I started using this bean-bag friction mount when I bought my first serious Garmin GPS (the 2720) and continued to use it on my subsequent Garmin GPS units (2830, nuvi 350, 750, 285, 500, etc.). It worked but it wasn’t perfect for my needs.
I travel often and needed a mount that I could put in my briefcase and although I could with this one there were a few drawbacks:
* Since it is full of lead-shot it showed up as a dark mass when I sent my bag through the scanners at airports and they had to manually search my bag unless I took it out first
* The mounting arm and bracket has to be taken off of the mount before storing in a bag (the little pieces tended to move around in my briefcase making them hard to find). Not a big deal unless you are looking for them at night while standing in the cold or rain at the rental car lot
* I found that it was not very stable when used in certain vehicles (I rent all kinds of cars on my trips, most were fine, some weren’t)
When Garmin came out with their flexible friction mount I bought one right away. I found that I could fold it flat without taking the arm or the bracket off; it is lighter and has no lead shot so it was not a problem at airports; since it conforms to the dash it works better for me on a wide variety of cars and SUVs.
Some people will like this one better and some will prefer the other one, either way they are both good units and you should be happy with whichever one that you chose.
Garmin Portable Friction Dashboard Mount
JET 252205 1 2