Long Term Review Yamaha Adventure Pro ⋆ Yammer Hammers

After over 1500 miles on the Yamaha Adventure Pro I have put it through its paces, from the wet northeast to Johnson Valley and Glamis, and even a couple places in between. Yamaha hit the nail on the head with the Adventure Pro.

I’ve been a GPS based rider since 2011. Always exploring new trails and terrains I don’t think I would have given up my Garmin Montana for anything back then. However, GPS based mapping has come a long way since those days.

With the popularity of tablet based systems on the rise it only made sense that some manufacturer was going to throw their hat into the ring and fully embrace this. The Magellan GPS / Adventure Pro is a great first effort for Yamaha.

Installation is simple, it takes a drill bit and a couple small tools to mount your cradle in your Yamaha. From there you just put the Adventure Pro in and out as you wish. Pop it out to take pics on the trail, or even to use to check email, or hop on the internet (with wifi).

Installation Video on a Wolverine X2/X4 Click Here

I’ve mapped the Hatfield McCoy Trails with it, as well as Spearhead, and it works flawlessly. The Adventure Pro allows you to input a ton of data into a ride, not just the track itself. You can warn others using your tracks of steep grades, water crossings, when to keep right or left etc. This all requires an enormous amount of input the first time but you will get the hang of it pretty quickly. The more data the better.

The Adventure Pro ran in all types of weather conditions, with no windshield on the 2019 YXZ at 50 mph in the driving rain to freezing cold and snowy conditions it never once blacked out on me. The cradle kept it secure and charging at all times, and I like the backlight staying on as much as you want, most other systems you have to fumble through settings for that. No matter the terrain, speeds, jumping etc it simply doesn’t move unless you want it to.

One item I’d like to see changed, is put the difficulty of the trail as a color on the screen. If I just did the most gnarly diff-lock 3mph death defying crawl it tracks it the same as the driveway onto the trailer. Sure you can set the difficulty and call it black or whatever you want but that doesn’t translate onto the screen without selecting the track and looking up the info on it.

Pros:

Factory Integration
Gauges and vehicle data
Courses provide turn by turn direction
Weather Proof. You can literally wash it under a sink
Charging Dock means no USB cables.
Instagram integration shows where on the trail you took your Instagram pics.
Publish with community, you can share your routes and courses with the community
A lot of established GPS maps are already in their library.
Timing mode is a great way to challenge yourself or friends
Bluetooth source for playing a playlist to your radio
Wifi Range is strong
One click updates for maps and firmware
One Touch backtrack
Use it with gloves on

Cons:

The Adventure Pro isn’t compatible with the TRX7 Accessories
Can’t buy extra mounts, if you have multiple Yamahas
Processing speed is slow, You can outrun your course if you are going fast enough in woods with tree cover
Limited Android based system, only 16GB of storage, of which AP takes about 13GB
Memory card features not fully unlocked.
Cradle release can jam if it gets dirty
Wide berth of accuracy +/- 15 foot in some cases
Track Colors are per user, not difficulty
No track edit capability

Conclusion

Should you buy the Adventure Pro? Yes.

Here’s why. Nothing else on the market will offer you the factory integration into your system like the Adventure Pro. Other tablet systems won’t be as clean of an install, and won’t have the course information the Adventure Pro has. The ability to have turn by turn guidance is huge in my opinion and worth the price of admission right there.

I’d like to see a little more processing power from Magellan and the ability to put my spotify playlist controls on a live tile in the dashboard so I can efficiently use it as my bluetooth source but if that are my only wishes it is doing pretty well.