DD214

Oops. I forgot the other feature that made a huge difference for me. As Quoddy pointed out, the flash memory is a big improvement. I guess if you always stay in the same geographical location it might not matter, but I travel very frequently and I like not having to deal with uploading maps every time I get on a plane.

I guess it depends on what you are trying to do with it. I loved my 60C, but where I live there are enourmous oak trees that had a tendency to block the signal. Because of this I had to use my Explorist 500 when I went into the forest. Now that I have a 60Cx with its increased sensitivity I don't have to carry the Explorist anymore. That makes my upgrade well worth it. If you live in an area where you always have a clear view of the sky with good reception, I would say that it wouldn't be much of an upgrade.

you might try reading this I did. Using scientific methods, they may perform equally, or the Magellan may even edge out the X series Garmins, but my experience over the past week has been simply observed performance, and my new 60Cx has served me better. That may not be true for everyone who compares these units. I'm not a rabid fan of either brand, so I am not particularly biased either way. In fact I would go so far as to say that I don't have any brand loyalty whatsoever. If Magellan releases a GPSr that outperforms my Garmin, the Garmin will go bye-bye. My first GPSr was a Meridian Gold and it served my well for a long time. My next purchase was an Explorist 500, followed shortly by a 60C and now a 60Cx. For the past few months I have used the 60C for road travel since the auto-routing is definitely superior to the Explorist, but I used the Explorist for field use out of the car since it had superior reception. A few days ago I took both units to an area that had caused me problems in the past. It is a fairly deep ravine that is full of very large oak and pine trees, so much so that in the summer when the leaves are full you can't see the sky visually. From past experience in this area, my 60C would not keep a strong enough lock to be useful, or would lose lock entirely, and my Explorist would keep lock on a few birds, but it would clearly struggle trying to keep an accurate position. Anyway, when I tested them a few days ago, I created a waypoint approximately 1 mile ahead where a creek intersects the trail, and then attempted to navigate to that position while keeping a watchful eye on each unit. My Explorist did a little better than the last time I was there since there aren't many leaves right now, but it still struggled. The arrow would swing from the left to right in about a 180 degree arc. Once I was within about 80 feet of the waypoint, the needle began swinging 360 degrees, so that was the best it could do. The Garmin 60Cx kept a good lock on a couple more birds, and the needle stayed within about a 90 degree arc of the correct heading, keeping the correct heading most of the time. It led me to within about 25 feet of the waypoint before the needle started swinging wildly. Neither unit was able to keep a lock on a WAAS bird in this location. From my experience so far, the 60Cx will serve me much better than my Explorist. The upside to this is that now I won't have to keep up with 2 units, only the Garmin. Others may observe exactly the opposite, so who knows. For me it all comes down to real world performance, not charts and graphs, and in this instance Garmin has a clear winner. Hopefully the competition will rise to the occasion and come out with a kick a** unit that will leave the Garmin X series in the dust. If they do I will buy it in a heartbeat.

I wish Magellan would have put one of those sweet Thales chips in my Explorist 500 so that it would perform as well as my 60Cx! I feel cheated.

I have my 512MB card almost maxed out, and I haven't noticed any redraw delay. That was a concern for me since the more maps I load on my Explorist 500, the slower it gets, and I expected the 60Cx to perform similarly. From my experience, it does not.

Calvert County

Sandisk is advertising a 1GB card, but so far I have not been able to find it actually for sale. It appears to be an imminent release that will most likely show up any day now. Here is the link -> http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1841)...icroSD_1GB.aspx

The only difference in the menu that I noticed is that the icons are slightly different, and there is no alarm clock on the 60Cx.

...and just to be clear, the 60Cx that you see in these photos was ordered from Phil at lakepowellmarineelectronics.com yesterday. Excellent service.

Here is another pic I just took. I let them sit on the deck in my backyard for about 10 minutes. My house is blocking the sky to the front of the units, and there is fairly heavy (although mostly leafless) tree cover blocking the back of the units, while directly overhead is clear. I'm taking pics under somewhat adverse conditions since when they both have a clear view of the sky the accuracy is about the same, although the 60Cx does hold a couple more sats than the 60C, and the 60Cx signal strength is always a little bit better.

At the time I took the photo the 60Cx showed a steady 22feet, while the 60C was jumping around between ~28feet and 100+feet. I just happened to snap the photo when it was showing 28feet. I just let both units sit by themselves for 10 minutes, and then snapped a picture. Maybe this one is more representative of the difference

I just took it outside and after 2 minutes it reported +-12ft. That is under some fairly heavy tree cover, although there are no leaves right now.

I've only had my new 60Cx for about 15 minutes, but so far it is noticeably better than my 60C as far as reception goes. I tested both of them on the bottom floor of my 2 story house and I snapped a pic. Make of it what you will since this "test" is by no means scientific, but I think the photo speaks for itself. You will also notice that the WAAS bar does in fact remain hollow even though it has a lock. That doesn't bother me though.

Yep, Phil is the man. I ordered a 60Cx yesterday afternoon, but I never received a followup email. I sent an email to Phil this morning asking if they were still in stock and when I could expect my order to ship. He responded quickly letting me know that the order shipped yesterday, and upped my shipping to next day free of charge. I entered the tracking number at DHL, and found that the untit was delivered today! I'm at work so I had no idea that it had arrived. Excellent service.

Thanks! Ordered the 60Cx for $369. Now for a fat transflash card...

