Garmin Oregon Beta 2.99 Available — Not Recommended
Garmin released beta 2.99 for the Oregon yesterday with the following release notes:
- Added ability to load maps from any img file in the Garmin directory
- Improved display of numeric degrees and mills
- Improved Wherigo stability
- Fixed elevation errors when reviewing a point other than a waypoint
The ability to load maps from any .img file in the Garmin directory may not sound like a big deal but this feature should make managing maps on the Oregon much easier. Simply put, this will eliminate the need for rebuilding maps in Mapsource just to add new maps or new map segments. No longer are you limited by only four img files (three in internal memory and one on the SD card). I have tried a few simple test cases and it seems to work the way I would expect; if segments from the same map set are included in different files, the unit “combines” them and you can enable and disable the map layer just as if it was loaded in a single file. Kudos to Garmin for adding these types of enhancements almost a year after the Oregon has been out.
The three other bug fixes work as advertised and address problems reported Oregon wiki Issues List.
Now for the “not so good” part. Yesterday a number Oregon users noticed that when you power off the unit with this release that the unit actually crashes as it shuts down. You might say, “Who cares?”, but unfortunately the crash seems to prevent configuration settings changes from being saved across power cycles. Given a bug like this could result in profile corruption I would stay clear of this beta until Garmin resolves the issue.
Beta 2.99 discussion thread on the Oregon wiki.
Related posts:
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Grazie prima di tutto per le spiegazioni che voi date ma purtroppo ho gia scaricato sul mio oregon la versione beta 2.99 eho riscontrato crash che voi dite spero che garmin provveda subito con un altro aggiornamento per rimediare a questo inconveniente
Un saluto
Fabrizio
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I just returned from the Yosemite Valley trip and found the elevation profile reading in my Oregon 200 witn 2.98 was total in error. It reported more than 8,000 feet in elevation gain but was actually only 4,200 feet. I do hope 2.99 fixes the issue. Will go back to Yosemite later this week to check it out.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
In term of positioning accuracy in Yosemite Valley which is considered tough terrarin for GPS receivers, I do find out Colorado 300 (2.8?) is doing better job than Oregon 200 (2.98) after comparing the track logs of both on Upper Yosemiet Fall Trail. Oregon 200 jumped more seriously as matther of fact.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:38 am
@ Frabrizio:
This forum’s Lingua Franca is definitely English.
Frohes jagen.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I downloaded the 2.99 update for my Oregon 300, before I checked here. Now I see that 2.8 is better, than 2.98 that I replaced it with, where it concerns accuracy. I’m really getting confused.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Stick with 2.98 for now. It has lots of miles on it and the GPS accuracy is about as good as any release available right now.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:00 am
The Whereigo function isn’t any better either. Locked up over and over where my Colorado 300 worked fine.
This release is a big dissapointment.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:28 am
3.01 Beta released 7-1-2009. So much for 3.0 being final.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:47 am
[...] Not much to write about here, but Garmin has just posted a 3.01 Oregon beta with a fix for the shutdown failures introduced in 2.99. The problems were severe enough in 2.99 that we recommended Oregon users [...]