The AMPS Mount is centered on the device so the display would naturally be a bit left-of-center. I don't understand your second question.
Well, I don't think so. But then I don't have my AMPS mount bolted to something I can't adjust. It's always a trade-off between display and buttons when it comes to position - since the buttons are on the righthand side.
Let's discuss... 1. Much brighter (subjective opinion) than any other non-touchscreen (glass display) Garmin in direct sunlight do to the very bright backlight. 2. As I noted above, map rendering has...room for improvement no matter which map product you are using. And, using a Topo Map and Terrain Shading with a Routable Map to get 3D Terrain is painfully slow. 3. How else would you expect a non-touchscreen device to enter text? Once you get your head out of touchscreen mode however - took me awhile - it's actually pretty fast and the 276Cx does have predictive lookup. 4. Currently, yes, there is only one general Backlight memory position. But, there are 10 levels of Backlight adjustment if you use the fore/aft cursor: not the Power Button. And, there is also a Twilight Adjustment setting. It will automatically set the Backlight depending upon the time for the area you are in. At least the way it works currently, you turn on this feature and set the Backlight level where you want it for the Day/Night time. When the device thinks it is "Twilight (Sunset/Sunrise)" it will turn the Backlight on to the level you set for that "twilight": i.e, Day or Night. So, I guess there are really three Backlight memory settings.
My primary GPS is a BMW NAV5 on my BMW R1200GS Adventure. It's display isn't as bright as the 276Cx but it is integrated with the bike Computer and Multi-controller (thumbwheel switch) and has most of the features that the 276Cx has. When I use the 276Cx it's on a RAM Ball-mount on the right side of the bars just inboard of the mirror so it's easy to get to the buttons with my left hand. If it were the only GPS I had, I would have it up front above the instrument cluster so it was easy to see at a glance. Of course then it's much harder to get to the buttons and unless I'm on the open road, I stop if I needed to do a bunch of button pushing, as one can easily get disoriented when the road ahead isn't in your field of view.
I used to have a Garmin 478 and that was a fabulous GPS that hasn't been matched since its discontinuation. While I like the button and think the 276Cx is the tits—as is, I would be curious to see them use the new touch screen technology of the Garmin Rino 750/755t series along with a more modern interface. The 276CX software interface hasn't changed that much from the 478 I used to own. One of the reasons the Montana never made me pitch a tent was the matte resistive screen used. Its just downright dull and hard to read in daylight at certain angles due to the satin matte surface reflection. Non sequitar, I feel like Garmin lost their way after the 60CSx series with the Dakotas and Nuvis, but feel like they are back on track with their new product offerings. There brand swung from "Black OPs" to "Gumby" and its good to see they've found a happy medium.
That will take a while. My NAV5 is on it's way back to Garmin for a replacement. I also don't put Google code on my iPhone so another App would have to suffice. Someone else will most likely have a new GPSmap 276Cx before I get my NAV5 back next week.
Interesting observations... Why would you want a capacitive touch screen (like on the Rino/Oregon 750) and buttons? Seems to me that would make for a very dysfunctional UI. My anecdotal experience is that the majority of riders that like resistive touch screens aren't that thrilled with capacitive touch displays and their relatively glove-unfriendly nature. --- Can we all avoid the "my smartphone is a better GPS device" discussion here since there are several other threads for that topic. Speaking of UI, the reason the new GPSmap 276Cx has a menu system similar to the old chartplotters is because that UI was one of the things customers liked about the old chartplotters and dislike about the new touch interface devices. Now, a 'handlebar' mountable remote for the 276Cx would be interesting.
