Garmin Montana 700 GPS/Mapping.

[Fenlander]

This might be a bit niche as many folks once above the really small handhelds get 12v fixed plotters but might be of interest to someone.

Having changed from a small Garmin 45DV fixed plotter to gain simplicity of no separate battery and no transducer I've been using a handheld Garmin Montana 610 with charts for a while. Great little unit but the other day when the salt spray meant my glasses needed to come off I found the Garmin 610 harder to read than in similar situations previous years.

So today a Montana 700 arrived. Slightly bigger screen, more pixels, brighter and with a more responsive touchscreen. My iPhone camera has made the 610 screen look better than it does in real life where in reality the 700 is much easier for me to read at a quick glance without glasses on.

Looks like it will be a useful unit with 18hr life on its rechargeable battery plus backup of a 3x AA battery pack that can substitute for the integral one in an emergency. I've decided to go for a new South coast Bluechart that covers from Felixstowe to the Scilly Isles which is my most likely area of use for the next few years. Chart SD card arrives tomorrow when I'll get the full idea of how they look compared to the 610.

Photo showing the 700, 610 and my faithful Etrex which has full UK mapping albeit an old version some 12yrs out of date.

Been using the 610 with a brilliant RAM mount and that adapted easily to a cycle mount for the 700. That was bad enough at £40 but the alternative was the Garmin Marine mount which had a power lead/contacts which I didn't need and was about £115.

Can't praise the RAM mount enough... a simple concept but it just works 100% as you'd wish. A medium twist of the thumbscrew to lock its position and it stays put for hours in a choppy sea. Because of the extra investment involved I have added the Garmin safety lanyard this time.

Once I've worked out if I can let the 610 go with or without its full UK charts I'll put it for sale on here at a modest price.

[Trello]

"Garmin Marine mount which had a power lead/contacts which I didn't need and was about £115."

Good grief!


Can you put OS maps on the 610, David? If so, I'd be interested if you do decide to part with it - although I can see why you might want to keep it as a backup.


With regards glasses steaming up or getting sprayed upon, I quite often use contact lenses specifically for watersports - just use them for the duration of time on the water and then dispose of them.

[Fenlander]

Yes I know, the Garmin accessories are very expensive... but they are in my experience well designed and strongly made.

I'm not really up on land based maps but I think the 610 would use Topo maps...

https://www.activegps.co.uk/garmin-montana-610-maps.htm

If you wanted it for that purpose without the marine maps that would be great for me as I can keep the marine card I have as it works in my little yellow Etrex which is my "we're really in trouble" pocketable backup. Without the marine map card the 610 can be really cheap.

[Trello]

To be honest I was thinking of using it both for land and sea use, so I would want the marine maps.

As an aside, (and I know this won't be of interest to the vast majority of members, so apologies) I have lived my whole life being extremely geeky about maps. When I was a young lad, I found an A-Z city atlas and my friends and I would use it to go to various parks and woods and rivers, when our parents had actually forbad us to even leave our street. It started a life-long love of maps and charts. I can sit and study them, both paper and electronic, for hours. When the US military made GPS available to civilians, it was like Christmas to me. I'll confess that I have watched a documentary on the history of the Ordnance Survey three times. Ok - I've said enough.

[Fenlander]

I may not be far behind you... since a teen I've been able to visualise a place from a map way more than average and find I can quickly see unusual features/patterns which when investigated, particularly when Google Earth is added in, turn out to be quite interesting. Hence being to be prepared to spend more than might seem essential to have mapping on the SIB.

I ride an elec mountain bike (legal type) off road loads these days and gradually I'm expanding my area covered studying the maps every time before going out to link rights of way and other routes into a good trip out minimising road use.

I like old maps too and often look at areas of interest on the Scottish Uni side by side geo-reference website.

Legit mapping costs are a downside to GPS devices... a whole UK marine map would cost about 80% again on top of the Montana 700 new cost. Of course there are other options but they can be unpredictable and a bit out of date.

[Trello]

Originally Posted by Fenlander

I've been able to visualise a place from a map way more than average and find I can quickly see unusual features/patterns

Snap!

Originally Posted by Fenlander

studying the maps every time before going out to link rights of way and other routes into a good trip out minimising road use.

Snap!

Originally Posted by Fenlander

I like old maps too and often look at areas of interest on the Scottish Uni side by side geo-reference website.

.

Snap again! It's nice to know that I'm not the only crazy!
I hesitate to mention it in case it wastes even more of your time, but geograph.org.uk is another interesting site: photographs linked to specific areas.

Originally Posted by Fenlander

Legit mapping costs are a downside

Yes, mapping is expensive, and I'm not sure whether it's going to get more so or less. Most serious mapping in the UK (and probably in most other places in the world) started as military endeavours (hence the "Ordnance" survey, and "Admiralty" charts), but then, to bring in funds, was sold to the public.
What's happened in the last couple of decades is that satellite technology and the internet have allowed the widespread use of commercial mapping (and although companies such as Google push their mapping as "free", I include them in the "commercial" category: if you look at all the information they keep about where you go and what you do, and all the insidious advertising that is done within the mapping itself, it is anything but free).
That puts pressure on those mapping producers who want to sell their products in the conventional way (ie you pay for them by giving up your cash, not your soul), as they now have that much more competition.
Then there is the added complication of maps to which the general public contribute eg openstreetmaps etc. I'm not sure where these will lead - but I can't see specialist mapping, like marine charts, having a major input from the public.

[Fenlander]

The oddest mapping related thing I've noticed this year was somewhere coastal I was looking at recently on Google Maps and when I clicked on Streetview someone has "street viewed" the estuary from their boat in 360deg.

Re marine charts the very best value for a SIB (if you are not obsessed with cutting back on every bit of clutter as I am currently) is the Garmin 45CV 12v plotter at around £300 as it includes all the UK & Ireland plus Northern Europe Bluechart area. To buy the mapping alone would cost £100 more than the unit inc mapping... a marketing anomaly.

[Fenlander]

I thought the emergency AA battery pack pretty neat, just substitutes for the normal rechargeable battery.

Garmin 2023 chart card arrived today. Display looks clear even out in bright daylight.

Proof of the pudding as always will be on the water which I hope to be within 10 days or so.