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Garmin Rino 530


No matter where your outdoor activities take you, the Garmin Rino 530 GPS-Integrated FRS/GMRS two-way radio is designed to keep hikers and climbers on track and in touch. This rugged, two-way radio with GPS packs a bold color display, 12-mile communication range, and turn-by-turn directions,


The "Radio Page" displays two-way radio status and GPS signal strength.


The "Compass Page" displays basic navigational info.
giving you peace of mind in the great outdoors. The Rino 530 also features an electronic compass, barometric altimeter, and NOAA weather receiver.



The Rino's position-reporting capability allows you to keep tabs on the location of family members and friends. The map also displays important waypoints and destinations.
Exclusive position-reporting capabilities and a host of other unique features make the Rino 530 one of the best all-in-one two-way radio and GPS receivers around. The position-reporting feature allows you to send and receive GPS positions with other Rino users in your group. Make one call to your partner's Rino, and your location shows up on the map page. You can even poll another Rino user's location in emergency situations.

Five watts of transmit power (GMRS) means you can now call for help from 12 miles away (transmit power is limited to two watts in Canada with a range up to eight miles). A bold color TFT display makes it easy to see and navigate to family or friends with Rinos at an amusement park, lake, or other outdoor group activity. With optional Garmin MapSource City Select software (sold separately), you can navigate safely with the assistance of automatic route generation, off-route recalculation, and icon-driven menus for finding points of interest.

A barometric altimeter provides extremely accurate elevation, an outstanding feature for serious hikers and climbers. An electronic compass is also included, and a NOAA weather receiver keeps you informed of changes in the weather.

The Rino 530 comes with a built-in detailed basemap of North and South America, and it also allows you to store up to 500 waypoints with graphic identification, as well as 50 reversible routes. The two-way radio features 10 call and ring tones, four roger tones, and vibration mode. The radio also allows you to send and receive short text notes. A calendar feature shows best hunting and fishing times, plus clock, stopwatch, and alarm functions, while a trip computer offers speed tracking, sunrise and sunset readout, trip timer, and trip distance.

A mini USB port and 56 megabytes of internal memory are included for rapid download and plenty of map storage of Garmin's entire line of outdoor cartography. Also included is a rechargeable internal lithium-ion battery that provides up to 16 hours of outdoor use.

What's in the Box
Rino 530 receiver, Americas recreational basemap, PC/USB interface cable, wrist strap, belt clip, lithium-ion battery pack and charger, A/C adapter cable, quick start guide, and owner's manual.



Customer Reviews

Average rating:

still has screen crashes

If you accidentally hit the PTT button and the button just below it, the screen crashes. It's very easy to do, and can happen when it's stowed in your pocket. so you're talking to someone, trying to lock on their location, and then bam, no vid. 'hold on' you try to tell the other person over the lousy audio connection. power cycling is the only solution, and it's not fast. eventually it comes back up, you wait for satellites to be reacquired, the other person doesn't know what happened, etc... aaand a moment later it happens again. forget about it. this sux bigtime. the buttons are on the side, they stick out, and you really need both of them a lot for basic function, so it's not like you can just disable one of them or something. and sadly for me i bought it for a job, it didn't work, and by the time i got back it was past 30 days. no more returns to amazon, not even with a pretty please. don't let this happen to you. i've tried a 520 and it didn't have this double-button crash problem. and the520 is virtually identical to the 530.


All you need in one device

Fantastic.
With Rino, I can now have my GPS receiver, with full-info colored maps, together with my GMRS radio.

If Rino was at first designed for this two features, you'll find that Garmin did a great job, because Rino is much more interesting than that.

My completely-on-the-wild adventures are now quite funnier! And further... I can be aware of the sunset exact time... isn't that awesome??

I got my Rino on August 2007, and yet haven't experienced lock ups like people use to say. May have Garmin corrected the issues?


