My well-used Montana 680 (above) is playing up more than usual. Like most of my Garmins it’s always been flakey, crashing, freezing, or dying outright (I’ve got through a couple). But now it’s routing illogically.
It happened in Morocco on the Himalayans in April, putting us in a right tangle trying to get out of Marrakech. I should have pre-visualised the exit route on a map the night before; as we know, second guessing a GPS’s routing is part of the game.
A quick Morocco map switch – such a great feature which set Montanas apart back in 2011 – fixed that. I assumed the OSM map had some flaw with main roads wrongly classified as mule tracks, flipping us up some diversion then coming back to the main road. Then the other day riding my new Serow back from Wiltshire via backroads, it was routing me all over and even onto tracks fluttering with red flags and low flying tank shells.

Back home I reset the Montana, updated the software, installed the latest UK OSM, changed my underwear, moved/deleted maps off the internal storage and took out/put in the mini SD card. And I’m always disabling unused maps to free up whatever needs freeing up. This routing anomaly might have sorted itself out but even then, compared to a tablet or phone, the 4-inch Montana screen is small, murky and my eyes less good, made worse by using full dark visor these days.

So once again I find myself looking for an as-functional alternative: a satnav that routes reliably when not in North Africa, but that switches maps and records tracks and waypoints with ease when out there, has an all-day battery for UK walks/MTB exploring (with the benchmark OS map), but doesn’t cost 700 quid like the Garmin 710i/Tread or a full DMD/Thork set up. I don’t need to listen to music, answer calls, run dash cams, talk to other riders, integrate Group Rides, receive fun road suggestions, log my lean angle and tyre pressures, or get traffic and weather notifications. These clever do-it-all-and-more app tablets are impressive like a phone, but right now I’ll just settle for nav.

Garmin Zumo XT

What they say
The rugged zūmo XT motorcycle sat nav is built for adventure. Its ultrabright 5.5-inch display is glove-friendly, rain-resistant and shows you the adventurous way — on and off the beaten path.

Superseded late last year by the XT2 (from £530), the 2021 Zumo XT came out in 2021 and goes discounted to £304 at SportsBikeShop with 77% 5-star reviews on amazon. I intended to try and see if it would do the things I needed, then either keep it or send it back.
Way back, I was lairy of Zumos when I realised they were nothing more than a Nuvi car satnav in a rugged package with moto routing gimmicks and a jacked-up price. I’m sure the XT has moved on from that era, but being cheap myself, for around £50 used on ebay I took to using used Nuvis (now called Drive), as for plain road nav the map display is far superior to any Garmin handheld, while still keeping a Montana for recording trails. A Nuvi required a plastic bag for rain, but even then one drop off it’s flimsy car mount, drop of rain, or even just pocket dampness saw it off.

In the box
You get a lot with the Zumo XT: proper RAM ball mounts (nice), suction mounts with the old Garmin ball plus a cig plug lead for car use, long 12-v power cable and solid looking clip mount plus the charging/data cable. The unit is rated IPX7 which is rain resistant, with thick rubber caps to protect the miniSD and USB ports, though I read that rain drops can set off the sensitive touch screen. The XT2 has a way of disabling this. Likje a Montana, you can run an XT off the battery, via a USB cable or off the charging mount hard wired to the bike. This clip-off mount feels quite solid and may do for off road use, though generally clamping around the whole body (like Montana) is more secure.
The unit was dead out of the box so I plugged it into a power bank via its ancient USB mini A slot and started looking around. All very Nuvi like but a nicer lay out. There’s a lot of added crap on there too, but isn’t there with everything these days? Basic set up was dead easy (compared to a Montana after a reset). Then came the moment of truth: slotting in my Montana’s miniSD loaded with my .img custom maps.
“Alert! Alert!: Maps are corrupt and cannot be used. Go to http://www.garmin.com/express to download [AKA: buy] the latest maps. Alert“
I did manage to get one UK map to load, but not the more useful OS 50k mapping (I was told OS 50k wouldn’t work on an XT, even newer ones). And a Moroccan one appeared at some point, all before I learned to store the maps in a folder called ‘Maps’ on the mini SD card (not ‘Garmin’ folder as before).
So there was potential there but crucially, I could not see how to switch from one map to the other – so easily done on the Montana. Often in Morocco one of my maps will show more or better detail of what’s ahead. Switching between multiple maps is important. I suppose I could have ploughed on for a few more hours trying to unravel it all via the Zumo forum. But it reminded me of the bad of ~Garmin years of try to get custom maps to show up, plus I wasn’t convinced I’d not come up against some other game-ending anomaly.
So with no great surprise I declare the Zumo XT a great passive satnav. For 300 quid it’ll spare you mobile but does not answer my nav needs. Recording a track and saving a waypoint looked pretty easy, and the screen was a bright as. Unlike a like a Montana, it was getting pretty hot in the hand charging off the powerbank, but once separated, it did look like the battery had a few hours in it, unlike any Nuvi. You’d hope wifi import/export/updates will be seamless. – didn’t try but I hope it’s not like baffling camera wifi.
Right now I have a RAM cradle for the car’s Nuvi for UK road nav (below left), and will stick with the Montana whose routing might be magically fixed.

Next, I might sharpen the crampons and try to ascend the DMD2 learning curve using my 9″ Samsung tablet (above right) before considering something normal sized. I’ll even have a chance to try out my recently bodged velcro & RAM set up. Intended more for cars, it might do pootling about on the Serow to see if DMD2 with a rugged 6-inch tablet is worth the plunge.
I have not arrived at my destination.