SnaptheFrog

Thank you both for your replys. I must be over looking something regarding address, because when I try to find an address on the 500 using DR, I don't have the ability to use a street number. I'll look into this more and see if I can find what I'm doing wrong. I'm sure that having a proper mount would make a big difference, and don't get me wrong. I'm not completely unhappy with the 500. I like it, but some of my disappointments come from having unresearched expectations. The button thing is not a show stopper. Button placement is a tough one for designers. Where having the buttons on the side might be good for increasing the screen size, it would be a pain for someone in a car trying to use it while it's in a mount. Like many people here, I'm looking forward to see what changes a firmware upgrade brings.

The weather was perfect today for a motorcycle ride. There's a great movie and music store in L.A. and thought I'd used the 500, loaded with DR, to get me there and back. Now understand, I'm still very new to the whole GPS thing, so by the time you get to the end of this, you might have strained your eyes from rolling them so many times. First hurdle... where to put the 500? I don't have a formal mount so I was looking at other options with little success. Finally, I just shoved it in my pocket and took off. Getting off the freeway I pulled over to see where I was and where I was going. The 500 told me I was a dummy and that I need to turn around. I was only a block in the wrong direction, so no harm done. After that I found the place with no trouble. Lucky for me, it's got a giant sign that's easy to see from the street. After I left there, I rolled down Sunset for a while and decided to go to 3rd St. in Santa Monica. I had this loaded in my POI's and wated about 30 seconds for it to calculate my route. I purposely took some wrong streets, much to my own peril. The neighborhoods there are what is kindly refered to as 'depressed'. I kept an eye out for anyone thinking they'd knock me off my bike at a red light. I pulled out the 500 and told it to recalculate. This took almost 90 seconds. Why so long? I've also learned you can NOT recalulate your route while you are moving. Pressing the buttons with gloves on is hit and miss. So, while the compact nature of the 500 is nice, the button placement is poor for winter conditions or any time someone needs gloves. Half way on my trek I changed my mind and decided to get home by way of a place that makes really good chile. I took out my trusty 500 and proceeded to be disapointed. I went to put in the address and, to my shock, the 500 doesn't take addresses. It SAYS 'address' right there in the window, but just like their misleading advertisment that says the 500 "Speaks" different languages, (what they should have said was that the 500 'displays text' in different languages) The 500 will take the street, but no street number. For a street level detail program like Direct Route, it's beyond me that street numbers aren't used. Streets can go on for miles. How are we supposed to find anything without the address. Now, it's possible that, in my newness, I've over looked something, but if not, this has to be one of the dumbest oversights since the Titanic removed of most of its lifeboats prior to sailing because they said it didn't look pretty. The display was sharp and easy to see in direct sunlight. Zooming in and out was more time consuming that I thought it should be. Routes are denoted by being highlighted in green. I don't know if the color can be changed, but in some zoom levels, this can be hard to see because the green color is under the color of the road. In the case of streets, this isn't a problem, but for freeways, especially with complex interchanges, it's a big issue. The mini joy stick is useable for the average use, but in gloves, forget about it. Moving up and down are okay, but at an angle it is a pain. When using it to type in text magnafies the annoyances. A toggle wheel would have been really handy, but since I wasn't on the design team, I don't think I'll see one for a while, if at all. Overall, the 500 is fine for hiking, but as a driving tool, it's not built to be quick or intuitive. As for Direct Route, the absence of being able to use a street number in finding an address is shocking. I can kind of overlook that DR routes me on surface streets when the freeway is within sight. I can put up with the ugly, limited icons, of the kind I'd expect to used in the first version of Windows. The feeble text DR uses for labeling streets is jagged and hard to read, but I can grit my teeth and bear it. But to not allow for street numbers? I give DR a F minus. I'm currently looking at the upcoming TomTom Navigator 5. From what I've read so far, TTN5 leaves the 500 in the dust. Maybe this isn't a fair comparison, and if so, I stand corrected. So, that's it. I invite your comments. Thank you for reading my post.

Thanks everyone. I knew about navigating to the SD card files, and that's partly what was making it so confusing. As it turns out, I wasn't putting the file through the conversion manager. I don't quite understand the need for that. I bought the Magellan version of DR. Why wouldn't DR manage it?

