Garmin Overlander Magnetic Mount+Install

One of the highlights of the Garmin Overlander GPS (on Amazon) is the fact that it uses a magnetic mount rather than a typical “snap” type. Initial thoughts and feedback that I saw some others posted online mentioned that they might not think it was strong enough to put up with aggressive offroad driving, but the first time you snap the mount/base to the Overlander you’ll find that isn’t the case.

One of the things I enjoyed about the Magellan TRX7 (on Amazon) was the mount it used. You could either use a suction cup or the RAM mounting system, which is universal and there are a ton of mounts, arms, and accessories you can get that work together. The connection itself was maybe fair at best, as there are 5 or so pins on the back that have to connect in on the TRX7 itself. It sounds simple, but I managed to bend some of the pins once while trying to pop the GPS into the mount, making it difficult to easily install afterward. I reached out to Magellan, and they sent out a mount free of charge. The second mount I received seemed to have stronger and more secure pins, so maybe it was just a slight “update” made to the connector itself.

Issues aside, the mount was fairly small-ish and when you didn’t have the TRX7 installed it wasn’t too large or anything like that. Once I switched over to the Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 2 however, the mount became giant. I love the way mounts for some tablets work, with built-in charging pins/ports so you don’t need a physical cable plugged into the GPS or tablet. RAM also offers a mount/dock for the Galaxy Tab Active 2 (on Amazon), which is partially why I chose that tablet. The downside? It’s HUGE. The mount doesn’t have a way of “clicking” in on the back of the tablet, so it needs to have a support on the bottom and the top, which means the mount is as tall as the tablet is when it’s in the landscape position.

I had it off to the side of the steering wheel, but still…pretty big. Oh, and the other issue I had was my polarized sunglasses made the screen on the tablet black in landscape mode, which is always how it was mounted. Not super horrible, but close to a dealbreaker (I know I know, just move my sunglasses or use a different pair. But the TRX7 and Garmin have never had this issue…).

Anyway, you can see the multitude of mounts I was using; the Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 2 mount, and the Garmin Drivesmart-61 (on Amazon) right next to it. I would use the Garmin Drivesmart for normal road navigation and switch over to using Gaia on the Galaxy Tab once offroad.

Now? I’ve got one mount front and center for the Garmin Overlander! Granted I’ll be adding another mount to the left of the Overlander for my Garmin Rino 750, but these two mounts are far less intrusive than the Galaxy mount I had been using.