I don't know of a retailer that carries them, but I use one of these and it works like a charm. http://www.boxwave.com/products/carcharger/index.htm

Wow. I've never seen anything remotely close on my 60c, except under dense tree cover. I routinely drive wooded streets, and I've never had mine keep going straight when I turn, etc, and I use it on a daily basis. As I said, the ONLY time mine has trouble is under dense tree cover, on foot. If the tree cover is light to moderate, then I have no trouble at all. How long have you had your 60? I've only had mine a month, so maybe they have implemented some sort of improvement in the recet production runs?

I agree with all of the points made by robertlipe. To me, Magellan’s auto-routing just feels clumsy. Also, so far DR has made some very poor choices about where it decides to send me. The first route I attempted with DR was from my office to my house. There is a 5 mile stretch of road where you can either choose the highway (speed limit 55mph, no stoplights) or a street 100 yards away that parallels the highway (speed limit 40mph, w/stoplights). Garmin chose the highway, Magellan chose the side street. Sure, I could edit the waypoints on the Magellan, but I'd rather not. Having to mess with a GPSr while I am driving can lead to safety issues, so most likely I'd have to pull over to alter my route, where with the Garmin it figures out that I'm taking a different route and within a few seconds it reroutes. It is quick and efficient with no user intervention. I can have a route selected and calculated in less than a minute on the Garmin, and I am confident that most likely it is presenting the best route. That being said, I prefer the Magellan when I am on foot in the forest. I like the Topo 3D software, and the reception is phenomenal. I use the Garmin to locate and drive to the cache location, and then leave it in the car while the Explorist goes with me on foot. So far it is a great setup. If only they could combine the best of both into one killer unit.

So I'm out of luck on the zoom issue. Thanks for clearing that up. As far as the POIs, I am talking about the detail map POIs. Something is not right, as they never show up, even if I zoom in all the way. They are definitely selected for display in the map setup. I know they are loaded, as I can find them if I do a POI search. It really doesn't matter though. I have a Garmin 60c as well, and from comparing the two for a few days, the 60c thoroughly tromps the Explorist when it comes to auto-routing. That being the case, I won't use DR anymore. I still like the Explorist for use when the tree cover is heavy, and Topo 3D does not have the problems that I listed above.

My first was a Merigold that I bought 3 years ago. About a month ago I upgraded to an Explorist 500, and a week later I upgraded again to a Garmin 60C . You can never have too many!

I have been using Topo 3D for the past month, and I just started using DirectRoute today. One thing that is bothering me is that when using a map generated by Topo 3D, street level detail shows up when the zoom level reaches .20mi, but with a DR map loaded it doesn't show up until I zoom to 500 feet. I want them both to show up at .20mi. The only way that I can get the DR map to kick-in at .20mi is to set the detail level to highest, and I have to set it back to medium when I switch to Topo, otherwise the screen gets too busy at .40mi. Is there anything I can do about this, or am I going to just have to keep switching detail level every time I switch maps? Another thing that is driving me nuts is that POI icons do not show up at all with a DR map active, and I have not found a way to turn them on. I can search for a POI and choose to display it, but I want them all to show up. Is there a way to do this? It just doesn't seem right since when I have a Topo map loaded all the POIs are displayed.

I'm not Garmin, but here you go - http://www.gpsinformation.org/perry/gps60/

Sometime in the next couple of days I'll take my 500 and 60c out into the forest and snap some pics of them in thier optimum positions - horizontal for the 500 and veritical for the 60c.

I just got back from a lunch break cache that was located under very heavy tree cover; there was a light rain and dark ominous thunder clouds. Less than ideal conditions to say the least. I didn't have my 500 with me, but I used the 60c. My reception dropped from 8 satellites out in the open, to 5 in the trees. I never lost my 3D fix, and the accuracy was always right around 12 - 25 feet. I walked directly to the cache using the map page zoomed to 20 feet. From my experience with the 500, it probably would have held lock on more satellites, but the 60c still performed admirably.

I've have both a 60c and a 500. I've been a loyal Magellan fan for the past 3 years, so natuarally I upgraded to the explorist series. I've had it a couple of weeks and I've been very impressed. It maintains a solid lock under heavy tree cover and the color screen is fantastic, although I find it a little hard to view in direct sunlight. I really like the geocaching mode, but it would be nice to be able to mark caches as found, or delete them. I've never had an issue with the LiIon battery, although I would have prefered AA. Overall, I don't have any real complaints. It is a solid unit, and a worthy upgrade from my Meridian Gold. That being said, I just received my new 60c today, and I am blown away. I need a second unit for whoever happens to be caching with me, and I decided to give Garmin a try. I haven't had a chance to test it as thoroughly as I have my 500, but my initial impression was absolute awe. There is so much more depth to the interface that the two can't even be compared. It seems to have a faster processor than the 500, as map redraws take about half the time, and there is hardly any delay when switching scale. I don't think the screen is much better than the 500, only a little larger, and it is easier to see in direct sunlight. Magellan should also take notes on how Garmin has implemented their geocaching mode. The only real downside to the 60c that I have found is its lack of removable storage. I can't complain too much though, as I loaded 75% of Maryland including Baltimore, all of DC, and 50% of Virginia, in both MapSource Topo and City Select, and I've got ~10MB to spare. Unless the 60c has any real problems out in the field, I think I will be using the 60c as my GPSr of choice. I would recommend both units without hesitation, but so far I think the 60c is the superior unit. If I run into any problems out in the field, I'll update this post as necessary.