Garmin Oregon Beta 3.12 – Promises GPS Receiver Improvement
Shortly after receiving an official 3.10 release for the Oregon x00 series, Garmin has followed up with a new Beta release, 3.12, which employs new GPS Firmware 3.70 and was accompanied by the following release notes:
- Improved GPS performance
- Expanded support for custom POIs
First off, I should mention that there are several issues in this release if you are thinking about upgrading:
- After you edit a waypoint you cannot return to the main menu by hitting “X” since that button has disappeared. The workaround is to select View Maps and quit from the map page.
- In auto mode the compass can get stuck on for about 90 seconds even if you are moving. This causes your heading, compass pointer and map pointer to freeze.
- With the compass in auto mode I’ve seen a number of shutoffs when starting and stopping or moving at slow speeds. The workaround for the last two issues is to disable the compass.
I’ve only be able to test the receiver twice on my test course since upgrading and I can see that the tracks are much smoother but the Oregon still displays zero speed when moving slowly and records significantly more stopped time than the 60CSx. There is also no noticeable improvement in the ability to lock WAAS and hold a WAAS signal under cover. The test tracks I’ve recorded look good but I’ll be testing all week to see how the receiver performance compares to prior releases.
Note this release is only applicable to the Oregon 200, 300, 400i, 400c and 400t and not the Oregon 550 or 550t.
Beta 3.12 for the Oregon is being discussed on the Oregon wiki if you would like to join in and share your experiences. If anyone can figure out the improvements to custom POIs, let me know!
Related posts:
August 18th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
[...] new software drop looks like it might fix the shutdown issue that many users have reported since beta 3.12. The release notes indicate that the shutdowns were related to custom POIs with custom symbols. [...]