glorybee

Review of my Triton 500 I purchased the Triton 500 primarily because of the memory slot. and for the Geo Topo feature. Heres what I noticed after spending an intense 3 days drilling the heck out of the GPS. I'm pretty patient because I assume Magellan wanted to get this out for Christmas and had to work hard with Topo for the software overlay. I do see that the firmware needs some patches to fix the freeze ups. Battery Life. I initially put in Die Hard AA Alkaline Batteries which is a Sears brand stating 15A 1.5 Volts. They lasted roughly 14 hours. Eats em like candy. I think we all expect that. Just like any digital camera with a LED screen. I bought the Energizer AA's which are the NiMet Hydrides rated at 2500mah. I found that I've used them for about 14 hours and they are still at half life. This is with my screen set to medium and backlight timer to 30 secs and power off timer to 15 minutes. Note: There is a button on the left side of the screen to put out the screen light but you got to push it 7 times. Each push increases the intensity until you hit black then one click past will go to dim, brighter etc. Software This is a challenge, you definitely need to download the Vantage Point and the Upgrade to Topo. Once you get the 4.4.2 upgrade it opens the world to you. It has its own Triton menu on the right side of the topo map. Very easy to figure out. (I'm using Windows XP) What is surprising is that when I have Topo open and select the map I want I can export it directly to my Magellan. Nice. Then I close it and open VP and sync. It all comes across to Topo. I'm not too pleased with the VP program. It does work though. What bothers me most is that everytime I connect the USB, Windows does not recognize the device. Topo says to point to the drivers in the Topo file but it still refuses to see it. Maybe me...hmmmm.. never the less I close out the warning and it works. Hang Ups My unit hung several times while in the field and I figured it just lost the lites, I really wanted to give this a try because I liked the simple menu and the topo maps. It continued to hang more while in the menu. a couple of times in the first tier "Create" menu then in the "View" menu. This really bothers me. If I'm out in the woods and this booger goes, I have no saved way points. After 5 days it got the best of me and I exchanged it for another. After 1 hr I got my first Fatal AP error. Outdoor nam.exe did a no no. I tried to power off and got another freeze on the countdown timer with one sec left. Heres something I noticed as well. Since this fatal error, I don't have a compass needle on the elect compass. Maps The maps saved on the GPS ok and have the great detail as Natl Geo. They are a bit blurred but its no PC screen with dot pitch equivilant. Bottom line, I can zoom in and zoom out until I can get an idea of where I am. Its a tiny screen. What do you want? Right. Oh when the unit is powered off, you got to go back to the settings and change the connectivity from Power Off to Vantage Point in order for you to hook up to the Topo Timezone You got to change your timezone in the profiles for Hiking and for Geocaching. I thought that the satelites would be able to determine what zone I'm in. Alarm As stated below, its not loud, maybe thats a good thing, I really don't want a loudspeaker going off in the woods. Bottom Line I hope Magellan comes through with the patches needed to stop the freezes, this is a serious thing. As stated above /below, it has potential. Hope this helps. I still need to do some tinkering and am making serious comparisons with the Garmin. Mine cost 250 buckeroos.

Review of my Triton 500 I purchased the Triton 500 primarily because of the memory slot. and for the Geo Topo feature. Heres what I noticed after spending an intense 3 days drilling the heck out of the GPS. I'm pretty patient because I assume Magellan wanted to get this out for Christmas and had to work hard with Topo for the software overlay. I do see that the firmware needs some patches to fix the freeze ups. Battery Life. I initially put in Die Hard AA Alkaline Batteries which is a Sears brand stating 15A 1.5 Volts. They lasted roughly 14 hours. Eats em like candy. I think we all expect that. Just like any digital camera with a LED screen. I bought the Energizer AA's which are the NiMet Hydrides rated at 2500mah. I found that I've used them for about 14 hours and they are still at half life. This is with my screen set to medium and backlight timer to 30 secs and power off timer to 15 minutes. Note: There is a button on the left side of the screen to put out the screen light but you got to push it 7 times. Each push increases the intensity until you hit black then one click past will go to dim, brighter etc. Software This is a challenge, you definitely need to download the Vantage Point and the Upgrade to Topo. Once you get the 4.4.2 upgrade it opens the world to you. It has its own Triton menu on the right side of the topo map. Very easy to figure out. (I'm using Windows XP) What is surprising is that when I have Topo open and select the map I want I can export it directly to my Magellan. Nice. Then I close it and open VP and sync. It all comes across to Topo. I'm not too pleased with the VP program. It does work though. What bothers me most is that everytime I connect the USB, Windows does not recognize the device. Topo says to point to the drivers in the Topo file but it still refuses to see it. Maybe me...hmmmm.. never the less I close out the warning and it works. Hang Ups My unit hung several times while in the field and I figured it just lost the lites, I really wanted to give this a try because I liked the simple menu and the topo maps. It continued to hang more while in the menu. a couple of times in the first tier "Create" menu then in the "View" menu. This really bothers me. If I'm out in the woods and this booger goes, I have no saved way points. After 5 days it got the best of me and I exchanged it for another. After 1 hr I got my first Fatal AP error. Outdoor nam.exe did a no no. I tried to power off and got another freeze on the countdown timer with one sec left. Heres something I noticed as well. Since this fatal error, I don't have a compass needle on the elect compass. Maps The maps saved on the GPS ok and have the great detail as Natl Geo. They are a bit blurred but its no PC screen with dot pitch equivilant. Bottom line, I can zoom in and zoom out until I can get an idea of where I am. Its a tiny screen. What do you want? Right. Oh when the unit is powered off, you got to go back to the settings and change the connectivity from Power Off to Vantage Point in order for you to hook up to the Topo Timezone You got to change your timezone in the profiles for Hiking and for Geocaching. I thought that the satelites would be able to determine what zone I'm in. Alarm As stated below, its not loud, maybe thats a good thing, I really don't want a loudspeaker going off in the woods. Bottom Line I hope Magellan comes through with the patches needed to stop the freezes, this is a serious thing. As stated above /below, it has potential. Hope this helps. I still need to do some tinkering and am making serious comparisons with the Garmin. Mine cost 250 buckeroos.

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