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Garmin Montana- Anyone using it?

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Anyone using the new Garmin Montana? Looks nice with the 4" screen, getting hard to see the little screen on the 60.

Comments, reviews anyone?

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Rich showed up with a Montana in Bullhead this weekend.....NICE big screen......It's a touch screen therefore every time you "touch the screen" to wipe off the trail dust you need to push a button to reset the mapm screen......not that big of an inconvenience......I was impressed

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This weekend was my first ride with it. I like it, though the differences between it and the 60 take some getting used to -- navigating around the menus to configure stuff, etc. It might help to look at the manual vs just banging on it but I'm getting there :blush: .

Things I'm working through a bit:

Touchscreen: after riding with the 60 for so long I just know where all of the buttons are, almost don't even have to look at it to zoom in, out, page, etc. I just know where those buttons are. I find I have to look at the screen a bit more on the Montana, for now, to zoom in, out, etc but that will change with familiarity I'm sure.

Tracks: on the 60 the colored shading on a track is wider than the color of a road, etc. On the Montana it's a finer line. Think fat marker vs sharpie = I was confused sometime as to whether I was looking at a road or an actual track. Selecting colors for tracks seems to be pretty important on the Montana.

Routing: I gotta think this is a bug or something I'm missing but when I search for something, calc a route to it, and then display the turn by turn as the active route, it gives me the distance between each segment of the route but doesn't give me the total route distance or estimated time. IOW, is the gas station I just calc'd a route to 10 miles away or 30 miles away? Do I seriously have to do the math on those turn by turns as I'm riding? I gotta think I'm missing something somewhere, like a firmware update....anyone know?

Power mount: very slick, with the powered contacts integrated into the mount, and more secure than the 60 mount + power cord.

Overall, the ride was very much a reminder that the 60 is ~'06 technology vs >'11 technology with the Montana. Time for upgrade.

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Rich summed it up well, but I will add that the screen is much larger, brighter and easier to see in the sun than the 60. Not only that, but it has so many capabilities and features that sometimes I don't know where to start. One I like is profiles. I created one profile for road/car driving that uses CN NT, and with the push of a button, I have my dirt profile with TOPO 24K routable maps. Additionally, with a 32GB card I put in, I am able to have all Garmin TOPO 24K maps for the entire country (bike), City Nav for North America (car), and a boatload of other maps on the card and it isn't full. But I think one of the best features for the ADV crowd is that you are no longer limited to the 500 pts/track and only 20 tracks issue that we've had before. I think it will hold 200 tracks with 10000 pts each.

As Rich said, the Garmin powered AMPS mount is solid and works so well. No having to plug wires in and unplug the thing. And it charges the battery as you ride. It also has a locking torx screw to keep someone from easily stealing it.

The unit is pricey, but as I always say, you get what you pay for and there is a reason it is cheap to live in Alabama. I recommend the 600 vice 650 or 650T, as I don't need a built in camera or built in topo maps in the T are only 100K vice 24, and I already have the 24K versions.

See this review for more.

Bottom line: I listed my 60 on eBay yesterday and will never look back. I think it will be the new standard for dual sport bikes.

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What about the Dakota 10 or 20.? Looks like a smaller version of the Montana with a lot of the same features and specs for less money.The Oregon 450 looks nice too. It has a 3" diag. screen for about 330.00

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What about the Dakota 10 or 20.? Looks like a smaller version of the Montana with a lot of the same features and specs for less money.The Oregon 450 looks nice too. It has a 3" diag. screen for about 330.00

I have the Dakota 20. Its OK but very small, especially for the motorcycle. The only reason I bought it was I found a great deal on it last year. Plus I don't really use it to help me find my way. I only use it to help me find my way back after I get lost. Its not a bad GPS for hiking though.

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Jim,

Thanks for the link. See my comment about not seeing that summary data for an active route: distance of the route, ETA, etc. Am I just stoopid or something? :blink:

I absolutely need to spend more time with it. Basically took it out of the box, loaded up the tracks and maps for Chris' ride, slapped it on the mount and rode.

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OK thanks for the info it really did look like the next dual sport GPS to me when I saw it. REI has them at a good price if you figure in the 10percent return you get. Will be adding this to my wish list.

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CC,

That screen looked pretty darn good out in the field. TwoWheels gave us all a look-see last week.

One wonders if the issue of colored tracks being narrow can be dealt with in the menus??

Bagstr

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I've been playing with my Montana 650t but have not really used it out on the trail yet. Big ride coming up and I've mounted the Montana on my 525. Just wondering if I need to buy additional maps for it. I think the only thing it came with was TOPO 100K. Do I need to buy Birdseye? and if so which one? Do I need TOPO 24K? Do I need City Navigator? Anything else? I plan on using this GPS when I travel and rent a car so I'd like it to be able to work for that function also.

Covered in Questions

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The Big difference between 24k and 100k is that 24 will route you on a Forest Service Road. 100k will not.

You saw that in action up north. Obviously, City Nav is The Way on pavement.

B

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Used mine for the first time a few weeks ago on a Baja ride. Used google earth to trace a couple of tracks and then imported into Basecamp and transferred over to unit, it worked great, easy to follow track on GPS screen and no need for waypoints telling which way to go.

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