I've got POIs that I created on Mapsend on my PC. I have the GPS hooked up to the computer and I dragged and dropped the file to the folder on the SD card. After turning off, unhooking, and turning on the 500, I scroll to the folder on the SD card and it tells me the folder is empty. I hook the 500 up to the compter and I can see the POI file a plain as day. Am I missing a step?

First off, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for posting the link to the instructions. Secondly, WTF is wrong with Magellan? Why wasn't this included in the box. Hello? Didn't any at the corporate office think this might be important? I'm biting back a giant rant.

I've been looking for Magellan GPS maps of Japan and haven't found a thing. Any suggestions where they can be found, and are any of them street level detail?

Ok, I'll give you that. I had some trouble too. But it seems that in your case, and in mine that it was not the fault of the GPS, but something external. I don't know what you mean by this. Do you mean the DR POIs or waypoints (which are confusingly also named POIs on the Explorist)? When I've searched for DR POIs, I select Menu-->Pts of Interest-->Detail Map--> and then whichever type of POI I'm interested in. Those are the POIs for that region, are they not? I saved a region through my SD card and it worked fine. Not sure where you made your error. Agreed (mostly). With the Meridian, it was simply drag and drop, and took about 10 seconds. For some reason, The Explorist take 3-5 minutes for the same size region. A long time, but not a "looooooooooooooooog" time. There has been one update. v1.00 to v2.00 where they updated some roads. Even so, I haven't yet been anywhere where the roads were incorrect. Even a new highway near my work (which doesn't appear on Topo 4.2) is there. Perhaps in your area the experience is different, but I have to say that I'm quite impressed with the completeness of the DR data. I don't quite follow you here. I think you're using the program incorrectly--or at least in a less efficient manner. When loaded on the GPS, select Goto-->Street Route--> and then your destination of choice, be it an address, POI, geocache, whatever. The Explorist will calculate the route for you automatically, and it follows all the curves in the roads. I've never "built a route." It's done for me by the GPS. Well, you chose to by street level software. I used my Meridian Gold for several months until I decided I wanted something more detailed. Sure, it'd be nice if it came with all the street level data... but that's part of the deal. You knew ahead of time that it just has a basemap. Actually, you need neither, even to use DR. The internal memory of the Explorist 500 will accept maps just as easily as the SD card. Yes, it's only 8 megs or something, but Legend users have gotten along fine with 8 megs for years. The SD card just give you lots more room. And the Explorist 500 itself acts as an SD card reader, so getting another one is just redundant. It worked, right? Again, this is a Windows issue, not a GPS issue. Yes, sometimes it chooses a different route than you might have gone. For example, when I have DR route me from work to home, it turns me off the main street onto residential streets about two blocks early. Does that make a big difference in time? Yeah, maybe about 30 seconds. The truth is, except maybe in rare cases, the route suggested by DR is, or is close enough to the optimum route as to be negligible. I think you're being too picky here. There are numerous ways to get somewhere, and DR will find one of them for you. If you're in unfamiliar territory, the time savings by using it more than offsets any time used by going through a few extra stop signs. No, actually it will do this. Menu-->Pts of Interest-->Detail Map-->Address. Now put the street address in. The kludge here is that sometimes there are many similarly named streets, and it can be hard to figure out which one you really want, but the functionality is there. It's a feature I use often. Pretty good for a device with 10 buttons. Other than touch screen, I can't think of any better way for data entry, other than having a big keyboard layout. It's a compromise you have to make for having a handheld device. Honestly, I've been extremely impressed with the menu system on the Explorist, and the ease of switching between files and folders. Vastly easier than the really klunky Card Utilities on the Meridians. I too, hope that Magellen fixes some of the deficiencies which I percieve in the Explorist. Magellan does have a track record for this. When the Meridians first came out, there was no way to switch maps or save waypoint files. They added a missing waypoint projection, and somehow found a way to make the Meridians autorouting GPSs several years after they came out. So hopefully in the near future, Magellan will be addressing some of our concerns. I hope this post does that. Jamie Jamie Z, thank you for the great reply. The only thing we disagree on is the Windows thing. The way I see it, Magellean is creating something that should interface easily with Windows. I don't believe it's Windows responsibility to adapt to Magellan. With regards to getting personal POIs from the computer to the GPS, that can be done through Windows Explorer, and you can simply drag and drop? I thought all files from the PC to the GPS had to go through this converson process, which by the way, I'm not sure I'm doing right, yet, I put a custom region on the 500 via DR menu options. Concerning routes, this may be a special case. When I take a bike ride, it's not specific places I'm going, but there are a series of specifc roads I want to take. How would I go about creating a route for that? As for Direct Route being dumb, well, my POI is to the east, but I've got a freeway a couple of minutes to the west of my starting point. Instead, DR has me taking surface streets half way across the valley eastward until the street intersects with another freeway. That would be a 20 minute drive, where taking the freeway to the west would save me that 20 minute drive. The amout of DR dumbness is relative to where you happen to be going, I suppose. Let me clarify when I'm talking about creating a POI. My bad for leaving out this detail. I should have said that I'm creating the POI on the PC, not the GPS. When using the PC, you have to guess where to place the POI. DR will have to an area where the address range is, but not the specific location.

