Magellan eXplorist 200 Water Resistant Hiking GPS
by Magellan
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List Price: Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Magellan eXplorist 200 Water Resistant Hiking GPS
Customer Review: Good product!
Summary: 5 Stars
dont work well in latin america,only works perfect in USA, because it have all the maps of US soil! but it do the job here in Panama Rep of Panama!Customer Review: take you from point A to point B!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first personal GPS. In the past back in 99' my first experience with GPS was when the security forces training introduced it to us in techschool. They were a little complicated then, but last year I started comparing these gadgets, reading reviews and prices, durability etc. I bought this one because it was not that expensive, the features are just what I need. I don't like the color, cuz I know I was going to be using it not just for the road but for other special operation and exercises we do in the military...so you know if they'd come out with a camouflage skin on this that's what i'd picked, i spray painted it anyway to cover it up for exercises we had out in the field. Another thing that's good on this badboy is lighting, it served me well for stealthy night ops situation.. the other ones with bright color like your computer monitor, lit up very well. I knew that because i spotted my buddy during war game exercises in a field he was in a humvee 1000m out, we couldn't find him. So, I called his cellphone whipped out the NVG night vission goggles and old boy compromised his position...but if i'm gon get one of those i'd have to just get filter screen for it. I've been using the Magellan Explorist 200 since i bought it last year, I used it when I drove from Wyoming to Florida when we PCS or change station. The battery was ok, it'd have been great if it came with rechargeble battery and a station like those portable handheld radios. Always have a map so if you were to run out of battery you got your back up. When I got to Florida, it was hurricane season and for Hurricane Dennis we had to evacuate. I was new florida so evacuating and going somewhere means more attention to maps and hotels and other stuff. This was our most difficult time and thanked to this explorist 200 we made it to our destination to Indiana quickly and safely. The day when everyone and their mother were out on the road conjesting the main highway; we were barely moving. So i started scrolling left and right on this GPS and I found a road possibly a back road which sits a mile from the main highway but runs the same direction where the main highway go...sure enough i took the next exit and shot an azymuth that way and when we got to that road it was like twilight zone there weren't any cars but tractors on the road, it was pretty much all mine. I kept on driving and sometimes when it's open field I see the main highway on my leftside which showed in my explorist 200, and witnessed all the motionlesss cars that constantly glowed brake lights. This when i started recommending this GPS to all my coworkers... I told them you gon need it someday...when a road is blocked and when you need to find another road they come very handy....this explorist right here can do that for you.Customer Review: Good for driving and backpacking.
Summary: 4 Stars
I love this little critter. I find the built in map for driving handles most major roads and all of the interstates. On my latest 14 hour trip to several relatives, I was on a marked road 98% of the time. Zooming out tells me when intersections will be coming and the GOTO ETA is pretty much right on (when will we be home, daddy? 1 hour 27 minutes plus or minus 5 minutes... Oh...) Thing is as bad as a cell phone for driving distraction.
Screen is very nice. Contrast is great. Looks good from full sun to dim light and the night light takes over from there. Words are very legible (it does take some skill to read Lake Mooselookmyguntic while driving tho)
Accuracy while hiking will get you within 30 feet regularly so works for trail finding and maps. The joystick does take some getting used to but works fine once you get the hang (push from the side not from the top). Lots of self help built in (reading material on my long walks out). Battery life is good and I use rechargeable double AAs NIMH and get a good 6-7 hours out of them. I carry a couple of extra with me. Swapping batteries is easy and can be done without tools but needs bare fingers to unscrew the D ring screw. Nothing is lost when swapping batteries. Takes about 1-2 minutes to sync up with the satellites when turned on. Picks up the satellites well in my pocket or nestled in the cars door handle. The night light feature is very nice and does not knock too much off of the battery. Lightweight, takes a drop onto concrete with just a nick here or there on the case. Buttons have a good feel and can be manipulated by feel while driving. Buttons need to be pushed with bare fingers or very thin gloves. One very neat feature is that the sun and moon are located on the compass when they are above the horizon. Donno how they do that. Compass works only when moving but it only takes a few steps to get it to work
For backpacking there is one major issue. The odometer does not track accurately in the woods. If the GPS loses track somewhere where the trees are thick, the odometer stops logging during that time. The funny thing is that the active track is spot on. Just use the active track to figure out how far you have walked. The breadcrumbs work great. I could care less about downloading content or maps or topo stuff. That is what printed maps are for and I would never trust an electronic device to get me out anyways.