Having both touchscreen and buttons would be great! It wouldn't be dysfunctional. The touchscreen would be a secondary input device. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. But if you do, it's there. For things like panning the map, selecting a point on the map, or text and number entry, touch can be a better method than hunt and peck with a cursor. They can even add a physical slider switch to lockout the touchscreen in bad weather. Simonpig is talking about the Rino 750 which appears to have a glass screen (which is usually capacitive touch) but is still "glove friendly" according to Garmin, although they don't say what type of tech it uses. Capacitive touch requires compatible gloves but newer tech can dial up the sensitivity. Also, more and more moto gloves are having conductivity built in. This will eventually become the norm because people want to be able to use their phones sometimes and capacitive touch is standard on phones. This isn't about whether a smartphone is a better device. We're talking about input methods. In my opinion the 276/378/478 aren't exactly the pinnacle of handheld GPS design. There is a lot of room for improvement. If we disregard the need to make it exactly the same as 12 years ago, how could a button interface be improved? Or how could the user interface be improved? They could have done many things: Soft keys or hard keys for direct menu selection Add a few programmable custom keys so you can set it to pull up whatever you want (see, who wouldn't want that?) Add rotary encoder/dial/knob to speed up moving through the menus, text/number entry, or zooming the map. It would be nice if it can detect your speed of rotation so it zooms faster or slower accordingly. Canon and Nikon pro cameras all have waterproof, rugged dials so it's certainly possible. Allow the map to be panned directly with the rocker keys. If you want to bring up or cancel the cursor, press the enter key or add a cursor key. Making us move the cursor all the way to the edge of the screen just to pan the map is terrible. This is like a 1980's video game or something. Totally revamp the POI search screens and route creation/status screens to be more visual and intuitive. POI search results should be shown on a map, not a list. The unit does smart filtering based on the exact sequence of letters you input, but it does not do predictive search suggestions like Google or some offline smartphone apps, like if you spell it wrong. The route creation and status screens could be a lot better. They should be more visual (like with a small map preview) so you know which waypoints corresponds to a point on a route. As you scroll down the list, it should dynamically highlight the waypoint in the map preview. Currently it's just a list that tells you nothing. There should be easier ways to skip a waypoint on a route or to visually select on the map which waypoint on the route you want to start the route. Having just a list of waypoints barely tells us anything. Add better processor so we can have more street detail and labels at higher zoom levels. Get rid of the endless buried menus. Some commands require way too many button presses. Streamline stuff! I could go on and on, but Garmin isn't even paying me for all these ideas, haha. Sometimes I think manufacturers are let off too easy. I think it's good to give constructive criticism.
Santa in the big brown truck came early this year. What else that came in the box. A marine mount, USB cable, a wall wart, battery, and a couple of small guides. Comparing its size to a 478. I was really surprised at how quickly it acquired the satellites. After putting in the battery and turning it on, I selected English as the language and it had already acquired five satellites while sitting inside my brick home. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to load some maps on it and get to go play with it some soon.
I am discussing the 276Cx. I am pointing out areas of improvement (in my opinion) in the 276Cx, so other users can be aware of them as they consider buying it or they can ask Garmin to make improvements in future firmware updates. As the OP who started this thread, I welcome everyone to make constructive criticism in this thread. @caycek5 , congrats on your new purchase! Looking forward to hearing your impressions once you get some time with it, especially in terms of how fast it responds, sunlight view ability and how the routes behave.
The side by side comparison I would like to see would be with the Montana. Many of use migrated out of the 276 to the Montana over the years and now I am excited to move back the other way. Not that the comparison is going to change my mind, but since I do not have the new 276 yet, I am interested in that comparison.
Waiting for mine to be delivered today. I love touch screens, I love my iPhone, my iPad. Hate the touchscreen on my Monterra. Always presses what I don't want with gloves on. Rain and dust gives it hell. On a real dusty ride, I have to wash the screen with my camelback. Which sucks when I forget I put gatoraid in it. In the rain I'm always having to swipe the whole screen with my gloves. My Montana 600 was no better. Even with my iPhone mounted on the bike, it's a PITA to use the touchscreen (yes while stopped).
Really? As a product developer, inventor, scientist and engineer for over 40yrs, on the surface that seems a tad condescending - but I'm old so I can get past it pretty quickly. So, let's play the Tech-game. Why bother with buttons and touch screens? Garmin already sells handsfree voice controlled interface devices. There really isn't any need to 'touch' anything in any of your scenarios. As for some of mattebox's usability suggestions, I like them personally and have given very similar feedback to Garmin over the last eight years and four devices I've been fortunate enough to do pre-release testing on. Since much of that usability input didn't get into product - and all but one of those products sold pretty well - I can only assume that most customers didn't care one way or the other. I tend to see 'suggestions' in two ways: future product wish-list and current product reasonable expectations. When it comes to "current product reasonable expectations", Garmin always releases consumer focused products with "room for improvement." If enough users ask for the same feature so as to put it at the top of the 'list', and it falls within the realm of the existing hardware capability and improves the and-on sales potential while falling within the Product Support Budget, it has a good chance of being implemented. Of course, spending money on feature enhancements always comes after fixing issues (bugs) that impact current customer use in the existing product code.