Embra, thank you for your thoughful reply. I was cringing the responses I'd be getting, because I really am not here to start any flames.

Eight seconds? Mine took almost 20 minutes!!! What the heck?

I was able to spend a bit of time with my 500 over the weekend. Most of that time spent was simply getting it recognized on the computer. FINALLY, I had no choice but to upgrade to Windoz ME. That solved most of the problems. I created a region on DR and created some POIs. You should know that the POIs are not tied to a saved region. I also discovered that you can't (that's can not) save your files to a SD card reader. If you try, it will appear that it saves it, but when you check your card, it'll be empty. Loading a file to the SD card that's within the 500 takes a looooooooooooooooog time. DR is woefully out of date. I've found several roads that don't exist on DR. And there's no updates? Without being sure of how it's done, I attempted to build a route. Each waypoint is connected by a straight line. This is a bit confusing to someone new like me. I don't know yet, how the 500 is going to direct me between each waypoint when the road is curvy between actual left and right turns. I wasn't sure about the placements of way points, i.e., if I should place a waypoint at only left and right turns, or if I need to place them to follow the sweeping turns of an on ramp. Since getting the 500, I've had to buy street level software (why it doesn't come with that baffles me. it's like buying an air conditioner without freeon), an SD card, an SD card reader (because I had read that it was faster to use one, but it turns out DR won't work with it), it took four days of one failed attempt after another for the 500 and computer to talk, until I finally had to upgrade the operating system of my computer. Windows is used world wide and they can't make a device that works with it? In use, Direct Route is dumb when building routes between POI's, bypassing freeways and sending you on surface streets. You can search for a shopping POI, but there isn't a shopping icon for POIs, so you have to use something else. You can't change the display size of POI's on the map. The way DR slants the street names makes them nearly unreadable under the best conditions and completely useless if your driving. When creating a POI, you can't place it using the exact address. Instead you have to 'guess'. I understand this is for memory saving purposes, but that wouldn't be an issue if the processor was better at memory swapping, and you weren't limited to how much SD card memory you could use. PDA's have been using touch screens for years, yet on the 500, menu and character entry is a laborous and time consuming task of using a small thumb-stick. Some people, more patient than me , have commented that the company will correct the deficenties with time. It's true that other companies release updates, but those are to fix bugs, not make up for missing features the product should have had to begin with. If anything, I can say I've gotten a true education in GPS. What I thought about GPS and what it really is are very different, and it's been one dissapointment after another, with a good helping of frustration. While the technology of being able to track yourself on the planet from outer space is amazing, with a very high coolness factor, the features, useability, intuitiveness, and adptability of the 500, in comparison with other consumer technology, is just plain primitive and sloppy. Over all, these experiences have completely take the novelty and luster off of the first GPS I've ever owned. There may be some of you who may be upset with what I'm saying. Understand these are my opinions. From the enjoyment and activity I see on this forum, many of you are very happy with your GPS. My comments won't, and shouldn't, detract from that. And, if some of you feel like flaming me, I would ask you instead to impart your knowledge, insight, and tips/tricks of GPS to help me gain the same level of enjoyment you have. You'll laugh (maybe) when I say that having said all of this, I'll be keeping the 500. Because, having said all this, it will show me where I am when I'm on those odd, out of the way back roads when I'm on my motorcycle, so I can eventually find my way home. One last thing. If the quality of my GPS was as good and helpful as the people on this forum, I'd be telling every friend and family member to run, don't walk, to buy one. Thanks to everyone for sharing your experience and help.

I've read that a region is limited to 64mg. What I'm wondering is when you're creating a region, how do you know if it's over the limit, other than after you've already made it?

