+Zen Cooker #1 Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 The time has come for me to upgrade my GPS to a newer, brighter model. I have been using an Oregon 550t for several years and have no real complaints other than the underlit screen. My primary uses are 1) geocaching, 2) wilderness hiking, and (3) automobile routing. I have been considering the Montana but now there is the new Oregon 650t. What are your thoughts about choosing between these two models? Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 A replacement for the Montana will be out soon. You might want to wait. Otherwise YOU need to look at them in person to decide.... Quote Link to comment
+kunarion Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 I have been considering the Montana but now there is the new Oregon 650t. What are your thoughts about choosing between these two models? My brother has the Montana. It has a nice car charger mount that converts it into a car nav GPSr, and it speaks loud and clear. But I don't need another car GPSr. If my hiking GPSr is out of commission for whatever reason, it will be nice to still be able to do street routing*. So if the 650T is great, I'd consider it instead. *OK, I could carry the Nuvi as a backup... Quote Link to comment
+Zen Cooker #1 Posted May 20, 2013 Author Share Posted May 20, 2013 A replacement for the Montana will be out soon. You might want to wait. Otherwise YOU need to look at them in person to decide.... Thanks for the heads up about the new Montana. What do you know about it? What improvements will be made? When will it be available? I never thought about looking at them in person. What a novel idea! Quote Link to comment
+Zen Cooker #1 Posted May 20, 2013 Author Share Posted May 20, 2013 I have been considering the Montana but now there is the new Oregon 650t. What are your thoughts about choosing between these two models? My brother has the Montana. It has a nice car charger mount that converts it into a car nav GPSr, and it speaks loud and clear. But I don't need another car GPSr. If my hiking GPSr is out of commission for whatever reason, it will be nice to still be able to do street routing*. So if the 650T is great, I'd consider it instead. *OK, I could carry the Nuvi as a backup... Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure if the Montana is too cumbersome for hiking with GPS in hand (or on the belt). And I will always have the 550t as a backup. (BTW guys, the display Montana in my local REI wasn't working. ) Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) I never thought about looking at them in person. What a novel idea! The point is the differences are a very personal opinion. Asking people here will not help you decide between the differences. There is a thread on here with all the new Montana replacement information. Search for Monterra. Edited May 21, 2013 by Red90 Quote Link to comment
+BAMBOOZLE Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 I have been considering the Montana but now there is the new Oregon 650t. What are your thoughts about choosing between these two models? My brother has the Montana. It has a nice car charger mount that converts it into a car nav GPSr, and it speaks loud and clear. But I don't need another car GPSr. If my hiking GPSr is out of commission for whatever reason, it will be nice to still be able to do street routing*. So if the 650T is great, I'd consider it instead. *OK, I could carry the Nuvi as a backup... I've used a Montana in the field and its just too big. You can measure and make size comparisons but its just too big and heavy. Being a " button man " we went from a 450 , 60CSx , and sometimes Platinum to a couple of the 62S.....we really like them....very bright screen. Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure if the Montana is too cumbersome for hiking with GPS in hand (or on the belt). And I will always have the 550t as a backup. (BTW guys, the display Montana in my local REI wasn't working. ) Quote Link to comment
+taeke Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 My brother has the new Oregon. It is like the new Montana all over again, with it's random crashing and other weird issues. Getting an even newer device (the rumoured Monterra), is even a bigger gamble when it comes to reliability. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 I have had a Montana since they came out and while it is big I have had no problem with it on long (15 mile) hikes. I hook it to the shoulder strap of the camelback and run the line under the chest strap and it sits there nicely. Little disappointed in the battery time (around six hours) but a spare one gets me through the day. When I head out for a long day of biking it is wonderful to have that screen on. The handlebars. Quote Link to comment
+kunarion Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) Little disappointed in the battery time (around six hours) but a spare one gets me through the day. I didn't realize the Montana has a special battery pack. Same thing with the 650? I see a couple of different "battery packs" for the 650 online, one that uses "4 alkaline batteries". Can both models use regular batteries? The 450 & 550 accept 2 AAs. This is an important consideration (for me), because I have several devices that use special rechargeable batteries, and each has failed -- when the spare went bad. At the least convenient time. Edited May 21, 2013 by kunarion Quote Link to comment
+Bullygoat29 Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Little disappointed in the battery time (around six hours) but a spare one gets me through the day. I'm curious what your settings are? I can put in a 12 hour day hiking and caching and still have 30% battery life left at the end of the day. I didn't realize the Montana has a special battery pack. Same thing with the 650? I see a couple of different "battery packs" for the 650 online, one that uses "4 alkaline batteries". Can both models use regular batteries? The 450 & 550 accept 2 AAs. This is an important consideration (for me), because I have several devices that use special rechargeable batteries, and each has failed -- when the spare went bad. At the least convenient time. I can't speak for the new Oregon but the Montana will use 3 standard AA batteries if you need to. But I've never come close to killing the battery after a full 12 hour day of use. Quote Link to comment
+Red90 Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 The Oregon 6xx models use either 2 AA batteries or the Garmin rechargable battery pack. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Little disappointed in the battery time (around six hours) but a spare one gets me through the day. I'm curious what your settings are? I can put in a 12 hour day hiking and caching and still have 30% battery life left at the end of the day. I didn't realize the Montana has a special battery pack. Same thing with the 650? I see a couple of different "battery packs" for the 650 online, one that uses "4 alkaline batteries". Can both models use regular batteries? The 450 & 550 accept 2 AAs. This is an important consideration (for me), because I have several devices that use special rechargeable batteries, and each has failed -- when the spare went bad. At the least convenient time. I can't speak for the new Oregon but the Montana will use 3 standard AA batteries if you need to. But I've never come close to killing the battery after a full 12 hour day of use. I haven't changed the settings from the default settings. What settings do you use to conserve battery. Kunerion are you talking about Oregon 650 or Montana 650. The Montana comes with a rechargeable battery but you can use standard batteries. Quote Link to comment
