The old ones are decent like you said Noel. These new ones just seen to shit themselves.

How have people mounted them?

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

Had no problems with my Galaxy S3, encased in a water proof box ,, all through the summer of 2012 ,, doing Siberia ,, celsus 45 or more in the box ,,
Had music blaring out of my water proof speakers, while riding long boring 14 - 16 hour days,, thunder storm over the Urals ,, no problem.
In the evening ,, flipped out my phone, for the news ,, downloaded movies ,, used it to find hotels and motels, hospitals,,police box,,libraries,, museums,, kiosks for cigaretts ,,opera houses ,, watched TED ,, listened to BBC news ,, talked to friends and family via Kakao Talk for free ,, did EMs ,, web search ,,, sent pictures and video files via Kakao.
Kept my eye on one and only one ,, my Galaxy.
No need to keep the eyes on both phone and garmin,, which gets to be left on the bike some times.
Looking at the screen was no problem ,, for you can adjust the brightness,, but who looks at the screen while riding a bike ,, you listen to the directions.
Took two garmins as a test run against the Galaxy ,, smashed them both with my boot heels and binned them at the front of the Hotel Turist, in Omsk ,, Russian doorman and security guy thought I was mad.
Got sick of recalculating ,, recalculating ,, recalculating ,,

I have a Galaxy S5! Indeed a great navigation device but a navigation device is NOT a GPS! Try setting routes on the Galaxy where there are no roads like Mongolia or Sahara! You won't get the "recalculate, recalculate, recalculate" but instead you get "return to road, retrun to road, return to road". Again, have seen it happen and I had to lead the posse with my 10 year old crap GPS.

Everbody his own cup of tea I guess.

Hey Taco,

Yeah, there is a reason why I stick to my 276C with upgraded 2Gb memory card but I also hear possitive sounds about the Montana and on our recent Mongolia trip the Zumo wasn't half bad eather!

That cup of tea ,, will be the smart phones,, remember,, you can attach SatNav to a smart phone,, not on garmin.
Peace brother.

Fair call Noel. But I'm always amazed why people need or want turn by turn directions in the bush.

Maybe I navigate old school by land features and check where I am on the map and look at where north is.
For that an app that works with any geo referenced scanned or downloaded map like backcountry navigator (love it, very accurate and power conservative GPS receiver) will do perfect.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

Middle of Sahara or Gobi?
No problemo , with smart phone.
BackCountry Navigator
Plus for oceans and air plane flight...
[url=http://gps.motionx.com/iphone/overview/]MotionX

Maps with me awful good ,,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_MNX7OO8zw

Internet and telephone any where ,,
http://www.thuraya.com/satsleeveandroid
http://www.gizmag.com/iridium-go-satellite-hotspot/30711/

No recalculating ,, no go back to road.

Anywhere really. The choice is usual "go left or go right".

I've noticed backcountry navigator to be more accurate than the garmin in cases. They've got a trick to optimise the GPS location without reception somehow.

Never dropped out neither. The rino lost the signal for 15 mins mid ride on a clear day on the prairie.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

I guess everything is possible now with smart phones but they are way too fragile for me and I don't like touch screens in a dusty environment, where you need to wipe the screen clean every 15 minutes. With a touch screen phone (or GPS!) the thing goes haywire! My tea remains my non touch screen Garmin for now

I used a combination of Garmin Zumo 660 n Samsung Grand for my trip from India to Uk last year thro the hot dry windy weather of Uzbekistan. One of them always worked where the other didnt. Language was a problem on Garmin but not on a phone. I did have maps for each zone I was traveling. One does need a phone to communicate so it shall be a part of our trips Garmin or any other GPS does help. In a trip of thousands of Kms some lost paths are part and parcel. Although I did not loose a single way or direction on the entire trip. Its like comparing phone v/s a camera to take pics.

Smart phones,,
Water proof ,,
Dust proof ,,
Encased in this box, with finger recognition front cover ,,

https://www.google.co.kr/search?q=ra...ed=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

Enough said !
Ride on !

this thread is still going!? my contribution of empirical evidence - Iphone4 using MapsWithMe app as my only navigation down the west coast of Africa London to Cape Town, now in Nairobi on the way back up to Europe. The app pulls OpenStreetMap data which is updated frequently, easy to use, GoogleMaps-like data rendering.

Somehow MapsWithMe makes the data super compressed, so I've ridden around with all of W. Europe and Africa living on my phone. Works great and costs about 0 if you've already got a phone. Glad I returned the Garmin to REI before I left the US.

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bugsonmyboard.org
two wheeled wave hunting dispatches

Smart phones do a great job of navigating, no debate there. But using a smart phone as both your navigation tool and your communication tool is putting too many eggs in one basket. Phones do break, get stepped on, get sat on, get stolen, etc. Having a Garmin and a smart phone is redundancy and it will save you. A cheap garmin, a cheap smart phone, a cheap netbook, and a cheap camera provide you with a full suite of redundancy in case of problems. Using one device (iphone) for all of these functions leaves you in a very fragile state.

Not if you also take your old phone as backup. Most people aren't on their first smart phone.
Plus, you can get smart phones everywhere in the world now. Most stuff on a phone is in the cloud our accessible online. Garmin need a computer

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

Slight correction if I may Tmotten.
A Garmin does not need a computer. It functions as a standalone unit.
If you download osm maps ( on a separate App, I have virtually the whole world in the Navigator Android App and large amounts of old albeit still mostly the best available digitally for more remote areas. Soviet Military topo maps App.
you do need access to the web once to get them.)
It runs Android apps identical to those on your phone.
When it finds an open wifi network, it checks for app updates, Garmin app updates, checks weather forecasts, updates my currency app, checks email , skype etc etc ad nauseatum!!

If you own a Monterra, powered by Android, you have zero need for a computer.
It has wifi and bluetooth capability and self checks for any system updates just as any smartphone does.

SeoulJoe, this 'recalculating-recalculating' was back in 2000! Technology has hugely moved on ( and so should you!)

Have you thought about treating yourself to a Monterra? No need for speakers or an Ipod as the music stored on the Monterra plays back via small earphones. (tip: Bose noise cancelling ear phones are excellent!)
If you use turn-by-turn instructions, the Monterra can be set to either quieten or turn off the music when guiding instructions are spoken then resume playing the music.
And this satnav does so much more but it's not for the faint hearted!

(p.s rotten navigators always blame their satnav... )