Garmin $$$

Montana 600 = $450 +
Montana 650 = $500 +
Zumo 665 = $799
Zumo 660 = $649
Zumo 350 = $699

City Navigator China NT - English = $119.00 (No updates - you have to buy it every year)

None of the current motorcycle models from Garmin are listed as being compatible with City Navigator China NT. TB is having good luck with his Zumo 220, but there is no official support from Garmin when it comes to rugged motorcycle GPS's that run City Navigator China NT. I would hate to be like his buddy and blow $600 on a unit only to find it's half a kilometre off, or worse, unable to run the China maps. I know you can hack them to fix the issue, but should you have to for that kind of cash? I guess the other avenue you can explore is getting a refurbished Zumo for a couple hundred bucks and then giving it to a Chinese tech. They will usually hack them for a hundred quai including a new version of the City Navigator China NT. TIC

Garmin is like Apple, elegant, robust, proprietary and expensive. As much as I love their hardware, their China policy and route planning PC program made me give up 2 years ago. Still use mine when I go to the states, but if you're spending that kind of cash, you can get a Samsung Galaxy SIII for $500 + $80 for a waterproof case and motorcycle mount. Easy route planning with Google Maps and/or Orux, bluetooth coms to your helmet for phone and music, plus handy translation apps, maintenance apps, fuel mileage apps etc.

In a nutshell...

The Garmin is really nice if you have the cash to blow and the patience to deal with fixing the offset and their less than intuitive route planning software. You get a great display and touch screen that works well with motorcycle gloves.

The Android device might lack a little bit in outdoor display & touch controls compared to the Garmin, but it's going to have a lot more mapping and other software options.

As far as the Lenovo phone, I was just showing you an example of a waterproof Android device, there are several others available as well. I've heard mixed reviews about "China centric" Android phones. Some say they have issues with google services, others claim they can't be fully changed to english. Rather than take the word of a Taobao seller, it would probably best to put your hands on one and test it out before buying.

Orux jockey.... Google jockey.... Garmin software jockey.... They're all going to require an afternoon of your time if you're going to get the most out of them. Just to give you an idea, my shitty China mobile number only has 2G data services and I'm still able to use Google maps all the time. Last weekend I rode 1200 kilometres running Google Maps the whole time at a pretty high zoom level. I only used 22 megabytes of data, which is nothing at todays prices in China.

Cheers!
ChinaV