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: Great for hiking
Summary: 4 Stars
This GPS has gotten me out of the woods more than once in the dark. By setting waypoints on the unit 4 of us were able to get back down off North Dome in Yosemite in the dark and find our way back to the car. For the price this unit does plenty to get you out of trouble and as an avid photographer i use it on every trip. Like the old American Express add never leave home without it!Customer Review: very good
Summary: 4 Stars
this is my first GPS, its working very well for me, u can trace the way your walking then inverse it to find your way back, you can convert the trace into routes, it has the usa map, but the map wont work in mexico, it will only give you the main roads of the country. good stuffCustomer Review: A pleasant surprise
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm a hard-core Garmin fan. I own 5 Garmin receivers ranging from the old GPS 12XL to the newest GPSmap 60CSx. But for the second edition of my book, "Outdoor Navigation with GPS," I was committed to including information about a broader range of receivers. Since Magellan again refused to loan me an evaluation unit, I decided to buy this inexpensive receiver. Not expecting much, I put it though its paces and was pleasantly surprised. It's fairly easy and intuitive to use, lightweight, and rugged. True, it doesn't have any kind of computer interface port or external power port, but for a casual geocacher or hiker, it works just fine. I had no problem learning to use it in just a few minutes, once I figured out that Magellan uses the term "Points of Interest" instead of the industry standard term "Waypoints." (When will Magellan ever settle on a standard name? On their older units they called them "Landmarks.") The grayscale screen is easy to read both indoors and out, and the buttons are easy enough to use. I like the fact that Magellan has provided dedicated "MARK" and "GOTO" buttons rather than burying the functions way down in a softkey menu, something that certain other manufacturers could take notice of. The built in maps are more of a marketing ploy than really useful. They don't have enough detail for highway navigation and without a computer port there's no way to add more detail. There are a few other minor quirks like a user interface that is inconsistent in how you enter numeric data. All in all, though, it is much better than I had expected. I brought it along for a GPS navigation class I recently taught and found that inexperienced GPS users could quickly master it. It's not the choice for the serious GPS navigator, but for the casual user who won't need to connect it to a computer, it may well be sufficient. My original plan was to sell it as soon as I was done writing the manuscript, but now I'm seriously considering keeping it.Customer Review: Hard to use, gets lost in trees and has a short battery life
Summary: 3 Stars
I've been using this unit for bike training, and I have to admit that I'm not impressed. The user interface is cumbersome, and the displays cannot be customized. For instance, I'd like to see a map, speed and trip distance on the same screen. No dice with this unit. You have to click NAV, then scroll through three screens then hit enter to see the trip odometer. Not easy to do while you're riding. All of the other features are just as cumbersome to use.
Lately I've been measuring it against a $40 cycle computer. The cyele computer wins hands down. The Explorist takes up to 10 minutes to acquire a position, and doesn't accurately report speed until it does. Out in the open, it works just fine, but once a few leaves (very few) get in the way, it gets totally lost, and can measure neither speed nor position. It just freezes on the last known position. One time I stopped under some trees and it registered my speed as 17.3 MPH for nearly two minutes while the bike was completely motionless.
Battery life is another problem. It takes 2 AA batteries, and they last about three hours when the unit is on. They last only for about 2 days if the unit is turned off the entire time!
Customer Review: Undetailed, and a bit slow
Summary: 3 Stars
My best friend owns two of these GPS system things. So, yeah, I'm a newbie at this GPS thing. I turned it on, and it took 10 seconds for it to go to the map. Then, 10, 20, 30...60...100 seconds...why aren't the satellites connecting?...200, then finally a satellite was connected, and I was outside. I zoomed all the way in, and it was very confusing. I could only see three roads, one being the I-10 freeway. And no, Tucson is not a small city. Actually, it's pretty big, the second biggest city in Arizona, and Phoenix being the biggest, and due to all of the northwest area construction, that's not saying much. The map was very unclear, showing two main roads, I-10, and this big circle saying Flowing Wells. And Flowing Wells was actually misplaced, and should have been a little more southern.
It does have it's high points. At least you have specific numbers, on how far and fast you are walking, but once again, slow.
It does what it's supossed to do, but it does it in such a below-average way that I can not recommend.