+Bullygoat29 Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 I haven't changed the settings from the default settings. What settings do you use to conserve battery. When I'm off power I run the backlight at 60% and the time out at 15 seconds. Other than that just normal settings. At 60% backlight, it's still brighter than my old Oregon 550. Quote Link to comment
+taeke Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Little disappointed in the battery time (around six hours) I get about 24 hours with 2700mAh NiMH's and 12 hours with the supplied battery pack. I only use the screen-lighting when necessary, because if it's sunny, the screen is very readable. Quote Link to comment
+coachstahly Posted May 22, 2013 Share Posted May 22, 2013 I too get over 12 hours (easily for the most part) on longer runs with approximately anywhere from 20-30% left. I have my backlight at 50% and it goes off after 30 seconds of inactivity. As has been mentioned, it can use 3 AA batteries if it needs to. Single biggest difference I noticed between the two (I got to play around with a 600 at REI) is the map redraw speed on the Oregon. When the Montana first came out you had to drag your finger to move the map. One of the updates made it more like a smartphone, whereby a swipe will move the map (or menus/lists). The 600 is almost just as fast as a smartphone swipe, regardless of the screen you're on. That baby is fast! I don't find it too big at all while I'm out and about, either on foot, bike or kayak. Like mentioned earlier in this thread, it's more about personal choice than anything else. I don't think you'll go wrong with either one, but you'll need to be the one to ultimately make that decision. Quote Link to comment
+vonjoekasey Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 Tried out my Montana 650 on a long cache run this weekend. Charged the battery the night before, used it the whole day 10:00 Am- 9:30 PM and I had atleast 33% left on it. I did not have the back light on high and I had the back screen to shut off after 30 sec. but I thought for a while day of caching it did very well. Quote Link to comment
+hankpixie Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 I lost my 450 last night and am looking for a new unit. I found a brand new Montana 600 minus the battery pack for $250 or I can go after the new Oregon 600. I like the idea of the unlimited gpx files BUT, I'm not sure if there is a way to load them other than in 1000 increments at a time (one Pocket Query). I use a mac and do not use GSAK and right now I could load up to 5 PQ's of 1000 each onto my sd card on the 450. Unless there is a different way to load a mass number of gpx files on the mac I'd have to run a ton of PQ's. I travel frequently and am constantly loading and unloading PQ's from the device. Other than that, are the features in the new Oregon that much better or improved then the Montana? Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Not using an API based program like GSAK does limit you. You can get 11k of caches daily between PQ and API. There is a program called iCaching for the Mac. It isn't as robust as GSAK but if it has API support it should do the job. That makes me wonder. Is the unlimited feature only when using ggz format or GPX. Quote Link to comment
+hankpixie Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Thanks for the replies. I ended up passing on the Montana (just too big in my mind) and was able to bargain down a new 450 for $180. I think I'm going to study the new Oregon's a bit more and read the feedback that it receives. I copied this from one of these threads and it looks like a very informative tutorial on them. http://garminoregon6xx.wikispaces.com/Applications+-+Geocaching Quote Link to comment
insig Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Not using an API based program like GSAK does limit you. You can get 11k of caches daily between PQ and API. There is a program called iCaching for the Mac. It isn't as robust as GSAK but if it has API support it should do the job. That makes me wonder. Is the unlimited feature only when using ggz format or GPX. You can load caches using solely GPX -- I've had almost 50,000 on mine using exclusively GPX. The GGZ file format indexes are retrieves info faster, though. The latest build of GSAK can write out GGZ files. Quote Link to comment
+hankpixie Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Are you using the new 600 and loading via gsak? Quote Link to comment
insig Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Are you using the new 600 and loading via gsak? GSAK GGZ files work -- here's the link to the forum thread: http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=24263&st=0 I've also loaded just GPX files from GSAK. A friend of mine had pretty much every cache in Arizona in his GSAK database, so I had him send them to my Oregon. Quote Link to comment
+Lieblweb Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 (edited) My brother has the new Oregon. It is like the new Montana all over again, with it's random crashing and other weird issues. Getting an even newer device (the rumoured Monterra), is even a bigger gamble when it comes to reliability. If there's anything negative to say about Garmins, is their random crashes and weird issues. Our 450 & 62 have the same issues. We've discovered, the less geocaches you put in it, the better. We used to put 5,000 in it. Now,we only put 4,000 in it and its gotten better (but not ideal). Last month we took a trip and only loaded 2,000 and it ran flawlessly. Edited June 7, 2013 by Lieblweb Quote Link to comment
+hankpixie Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 It's funny, I was loading my 450 this morning with the max that I was able to get into my old 450, 5000 caches. As soon as I turned it on, I got the Exceeded Maximum Geocaches message. So, I then removed 1000 and rebooted and all was just fine. Weird how this new 450 won't allow 5000 and the older one did. Still using an 8gb card. Quote Link to comment
+Lieblweb Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 It's funny, I was loading my 450 this morning with the max that I was able to get into my old 450, 5000 caches. As soon as I turned it on, I got the Exceeded Maximum Geocaches message. So, I then removed 1000 and rebooted and all was just fine. Weird how this new 450 won't allow 5000 and the older one did. Still using an 8gb card. Wow....they have a message now? Our Oregon is about 2 years old ...no message. Ours will let you stuff 5,000 caches in it....it'll get alzheimers and forget how to boot up or have seizures when you're on the trail looking for a geocache. Quote Link to comment
+hankpixie Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 You need to knock on wood, my old 450 had the same message until I upped my card to an 8gb Quote Link to comment
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