The Garmin zumo 396 LMT-S has been officially announced by Garmin and while the new iteration makes a visual impact we're taking a look at what is going on under the hood. The new model comes with a couple new feature additions but is this enough to warrant an upgrade? The new iteration is expected to hit Australian shores in May 2018.
Price and Australian Release
What’s Changed and What’s stayed the same
I'll list out the major changes below and then go through in more detail what these changes allow the zumo 396 to do.
| zumo 395 LM | zumo 396 LMT-S | |
| Hardware Design | Curved and smaller display size (9.4cm x 5.6cm) | More modern and square to make better use of screen real estate (Display Size – 10.8cm x 6.5cm) |
| Smartphone Notifications | Only incoming call notifications | Displays smartphone notifications (texts, apps, incoming calls) also allows voice commands to read out loud messages |
| WiFi | No | Yes |
| Custom Maps | No | Yes |
| GPX Ride Sharing | No | Yes |
| Automatic Incident Detection | No | Yes |
| Compatible with Tyre Pressure Monitor | Yes | No |
| Price | $599 RRP | $649 RRP |
There are a couple of interesting new additions on this list. Things like the inclusion of smartphone notifications (via Smartphone link) and WiFi are pretty unsurprising as these are stock standard on almost every new Garmin GPS unit these days. Though I should also mention the smartphone support now allows for live traffic updates and live weather updates. Garmin’s live traffic updates can be a bit hit and miss but with live weather updates, I can definitely see the value. The exciting additions are the custom maps and GPX Ride Sharing. The GPX ride sharing will allow you to quickly send your route to other zumo users so you can all follow the same route. You can also download any GPX routes that you like to your phone and export them to your zumo for a new trackable route. You can share your GPX files via Bluetooth to other Zumo users (Apps -> share Route -> Bluetooth -> Select the receiving Zumo unit).
Other changes are the MicroSD card placement. Instead of being on the bottom and a slide in port it's now directly on the back. On the new, model you need to lift up the rubber seal and then the metal latch to place the microSD card inside then lock it back into place. The zumo 396 LMT-S uses the same powered mount as the 395 and 390 models.
