Question For Explorist Owners

[FiddlinFool]

I'm looking to upgrade from my Meridian Marine to an Explorist 500, but there is some fairly critical info missing from Thales/Magellan website, to wit:

 

Is it compatible with BlueNav? I use my Meridian about 50% for boating and don't want to give up BlueNav charts. Magellan's website is completely silent on compatibility on both the GPS description and the software description pages.

 

What are the screen dimensions? Is is smaller than the Meridian's? One reason I bought the Meridian was for its large screen and would hate to go smaller. Dimensions are not given on the Magellan website. Of course I could go to a dealer and check this one myself, and will if no one answers.

 

Thx for any input.

 

FiddlinFool

[+gdps]

From what I see on the Magellan site for BlueNav it appears it will not work with the explorist. The GPSr's listed are the Meridian series and the higher end SporTrak's. Plus another couple that I don't know about. Here is the link to the site I looked at. Just a guess at this point but I would say no it won't work.

 

http://www.magellangps.com/en/products/pro....asp?PRODID=181

[+jacques0]

These are the screen dimensions for the eXplorist 200, taken from the manual. I believe the screen in the new series is the same size.

 

Display 1.8” x 1.4” [h] x [w]

4.6 cm x 3.6 cm

 

That's the actual usable area. There is a black bezel, of sorts (probably the waterproof seal) around the usable area, so the complete screen panel is a little bigger than the measurements given here.

[FiddlinFool]

Thanks for the info Jacques, that does make it substantially smaller than the meridian screen.

[flir67]

if your thinking of up grading check out the sportrak color. I had it and now I'm stuck with the explorist 600. wish I never sold it.

[FiddlinFool]

What are your issues with the 600? Maybe I should look at something else. Seems like the explorist is tailored for geocaching, but if there are problems, I'd like to know before it's too late.

[tubemonkey]

Well, here's another strike against the new eXplorist's -- they can't be used for boating. A check on Magellan's website reveals compatibility with only the following MapSend titles:

 

MapSend DirectRoute NA v2.00f

MapSend Topo 3D US v1.00

MapSend Worldwide Basemap v1.10a

MapSend Lakes - North (eXplorist)

MapSend Lakes - South (eXplorist)

MapSend Lakes - West (eXplorist)

 

Outside of a few European titles, that's it. No compatibility with older titles -- BlueNav, Streets & Destinations, Topo for the US, etc.

 

It sucks that new hardware is incompatible with old software. What gives? It's usually the other way around, where older hardware is incompatible with newer software.

 

Couple the lack of BlueNav compatibility with a much smaller display (3.85 sq in vs 2.38 sq in), it would seem your best decision is to rule out the eXplorist.

[FiddlinFool]

I'm afraid so. I did find a link on one of Magellan's pages where you can request that they consider making BlueNav compatible with explorist, so apparently they've heard this complaint before and may take some action some day. But I'm not ready to bank on it.

[+JeepCachr]

I have an explorist 600. At this time it is not compatanle with the blue nav maps.

 

Its screen is smaller than the meridians or the garmin 60cs but it is a much higher quality display than the display so in my opinions its easier to use. Held side by side to a Garmin 60CS both screens are very good but I'd give the edge to the Garmin. Overall the device is much smaller. I was surprised by how small it is. You can't have a huge display in a tiny device, so its a trade off. You need to decide whats important to you.

 

There are some flaws in the 600 like its compatibility with maps. Hopefully Magellan will address and correct these.

[tubemonkey]

You can't have a huge display in a tiny device, so its a trade off. You need to decide whats important to you.

Of course not; but they could've upgraded the Meridians and SporTraks with faster processors and TFT color displays. It seems that Magellan made a conscious decision to compete with only with the Legend Cs & Vista Cs. To date, they have yet to offer competition for the 60C/CS & 76C/CS series.

 

There are some flaws in the 600 like its compatibility with maps. Hopefully Magellan will address and correct these.

I doubt it, since it would've been easier to include this compatibility from the get-go.

Edited June 7, 2005 by tubemonkey

[+JeepCachr]

It seems that Magellan made a conscious decision to compete with only with the Legend Cs & Vista Cs. To date, they have yet to offer competition for the 60C/CS & 76C/Cs series.

Weren't the 60 and 76 Garmins responce to the Meridian Platinum and color? So Magellan hasn't updated those units yet but they were first.

 

Few people realize how much bigger Garmin is than Magellan. Magellan is doing pretty good considering. Heres some statistics exerpted from this article on in house production advantages- Pinpoint Production published in December of last year.

 

Garmin has the following percantage of the market in these categorys-

recreational handheld - 70%

aftermarket automotive receivers- 60%

boaters between 30 and 40%

Aviation - 90%

 

Recreational hand helds is the category geocaching is in and Magellan shares that 30% space with other companys like Lowrance and Cobra. I don't have any statistics on Magellan.