Garmin Overlander, Rugged Multipurpose Navigator for Off-Grid Guidance

Very good quality I wouldn't drive without it

Awesome device, I keep it in my Ford Ranger all the time as it's a much better unit than the stock Ford Sync 3 which is terrible. It's worth the Look-ahead features alone on long trips and the elevation feature. Another key feature is tapping on the off-road map and seeing who's property you're on or about to go on. The historical POI feature is also very cool, not only providing distance and directions but also nice details about the historical site. I took the unit off road on trails near Arches National Park and both Ford Sync and my iPhone GPS's crapped out but the Overlander did not on remote trails. This device provides great situational awareness as to what's around you (private property, trials, historical sites, camping...). It does have one big problem and that's the suction cup magnetic friction mount. It doesn't have enough friction so even small bumps cause it to tilt down to the point it is very annoying. My unit is over a year old, not sure if Garmin fixed this or if there's an after-market product that fixes this.

I ordered and received this a year ago, and like an idiot I let it sit unused in the box until now, when I think I might finally need it. Of course it's now way too late to return this hunk of junk. I spent forever updating it, then tried to use it. The device has an EXTREMELY slow startup. Do you want to sit in your car, with your engine running, FOREVER before your device is ready to program your destination and you can finally get going? Every time you stop, when you are ready to go again, do you want to sit there in the gas station waiting for this worthless piece of garbage to boot up? Think about a PC from the 1980s trying to boot from a 5-1/4 inch floppy--that's how slow this pig is. If you love to waste time and get frustrated, this is the unit for you. The various software apps are very buggy and unstable. If you want to use the "Explore" app, which is a main reason to get this thing instead of a much cheaper GPS unit, you have to download maps for individual regions and it takes FOREVER. Plan on wasting a whole day just to set up this piece of crap then plan on pulling your hair out when you try to use it. LOSER. VERY EXPENSIVE LOSER. How I wish I hadn't waited so long, so I could return it. As it is, I am left with a seven-hundred-dollar paperweight.

So the reviews that say nothing more than it's an expensive tablet are somewhat true, at the end of the day I wanted to see for myself, there are some features on this that you can't get on a tablet. One of the things I was looking forward to was being able to add a camera, suprise! the only camera you can add has been discotinued. This unit may not be what your looking for.............

The GPS works well but there is a learning curve to figure out the features and it is not intuitive. To get quad maps you have to have cell service (and tether the wifi to your phone) and I can't figure out how to load them ahead of time for the area your planning on being in. The quad maps that are loaded are not the latest but so far most of the roads in the forest have been displayed. Other features are still eluding me .... To make best use of the machine you really need an overall paper map to refer to. The window mount works well for me and the unit seems well sealed for dust and moisture, like the big screen. Bought the screen protector with it but it didn't work out , got air bubbles and folds in it so removed it. I don't know how it compares to competitors but in the past GarmIn has been good about support with my other GPS's when I had a problem so I'm a returning customer and would buy it again.

I purchased this device to prior to departing on a cross country road trip that would include significant off road driving in public lands and long periods without cell service. While there is much discussion in online forums regarding the value of the overlander vs several subscription map apps for mobile devices, for my use I found the overlander had several advantages.1. As I knew I would be without cell service (or wifi for that matter) for extended periods of time, having to download maps in advance posed a problem. Any mistake in pre-loading maps, or loss of data would have left me in a difficult position. With the overlander I knew I had the coverage required in advance with less risk. Having a dedicated device for navigation let me save battery life and use of other devices for other purposes.2. In my experience purpose built gps devices tend to have better receivers than mobile devices, particularly when cellular or wifi augmentation is not available.I had some issues with the speaker on the initial device I received along with some stability problems. I contacted Garmin support late one night by email and noted that I was leaving for a long trip in less than a week and needed the device for that purpose. By early the next morning I received a reply that due to the issue I described an my impending trip Garmin would overnight me a new unit and sent a label to return the first. The same support employee maintained contact with me through the process, ensured an imagery subscription purchased for the first unit was transferred to the replacement. While it was a bit disconcerting that I had issues with the first unit, the responsiveness and thoroughness of the customer service was excellent, truly.Beyond the expected quality of the normal on road nav features, the real selling point of the Overlander is the capability to route and navigate overland using topo maps. After driving several hundred miles through BLM and Forest service lands I confirm these features work well and were helpful planning and changing my itinerary on the go in response to conditions.Overall I find the integration of quality maps, hardware and user interface combine to make the device a useful tool for those who will take advantage of the unique features. If your use case does not include significant off highway travel I would not expect the value to be the same compared to more typical gps or mobile apps.