# Garmin Montana



## PissedOffCil (Oct 18, 2007)

Not that interesting for MTBers but I know there are some geeks out there!

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/garmin-launch-montana-off-road-gps-units-30260


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

that looks pretty interesting. I might be willing to get something like that as a car GPS. It wouldn't replace my Oregon, but it looks like it'd be a pretty nice supplement to it.


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## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

I can see having one of these on my bike, not much bulkier than my old 60CSx that I still use for serious navigation. I still like my 705 for everyday rides. As Nate says, this could be a car and adventure bike device.


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## ToddM (Feb 3, 2004)

It looks very interesting.

I know I've heard a lot of GPS companies are worried about cell phones taking huge chunks out of their market in both auto and handheld sales. That could be why garmin may have been motivated to bring out a more all-in-one unit with a larger feature set. The camera is cute, but if I want good pictures I'll bring a real camera, and if I don't my cell phone already has one. Though I hear it's been requested frequently from geocatchers. 

It seems garmin may have really put some thought into this one being versatile, with turn by turn audio in the car mount, rechargeable lion and AA power options, and can use the ANT sensors but one big issue is for cycling will it have enough trip/cycling features available to make it viable on a bike. That and I haven't seen a good size comparison on it yet compared to other units, but it sounds like it's probably bigger than most cyclists may want to put on the bars. 

Tried to see if they had the manual out for it yet, but they don't and if a couple of the last manuals I've seen from them are any indication it wouldn't be much help to determine a full feature set anyway. Some of the photos of the screens and menus look like it may have a lot of functionality compared to some of their more recent offerings. Certainly it probably won't have all pure training cycling gps features the edge does. However, I'd bet most people never use 90% of that anyway and many software programs can get all that additional info from the data after the ride now. 

Could be a great unit for going between the car, dirt bike, hiking/hunting, and perhaps even the mountain bike, especially in navigation on the bike is more of a desire than the fitness type functions.


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## ToddM (Feb 3, 2004)

As an aside GPScity has a lot of youtube videos of the Montana going through various features, settings, and most of the menus. 

It looks pretty impressive, I'd say it's too big for most to use for cycling training, and it has very few if any cycling features (it only accepts the ANT HR, and Cadence, no speed sensor or power functions). For those that want a GPS for more adventure biking and don't need the higher training functions it looks to work a lot better than the edge series for navigation. It's too bad it doesn't use the speed sensor so a person could use it for trainer riding just to track milege, if it did that I'd be tempted to replace my edge with it as well. 

Otherwise though it's impressive, I could easily see it replacing my handheld and Nuvi.

Motorcycle and ATV guys are going to flip over this thing. In the past to get Nuvi functioning in a descent sized screen you had to get the Zumo which is ridiculously priced just to get water resistance added to a car Nuvi.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

ToddM said:


> As an aside GPScity has a lot of youtube videos of the Montana going through various features, settings, and most of the menus.
> 
> It looks pretty impressive, I'd say it's too big for most to use for cycling training, and it has very few if any cycling features (it only accepts the ANT HR, and Cadence, no speed sensor or power functions). For those that want a GPS for more adventure biking and don't need the higher training functions it looks to work a lot better than the edge series for navigation. It's too bad it doesn't use the speed sensor so a person could use it for trainer riding just to track milege, if it did that I'd be tempted to replace my edge with it as well.
> 
> ...


There was the Nuvi 500/550 that added those features to a car Nuvi along with a slightly better battery. But it looks like the Montana is a step up from there in ruggedness and battery life.

I don't really think I'd use this one on the bike. The Oregon series is about as big as I'd be willing to go and because the Montana has a larger screen that makes the overall dimensions larger, I don't think it'd work so well.

The moto/offroad folks will really like this one. I see Geocachers jumping on this one, too. Can use it in the car, then pop it off the mount and spend the whole day in the woods without worry with the battery life on this one. With paperless caching included on this one, it'd be the perfect all-in-one car-to-cache GPS. I've seen guys that keep 3 car mounts for different GPS receivers on their dash/windshield. Insane. Something like this would allow those folks to slim WAY down.

Could also be used in a pinch for quick hikes/bike rides where you forgot your regular outdoor GPS. While it's probably a bit big for the bars, it'd still fit in the pack or pocket just fine.


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## ToddM (Feb 3, 2004)

That's true the size thing might be out of control, it looks like it's about the same physical size (length width) as the 76 is, but thicker. It's always hard to really tell how big it "feels" till you can handle one. I know I had my 76 on the bars for awhile out in more remote places riding and it was really a lot to put on the bars, but perhaps the montana would seem smaller mounted in landscape mode on the stem. But again I'd probably only use it on the bike in more remote areas where navigation is more than cycling features on the gps. 

It's much more lucrative for using for the truck, dirt bike, and maybe hiking/hunting than cycling and actually for hiking/hunting/field work I really like the Etrex because of it's huge battery life, and it's easy to use with one hand while on the move.


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## gps_dr (Feb 27, 2007)

It has a lower pixel density than the Oregon units, hopefully more visible.
Similar in size to my 76CSx, unless you're in a race, the size/weight shouldn't be much of an issue.
Looks like you can configure the dashboard of various screens to allow on screen button access to frequently used features.


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