Magellan eXplorist 500 Water Resistant Hiking GPS by Magellan
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List Price: Our Price: $164.99 You Save: $235.00 (59%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Magellan eXplorist 500 Water Resistant Hiking GPS
Digital camera Review: Great Rugged GPS
Summary: 4 Stars
My family and I enjoy geocaching and my PDA/GPS CF card just wasn't cutting it in terms of battery life or ruggedness as we troop through the woods. Picked this up on sale with a coupon from Magellan for the Topo maps for $10. Unit picks up position fast, and typically has no problems with trees. Battery life is good.
Loading geocache points from the geocache manager is a little cumbersome and the hints don't seem to make it down. Menu system to save and retrieve waypoints on memory card card could be a little clearer. Small issues, but still a great value for the money. The new 500LE model with AA batteries would be perfect!
Digital camera Review: Great unit, excellent for Geocaching!
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a Garmin eTrex and I just received this explorist 500 as a gift. I loved the geocaching support in the explorist but it lacks the ability to view the description of the cache rather it shows up to 50 characters of the hint... Hello? most people would rather read the description use the hint as a last resort!
The eXplorist was significantly more accurate than the eTrex and got a fix much faster (explorist: 10-15 seconds eTrex: 45s to 2 mins).
The base maps are useful for general use but you MUST buy the detailed maps in order to really get use out of the maps. I would have expected Magellan to include slightly more detailed maps or at least provide regional maps at a lower rate ($199 List is just silly for mapping software.)
The only 3 major complaints I have are:
1) Geocaching software should allow you to view the description -or- the unit should allow you to navigate to a text file on the SD card and view it. (I mean come on the latter is a 20 seconds development job.)
2) If the unit does not have a SAT fix and you press the NAV button the GPS just shuts down.. very remnicient of the Windows Blue Screen of Death! Magellan REALLY needs to fix this bug it is ANNOYING!
3) The unit does not recharge when plugged in to the USB port unless you provide supplemental power. That is weak because if I am on a trip I would like to be able to use my laptop to juice up the GPS. I do not want to have to buy and carry ANOTHER cord just to recharge the unit. USB provides 5v of power that could trickle charge the Lithium ION battery.
Good points:
1) Rockin' Lithium Ion battery that charges quickly and powers the unit for about 15 hours. Lithium Ion batters have no 'memory' so they can be recharged at any point.
2) Screen has a great resoultion and is VERY bright.
3) Geocaching support!
4) Rechargable batter is a standard size so you can buy ANY LiIon batter to supplement your power or replace the original battery.
Digital camera Review: High quality but limited
Summary: 3 Stars
While Thales Magellan GPS's have some quality attributes, there are enough frustrating features with the Explorist series that I cannot really recommend these products.
1) Any GPS receiver with map capabilities should have the ability to download your own maps and calibrate them; built-in, the Explorist has neither of these features. You must buy the manufacture's own products to do something as simple as download your own maps (and by most accounts including user reviews at Amazon.com, their products leave much to be desired).
2) The model I bought came with a North American basemap. The parts of New York that I covered were very good. The parts of Florida that I covered were not.
3) You want a map that is more comprehensive than the included basemap, expect to pay $50 to $200 extra for that privilege.
4) The included documentation is very limited. It does not explain all the features. I had to peck around their web site to learn some of the basic questions I'd like to know.
5) For better or worse, the best documentation is online by other frustrated Magellan users. But expect it to be very technical and while useful for some, you must have a fair technical understanding to understand much of it.
The manufacture needs to decide if it's in the GPS hardware business or trying to make a few extra bucks on selling software add-ons. I suggest the former since the hardware is good but their software is not.
Digital camera Review: High quality but limited
Summary: 3 Stars
While Thales Magellan GPS's have some quality attributes, there are enough frustrating features with the Explorist series that I cannot really recommend these products.
1) Any GPS receiver with map capabilities should have the ability to download your own maps and calibrate them; built-in, the Explorist has neither of these features. You must buy the manufacture's own products to do something as simple as download your own maps (and by most accounts including user reviews at Amazon.com, their products leave much to be desired).
2) The model I bought came with a North American basemap. The parts of New York that I covered were very good. The parts of Florida that I covered were not.
3) You want a map that is more comprehensive than the included basemap, expect to pay $50 to $200 extra for that privilege.
4) The included documentation is very limited. It does not explain all the features. I had to peck around their web site to learn some of the basic questions I'd like to know.
5) For better or worse, the best documentation is online by other frustrated Magellan users. But expect it to be very technical and while useful for some, you must have a fair technical understanding to understand much of it.
The manufacture needs to decide if it's in the GPS hardware business or trying to make a few extra bucks on selling software add-ons. I suggest the former since the hardware is good but their software is not.
Digital camera Review: It would be zero stars if I could
Summary: 1 Stars
The unit worked great in the US, we moved to Europe, I bought MapSend Direct route Europe, in the UK... The software didn't work, their customer service is non exsistant! I am proceeding with action in court, having wasted countless hours in emails, phone calls and letters, not including money spent pursuing them...
AVOID AVOID AVOID, ( I recently bought a Garmin Nuvi.... aahhhh!)
All the good reviews are meaningless, as they obviously haven't attempted dealing with customer service!