Review on Garmin Montana 610 GPS Navigator by Balakrishna Monzon

I bought this unit to replace a Delorme PN-60 I had for a few years. I use the GPSr primarily for hiking and geocaching and have owned several over the years from DeLorme, Garmin and Magellan. I chose the Montana 610 mainly for its higher accuracy (hopefully GLONASS support) and larger screen. Unfortunately, my previous impressions have led me to believe that this was a huge mistake. Main problems: The documentation is terrible. There isn't much printed material that comes with the device, which is good, but the online help is terrible. It took the admin longer than I wanted to figure out how to load the geocaching pocket query in, and that was only after some searching the web for more help - I find the menu confusing and unintuitive. To do simple things it seems like you have to go through a few convoluted menu items to get what you want - I bought an SD card but apparently it's useless for my use of the device. All other GPSr devices have allowed me to upload my pocket requests to the SD card. This does not work with Montana 610 - the gpx file apparently MUST be in the system memory of the device. I suspect the SD storage can be used for maps or other stuff, but it's frustrating that I can't use it for geocaching. After figuring out where to upload the GPX file, I had to connect it to my laptop using a USB cable. and find out that the files end up in the Garmin/GPX subdirectory - apparently there is no way to specify which file to use. I'm not sure if it loads all the GPX files you have in memory or how exactly it works. Because I travel a lot, I often have a bunch of files ready when I need them. I also create different GPX files for the same area but with different query parameters but now I don't know how to tell the device to use one against the other. To see the caches in the area, you must either zoom in or set the zoom level to Standard. It was confusing at first as I thought I had loaded a GPX file (I believe the unit comes with some caches preloaded too) but nothing showed up. It turns out that the default zoom level is set to show caches only at fairly tight zooms. If you zoom out, they all disappear. The graphics don't look very good due to the larger screen than my previous GPSr devices. I would say they look almost the same as they do on some devices designed for young kids. The place for the strap is on the bottom of the device. Also, it's recessed so every clip and strap I currently have won't work. Manufactured in Taiwan and China. years and makes the worst first impression of them all. UPDATE OCTOBER 30, 2018: I've gained a little more experience with this device in the hope that I'll appreciate it more after getting to know it better. Exactly the opposite happened. I HATE this device. I just finished a hiking and cache hunting trip and found over 100 caches over the weekend. I was on a trip that was supposed to take place in several areas that were heavily populated with caches so I downloaded some bag requests. Since all files are loaded at system startup, the system took a long time to boot - navigation is terrible. To find a cache, I would open the map, select the cache I wanted to go to, press go, then exit the map, click the compass icon, press power and select lock device. . If I don't close it, it quickly deteriorates if accidentally touched. Then when I find the cache I have to unlock the device by double pressing the power button, selecting unlock, going back to the main menu, going into the secondary menu, selecting the cache menu, and then pressing the "Try Log" button, go a few more to mark the cache as found, return to the main menu, go to the map and start over with the next one. The battery doesn't last long. I was lucky enough to last about 4 hours. The device switched itself off spontaneously or went into a kind of sleep mode. It wasn't a timeout issue since it happened while I was interacting with the menu. When hibernated, it restarts fairly quickly, but it was disappointing nonetheless. However, sometimes it needed a complete reboot, in which case I had to sit there for 10 minutes while it rebooted and downloaded all the caches. I think it's a firmware bug.- When the battery died during the campaign, I connected a Goal Zero external battery. The device turns off and does not work with external power supply. I was able to get it working for a few minutes just after charging, looked through various options but couldn't find a way to set it up so that you could plug it in and work at the same time. Frustrated, I went online after the hike to see what I was missing. The secret is to set the "Garmin Spanner" mode. After installation, you'll be prompted every time you start it if you want to enter mass storage mode (which it does by default if you can't use the device while it's plugged in). If you select "No", you can turn on the device and work at the same time. I still don't know why it's called "Wrench" mode, but it's typical of an unfriendly interface. Now that so many people are using their smartphones for things like this, I'm afraid that hand-held GPS tagging will decrease. I'm still looking for a decent device and was hoping it would be right, especially for the price, but for me it was definitely a step backwards. The search continues.