I will primarily be using this unit backpacking and
hunting (deep Northeast woods) but am also going to use it in England and
France. My questions:

How does the reception of the 450t compare with the 62st vs the Vista?
If I disregard the camera is there any other advantage of the 550t over the
450t?

Any other suggestions on a new handheld?

Thank you,

Both has an extreme better reception compared to good (very) old Vista.
Camara is the only difference.
62st is heavier then oregon (40gr) bigger (not in your pocket) but because
of no touchscreen dimming better on your bike.
I went from Vista to GPSmap60Cs to GPSmap60Csx to Oregon 550t and i am
happy.
Walking and biking (it works but not as good as 60 series)

Ben

leaning
nd
e

I bought an Oregon450 a couple of months ago after my Vista HCx
crapped out, and I've been disappointed with the 450 ever since. I
thought the technology upgrade with a bigger screen, higher resolution
with fancier mapping modes, more memory, 3axis compass, and touch menu
display be an improvement. I'm using the units for hiking, biking,
and kayaking, so both units are mechanically functional for the job,
but I found the 450 to be heavier and slightly clunker than the
Vista. The major issues I have are power consumption, screen
readability, and user menu accessibility. The MapSource interface is
a little clunky too.

The 450 does have very good reception/sensitivity, but so did the
Vista. First, compared to the HCx, the 450 just eats batteries 2x
faster, and this is with screen blanking and what other power saving
modes I can enable. Things may have improved with the latest software/
firmware update, and some display accuracy were fixed, but it still
doesn't hang in there anywhere like the Vista. Even with the
backlighting turned down some what, the unit gets warm if the display
is not blanked - that's just not right. And the mapping screen isn't
very readable when it is on and backlight reduced, due to poorly
selected contrast colors. When I used "old" Vista on the bike, I
could leave the display unblanked so either the map or trip computer
screen were on all the time without much of a battery hit. With the
Oregon, you better have screen blanking enabled if you want he
batteries to hang in there for multiple trips, which means you have to
tap the screen to unblank the display when you want an info update - I
guess some may not think that's a biggie, but wasn't necessary on the
Vista and not convenient on the bike, so it seems like it took a step
backward.

The touch screen display could be an advantage with better user cues
for inputs over the eTrex 5 unlabeled buttons/joy stick, but the menu
access is maddening. WAY too much going up and down the menu tree to
make changes like changing maps, entering waypoints, and resetting
trip data. The eTrex wasn't fun either until you got the right button
sequence memorized, but you could make changes fairly quickly then.

The MapSource interface is a little clunky too. The internal and
microSD memory are accessed separately, and from a user standpoint
this was transparent in the HCx. If you think you are reloading
waypoint sets into the GPS, you get disappointed in the field when you
find there not visible since you didn't manually move them afterwards
from one device/folder to another before disconnecting the unit from
the PC. Any load to the GPS should be usable without then need to
move things around with the PC operating system. Again, not necessary
in the eTrex.

So the short story is that if you don't really need the extra features
the Oregon offers, the Vista HCx is a friendlier version.

I bought an Oregon450 a couple of months ago after my Vista HCx
crapped out, and I've been disappointed with the 450 ever since. I
thought the technology upgrade with a bigger screen, higher resolution
with fancier mapping modes, more memory, 3axis compass, and touch menu
display be an improvement. I'm using the units for hiking, biking,
and kayaking, so both units are mechanically functional for the job,
but I found the 450 to be heavier and slightly clunker than the
Vista. The major issues I have are power consumption, screen
readability, and user menu accessibility. The MapSource interface is
a little clunky too.

The 450 does have very good reception/sensitivity, but so did the
Vista. First, compared to the HCx, the 450 just eats batteries 2x
faster, and this is with screen blanking and what other power saving
modes I can enable. Things may have improved with the latest software/
firmware update, and some display accuracy were fixed, but it still
doesn't hang in there anywhere like the Vista. Even with the
backlighting turned down some what, the unit gets warm if the display
is not blanked - that's just not right. And the mapping screen isn't
very readable when it is on and backlight reduced, due to poorly
selected contrast colors. When I used "old" Vista on the bike, I
could leave the display unblanked so either the map or trip computer
screen were on all the time without much of a battery hit. With the
Oregon, you better have screen blanking enabled if you want he
batteries to hang in there for multiple trips, which means you have to
tap the screen to unblank the display when you want an info update - I
guess some may not think that's a biggie, but wasn't necessary on the
Vista and not convenient on the bike, so it seems like it took a step
backward.

The touch screen display could be an advantage with better user cues
for inputs over the eTrex 5 unlabeled buttons/joy stick, but the menu
access is maddening. WAY too much going up and down the menu tree to
make changes like changing maps, entering waypoints, and resetting
trip data. The eTrex wasn't fun either until you got the right button
sequence memorized, but you could make changes fairly quickly then.

The MapSource interface is a little clunky too. The internal and
microSD memory are accessed separately, and from a user standpoint
this was transparent in the HCx. If you think you are reloading
waypoint sets into the GPS, you get disappointed in the field when you
find there not visible since you didn't manually move them afterwards
from one device/folder to another before disconnecting the unit from
the PC. Any load to the GPS should be usable without then need to
move things around with the PC operating system. Again, not necessary
in the eTrex.

So the short story is that if you don't really need the extra features
the Oregon offers, the Vista HCx is a friendlier version.

Your are talking about Vista HCx, not the original Vista.
They are hardly comparable. BW verus Color, better reception of HCx, more
memory (24mb versus SDHC micro sd)
Youre right about interfacing with mapsource PC (awfull for Colorado and
Oregon) and touch screen menu handling.
But there are advantages too: switchable user made profiles and more maps at
the same time (not only 1 gmapsub.img but TopoNL.img, CnEur.img etc. till 8
names) Touch screen operating with cold hands is much easyer then Vista and
60CSx
Remarkable for all Garmins (do they learn anything there?) in tripcomputer
one can choose different options for each field like distance etc. but not
(total) ascend or descend (for climbing) but watertemperature(?) and sun or
moon, very idiote!!!
I agree for biking Oregon is not best choice, but it works ok (screen on, no
backlight) with adjustable RAM mount!

Ben