Yes, it looks like you have to do some thinking for yourself when it comes to dealing with the street routes DR gives you and not take it at face value. I was hoping it would be a bit closer to something like a Street Pilot 3 in that respect.

I should start out by explaining that my reason for getting the Explorist 500 was because I wanted a portable GPS that I could use in my car, or on my motorcycle (mostly that). I wanted to find my way around any place I wandered into and more importantly, when my adventurous nature was gone, find my way back home. Some of the roads I travel on my bike are out of the way, so getting unlost and knowing how many miles I can allow myself to fiddle around is very handy when the gas guage is getting low. I got DirectRoute last night. I loaded it and have been playing with it since. My initial impression is a bit luke warm. It's not fair to make an outright judgement this early. I haven't uploaded it to the 500 yet. I need to get a card reader and card. Here's my thoughts so far. Creating a street route takes more work than it should. You have to place the start flag on the map location and the same with the end flag. Why can't you simply select a start and end from a list. This is much easier than scrolling all over the map. The street routes DR creates don't make sense. I'm a minute from a freeway on ramp, but the route DR makes, has me going down surface streets, paralleling the freeway until the next on ramp which would add more time to my trip. I can't change or modify the street route once it's created. And, I can't get DR to create an alternative. I'm sure (I'm hoping) there's more to this program that I haven't found yet. And perhaps my expectations are too high. I was at the SEMA show in Las Vegas and there were a number of GPS companys there. The units they had on display were really impressive. As small as the 500 and they were very smart. I think, that's the thing that I'm not really seeing here. DR doesn't seem very smart or flexible. I don't want to get anybody's dander up, so for those who love this software, understand this is just my opinion. I'm going to be spending the day getting to know this software and device, and think that by the end of the day I'll have a better understanding of what it can and can't do, such as create a route from where ever my current location is to a POI without having to go through a laundry list of steps.

I've looked all over the place, but can't figure out how to add and address to directroute. There's lots of addresses I want to put in, but no luck.

I have not tried to delete a POI, but when you select it, a menu appears with a delet option on it.

I'd be happy to answer that question for the 500 group, but I don't understand what you mean about the companss turning on and the reference to speed. Forgive my newbie-ness.

You bet I will.

Uber, Cool, thank you. I'm getting lots of feedback and I'll add your method to the others. With all these people helping me, one of them will have to work, right? Jamie Z, Just saw it. Thank you very much.

Jamie Z, thanks for in the instructions. Now I'm itching to get home and try it. Curse you, corporate America for making me earn a living!

Thanks, everyone. I will do that as soon as I get home. I'll let you know how it works out. By the way, I can confirm that the 500 DOES charge while plugged in to the computer. I don't understand the whole cable position up / down thing, though. I find it odd that the position of the cable makes a difference. But, I'm a newbie here, so who am I to say what's normal? I am enjoying the company of the good folks in this forum more than my GPS. Thanks, again, for your help.

I second that vote. I hope someone comes out with a cable that attaches without all the screwing around. I don't understand why they felt they needed a cable that you all but welded to the 500.

Small world. I just finished posting this same problem. I don't remember if I tried your method, but I'll give it a shot tonight. Thanks for posting it. Fingers crossed.

Excellent review. I'm looking forward to what else you'll be writing. This the first GPS I've ever owned, so everything is novel and interesting to me. Don't forget to include the lanyard hole in your review. haha I remember somebody was curious about that.

Last night I hooked up my 500 to my Windoz laptop. The 500 went into USB mode very nicely. The laptop said it saw a USB device and wanted the driver for it. Yet, when I browsed to the USB driver on the Magellan CD, Windoz said it didn't see any driver. After several attempts, I cancelled that and ran the Magellan basemap software. That turned out to be a dead end too, because it kept giving me the prompt that it couldn't find a GPS device, 'Retry or Cancel'. Retry, retry, retry... no good. Didn't work. Any thoughts? Oh yeah, I'm running a very stable Win 98.

They've used a very misleading expression. And it's one of the selling points for me buying the 500. Why couldn't they have just said, "The 500 is readable in the following languages..." I'll have to do some further digging about DirectRoute. What I really want to know is if I can enter an address and save it as a POI. Then, some time when I'm out and about, I can bring up that POI and the 500 will create a street/freeway route to that POI.