A++

I bought this for my husband's birthday. We gave our old one Rino 150 to our son who is a Boy Scout. My husband is the Asst Scoutmaster and they go on a ton of hiking and camping trips together. The 530 has a large color screen and we can link the two Rino's together in case our son gets lost. The gps maps link together and they have a walkie-talkie feature. All our son has to do is click a button and my husband can see where he is on the gps map. My husband clicks back to our son and now our son knows where dad is and can follow the arrows back to dad, and vice versa. I highly recommend this product and we are very happy with all the features, especially the safety aspect with our Scout!


Frustrating

Let me start by saying I was excited to get this product for an upcoming ski outing where four of us including two children were going. I imagined myself able to locate the kids when we tried to meet up, or find them if we got lost (or god forbid worse). I bought two from Amazon and bought two more from a local retailer while waiting for the Amazon order to arrive. I took my girlfriend's niece out for a practice run to see how they all worked...five minutes later mine locked up. I went and found my niece..."Uncle XXXX, why does the screen look all funny" The units from the local retailer had a problem with the screen locking up...so I exchanged them, but then, so did the two I got in exchange. I thought perhaps I got a bad batch from the local store, but when the Amazon units arrived, they had the same problem. We took them out for a stroll with some friends from MBA school...the unanimous opinion after a few minutes of test use by late 20 year old and early 30s self proclaimed gear lovers..."dude, these %&#!".

Forget, locating the people in your party, even if all your friends are incredibly patient geeks. (I should know, I was so excited when I ordered the radios that I applied immediately for a GMRS license with the FCC). The Rino 530's simply don't work well. A combined GPS and family radio seems like such a great concept for a product, but at $400 a unit, they are pathetic. $1600 for four units bought me disappointment, frustration, trips to the store and time on the phone with customer service agents who act surprised that there is a problem. Frankly, the GPS is useless because the screen flips out every seven minutes. You have to stop, remove the belt clip and take the battery off the back and reboot...then it happens all over again a few minutes later. The product becomes a real distraction instead of an enhancement to your outdoor activity...You wind up thinking how great it was when you had $20 radios that worked.

I spoke with three Garmin reps who denied they knew of any problem, one told me it was a complicated piece of equipment and occasional crashes were to be expected. Every seven minutes? Come on, Windows 95 was more stable than that. Finally, I got a guy on the phone who said, "Oh yeah, there's a problem with the 530's, you should avail yourself of the local return policy if you can. If not we can send you some more, but I can't make any promises." He explained that they are having an issue with the electric signal to the LCD and said they are trying to develop a firmware solution. Reading the other reviews, I'd guess they've been unsuccessfully working on one for more than a year now...and through multiple software releases. I am not holding my breath for working a firmware repair.

I've certainly bought products that had bugs and got better with firmware releases (Linksys routers for instance, Palm Treo's) but this is no $50 router, (or generally stable $400 phone) and frankly, I have to reset my router once every four months at most. This product is really bad, I wish it were better because the concept is great, but I would strongly urge anyone considering this purchase to keep your money and save yourself the headache.


Garmin Rino 530 disappointment

To build upon the reviews as listed below, I will expand on them to say that even with the lastest firmware the issues till exist and Garmin cannot get it fixed.

The hardware radio section is also pitiful and is out of deviation.

But probably the worst part of it all is that after five total sets sent to me from customer service as well as 5 sets returned for various firmware and hardware issues. Garmin cannot seem to get the quality control correct.

Worse than that is a set that was supposedly CHECKED by a service tech and listed in the report as OPERATIONAL withing spec. Out of the box was failing....that is terrible customer service and technical help.

I love the idea of the Garmin 530 and would buy two more in a second * IF * they correct all the known bugs and issues with the product. I do not belive they can and or will and Garmin appears to be in denial about this product.

Stay away from this item until you hear that they have taken the bull by the horns and corrected this product.


Get the Garmin Rino 530 from Amazon.com.