Garmin Overlander

deserteagle56

Adventurer
I'm somewhat interested but since I bought a Garmin Monterra a few weeks before Garmin decided to dump it I'm feeling a little snakebit by Garmin. I've owned a bunch of Garmin stuff and they don't seem to have any consideration for loyal customers.

I'll watch the reviews carefully before jumping in on this one.

^This.

Garmin is doing everything they can to alienate their customer base. They went from Mapsource to Basecamp as a means of creating tracks and routes - and now they are abandoning Basecamp. I found that out when I tried to send another mapset to my Montana. No go. Apparently the latest Basecamp/Mapinstall (a year old now) is broken and Garmin has NO intentions of fixing it. No one knows for sure but it sounds like the Basecamp replacement will be an app that works through the "cloud". Well, for those of us who live in an area with super-slow internet, that's just not an option.
 

DaveInDenver

Middle Income Semi-Redneck
^This.

Garmin is doing everything they can to alienate their customer base. They went from Mapsource to Basecamp as a means of creating tracks and routes - and now they are abandoning Basecamp. I found that out when I tried to send another mapset to my Montana. No go. Apparently the latest Basecamp/Mapinstall (a year old now) is broken and Garmin has NO intentions of fixing it. No one knows for sure but it sounds like the Basecamp replacement will be an app that works through the "cloud". Well, for those of us who live in an area with super-slow internet, that's just not an option.
Basecamp for Mac was last updated to version 4.8.4 on March 27, 2019. They may have stopped active development of Basecamp, I couldn't say. It does still work for my 3 Garmin devices and will now (as of version 4.8.3) work on 64-bit Apple OSes in the future.

You can only use Garmin Explore with a GPSMap 66 (which appears to still work with Basecamp) at this point and a few other newer devices like the Overlander thing. If you have older devices I don't know why Basecamp or Mapsource wouldn't continue to work. Are they going to obsolete Basecamp in a device firmware update? I doubt that any existing device if (which is a question itself) they fix a bug in firmware will be anything but very minor and not take any major steps that would do such a thing as make it stop working with software it originally shipped with.

It's a legitimate question as to whether or not using the online Explore website factors into buying a new device. Then again I never used Mapsource extensively (apparently everyone loved it) and have used Basecamp, about which I'm indifferent, MapInstall and MapManager. They all do what I need of them, never had a 3rd party map not work.

Hardware and software continuously evolves, you're always free to make the decision to jump on or off the train. Using Explore probably won't matter to me as long as Garmin doesn't cripple using non-Garmin maps. If they do that then the decision to stand pat with the devices I have and move forward only using tablets becomes pretty easy.
 
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jacobconroy

Hillbilly of Leisure
It looks like it will PAIR with a Delorme...but you still have to purchase one separately. Way too much money. If it had the Inreach functionality built-in (meaning the hardware)...then maybe not too expensive.

I don't know about everything else, but I'm done with purchasing TOPO maps. I have purchased them from Garmin twice before and Garmin always has some way to make sure you have to buy them again with a new product.

It isn't like topography is changing every 5 years. It isn't like much more detail or resolution is added to Garmins' TOPO every five years. Peeps are just buying the same, extremely overpriced data over and over again.

Not me. All this information is freely available on the Interwebs if you are a little bit tech savvy. I can buy an iPhone with a similarly sized screen for $700.00 that will pair with my Inreach and gain much more functionality.
 
yeah I did and it prompted me to look it up, Where I discovered that it won't pair with a regular in reach which I purchased less than a year ago... ******? and it will with a mini?!.
I like Chris' write ups >>>>>>>>> But garmin makes me angry.
 

kmroxo

Observer
As cool as this item is, with a little pre-planning you can have the same thing on your large screen phone or small tablet. Perhaps even better. I use Caltopo to make my own custom maps. I can put waypoints from things I find in iOverlander or Ultimate Campgrounds. I draw my main routes in advance so I don't need turn by turn on trails - just follow the line. My iPhone and my iPad will sync to my InReach Mini.
 

DaveInDenver

Middle Income Semi-Redneck
It looks like it will PAIR with a Delorme...but you still have to purchase one separately. Way too much money. If it had the Inreach functionality built-in (meaning the hardware)...then maybe not too expensive.

I don't know about everything else, but I'm done with purchasing TOPO maps. I have purchased them from Garmin twice before and Garmin always has some way to make sure you have to buy them again with a new product.

It isn't like topography is changing every 5 years. It isn't like much more detail or resolution is added to Garmins' TOPO every five years. Peeps are just buying the same, extremely overpriced data over and over again.

Not me. All this information is freely available on the Interwebs if you are a little bit tech savvy. I can buy an iPhone with a similarly sized screen for $700.00 that will pair with my Inreach and gain much more functionality.
Especially considering the topo data itself is sourced from the U.S. Geological Survey and you paid for that with your taxes. Garmin (or rather Navteq) put VGI data over the USGS information, so that's not to minimize the value in their maps. They do a lot of work. But so do Tele Atlas and OSM contributors.
 

1leglance

2007 Expedition Trophy Champion, Overland Certifie
I have been running an Acer Aspire netbook for years along with my Andriod phone paired to an inReach and even combining the cost of all 3 I am less than $700.
Now that I use a Surface Pro (which gets used for lots more so I only count 1/2 the cost) I am pretty sure I am still under the $700 and I can watch movies, surf wifi, download lots of historical notes and run many many map apps
 

carbon60

Explorer
Now that I use a Surface Pro (which gets used for lots more so I only count 1/2 the cost) I am pretty sure I am still under the $700 and I can watch movies, surf wifi, download lots of historical notes and run many many map apps

What map apps do you use on the Surface?
 

dstock

Explorer
yeah I did and it prompted me to look it up, Where I discovered that it won't pair with a regular in reach which I purchased less than a year ago... ******? and it will with a mini?!.
I like Chris' write ups >>>>>>>>> But garmin makes me angry.

Which "regular InReach" are you referring to? The old Delorme models?
 

Airmapper

Inactive Member
Which "regular InReach" are you referring to? The old Delorme models?

inreach.png
 

1leglance

2007 Expedition Trophy Champion, Overland Certifie
What map apps do you use on the Surface?
Delorme Topo (yeah older version as Garmin bought them and killed it) this gives great auto routing
OziExplorer which gives me USGS Topo with all the cool old notes
Garmin nRoute (really old program which allows garmin handheld maps to work on a PC, use it for all my Baja maps)
Avenza PDF map reader as our amazing Gov released all the cool old historic maps as GeoPDF which Avenza will show you as a dot on a handdrawn map from the 1870's :)

I use either a Globalsat 353 USB puck or a Bluetooth standalone puck at various times
 

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