Customer Review: excellent for entry level geocaching
Summary: 4 Stars
I've tried several GPS receivers, mostly loaned from friends, and settled for this one for various reasons. The main activity was going to be GEOCACHING with my children, and was planning to give it to them for use. I fully expect that the children will eventually break it, either from a fall, or whatever. I tried a friend's Garmin 60cs, which is a marvel of electronics and usability, but quite frankly, if my child was going to break it, its cost of over $400 would have given me a heart attack. I noticed that both Magellan and Garmin are pushing color displays, but at twice the price of the grayscale displays. That is really only needed for maps, to discriminate a state road from a local road. For geocaching, grayscale is good enough. From reading the previous reviews, one good comment made was on the fact that the 200 does not allow uploads or downloads (you'll need a 210 for that). But is it worth it $100 more ? the electronic compass can be replaced by a regular $10 compass, and the barometric altimeter is subject to atmospheric nuances that can make its reading inaccurate with a margin of error of 10 meters anyway. So I don't consider these two features a must-have. Also noted is that the color displays drain batteries much faster. Another reason for choosing this model. Also noted was that on long camping trips away from a rechargeable-from-car appliance, a model that uses disposable batteries is better than rechargeables. From reading the reports and reviews, I had some concerns on the time-to-first-signal (could be too long) and the accuracy of the position given, and loss of signal. It proved to be not a problem. As for the uploading of geocaching data, I am printing the pages describing the cache, printing a topo map, and then, entering them manually as I start a trip. Entered 20 coordinates in 30 minutes, and the joystick interface worked out great when picking the alphaletters to name the mark, better than with a Garmin. One beef I do however is that the names of the mark cannot be more than six chars long. The 210 allows up to 20. Life ain't perfect. To summarize, my biggest determinant on chossing this model was price, since I completely expect that the kids will break it. If it takes a year for that to happen, a hundred is a price I can live with for a year of activity. More than a hundred, I would get upset.
Customer Review: Rotten instructions, product works fine.
Summary: 4 Stars
My mom gave me an eXplorist 200 GPS receiver for Christmas. I had a great deal of difficulty getting started with it because the instructions that came with it were so sketchy. Magellan's online instructions were of no help (their little program eventually told me, "Guess I haven't been able to help you; try customer service.") and their customer service wasn't of much use either.
The issue that I had was with the operation of the compass function - I was having great difficulty in getting the compass to point north, despite having re-calibrated the machine twice. Turns out that you only have to walk around a bit to get it to respond properly. Anyway, a moderately decent instruction manual would have explained this (and other things that I had to figure out by messing with the eXplorist 200), but the manual that comes with this GPS receiver is just completely inadequate. And customer service, while they try hard, are just completely useless.
Anyway, the machine works well. I went for a walk at lunch today and made a box by navigating with it, and got back to within mere feet of where I'd started. The altimeter is accurate and the rest of the readings appear to be as well. As others have mentioned, the road maps loaded into the machine are pretty sketchy (pretty much only major streets), but they're nice to have.
All things considered, I'm very glad to have this unit. I have to tell you, though, I was so frustrated by the inadequate instructions that I was ready to return it (in fact, I was walking on my way to return it when I finally figured out how to get the compass function to work). So, if you get the Magellan eXplorist 200 GPS receiver, plan to have a little patience with it. The function really is pretty self-evident, but you need to take it for a test run to figure it out, since it doesn't all come together immediately upon calibration. (All in all, this was a lot less frustrating than getting the XM radio turned on in my new car - but the instructions were a lot worse.)
Happy hiking!