Garmin Gpsmap 60cs Or Magellan Explorist 500-600?

[+Loki+]

Howdy,

 

I have read a lot of the other threads but I am still undecided and need advice from folks here with hands on experiance.

 

I want to be able to auto route in the car, hike and geocache of course.

 

I would like to be able to have detailed maps for at least the entire state of California loaded all the time (is that even possible? or is it not a big deal?)

 

I guess what I am not really getting is what are the real tradeoffs between the units if any, I know its only 56Meg for the Garmin and unlimited SD card for the Magellan but how much map does 56Meg really hold? is it even really an issue?

 

The Garmin SEEMS like it might be a little more fun and Geocashing friendly?

The Magellan SEEMS like it might be a little more down to earth business like?

 

Anyway please help me pick a GPS!

[WH]

I cant speak for the Magellan, but the Garmin GPSMAP 60CS will do all that you ask and then some.

[+briansnat]

Garmin and unlimited SD card for the Magellan but how much map does 56Meg really hold?

 

A lot. Using Mapsource Topo it holds most of the northeast. About half of Maine, all of VT, NJ, NH, MA, RI, half of NY, eastern PA and MD and DE.

 

Mapsource City Select, with routing turned on doesn't give you quite as much, but using City Select in my 60CS it will cover all of NJ and CT, half of NY, eastern PA, half of MA and most of VT and NH.

Edited June 30, 2005 by briansnat

[+bigdog999]

Unfortunately you live in a very big/congested state. With 56 meg, you can load CitySelect NA from Mexico to Bakersfield. With Topo USA, you can load from Mexico to Shasta Lake. From what I've read autorouting on the Garmin is better than the Magellan. I love the autorouting on my 60C. Because I live in a smaller state, I can load both CitySelect and Topo USA in the 56 allotment.

[+Team Perks]

I agree that the 60CS does an excellent job with the auto-routing and has always been able to hold as many maps as I've needed. I've never deliberately tried to max out my memory, but I've been able to cram at least 20 different CitySelect map areas into it. I keep my "local area" loaded at all times and throw in different areas whenever I'm caching in another area.

[magellan315]

As much as I use Magellan's I would stay clear of the Explorist line. The battery is not the standard AA that you see in every other GPS. They us a built rechargeable battery similar to what is found in camcorders. If the battery dies you can't just put in a new one. I can see this as a real problem when you are in the middle of the woods and a mile from your car. You may want to look at the Magellan Meridian if you want one that has mapping.

[Team Misguided]

We started out with a Magellan Meridian. We now have two Garmin 60c's and a Garmin eTrex.

 

That's all I have to say about that.

[+Sean Connery]

I use the Garmin Map60cs with city select North America and am quite happy with it. You buy the car mount and put it on the dash and with the 12v power cord plugged into the cigarette lighter socket, you travel all day and night with it. I have called the Garmin support line 3-4 times and have always been very pleased with their support people. I would highly recommend the map60cs.

[+Loki+]

Wow, several good points.

 

I am worried about the Explorist not taking batteries, seems like a bad idea.

 

So I guess California just will NOT fit in 56megs, bummer... well i guess it's not that big a deal to load different areas as needed just have to have a laptop around...

 

How about the "rumors" of a Garmin GPSMAP with SD coming possibly as soon as Oct? Can anyone confirm or deny?

 

If you had it to do over what "basic" (cheaper) GPS would you buy now to get you through till the next big thing? That would still fill it functions of car autoroute & geocaching?

 

Thanks for all the tips

[+Kai Team]

The congested areas are what really do you in with City Select - all those steets and highways, addresses, and points of interest for the autorouting chew up memory.

 

I just played around with it and can get all of California (38 maps) EXCEPT the San Francisco Bay area and greater LA into 45 MB. The greater Los Angeles area (roughly Oxnard to San Bernadino, down towards San Clemente) alone is about 30 maps and 35-40 MB. The Bay area is 11 maps and 20 MB.

 

So all of California would be about 80 maps and 100MB, but you can get the rest of the state into 45 MB if you leave out the two large metro areas.

 

So it really depends on which areas of California you spend the most time in. And as you said, if you have a laptop, you can always load new maps on the fly.

 

I just got my 60CS a couple of weeks ago (upgraded from an eTrex Vista) and I must say the thing that has impressed me most is the battery life! (Don't get me wrong - there are a lot of great features, but I still can't believe how long it will run on a pair of AA NiMH rechargables). I would not buy a GPSr that did not use commonly available, replaceable batteries, as noted above.

[+ChileHead]

Magellan claims to be coming out with an optional AA (or was it AAA) battery pack for the explorist. So most of the time the recharageable would probably be fine, and carry the extra battery pack for emergencies.

[+Jamie Z]

I won't deride the 60-series, as I've not used one... although I'd like to try one out.

 

I have an Explorist because the SD expandability is pretty much a necessity for me.

 

As for the battery, I've found the rechargeable battery to be much more convenient than the previous GPSs I've owned with AA. I get home from a caching trip, hook it up to my computer and later on, it's charged and ready to go for tomorrow.

 

If I need to recharge on the fly, I can do that in my car... You can even get a AA-powered USB recharger for field use. That's not much different from carrying spare batteries for your AA-powered GPS.

 

Sure, I see your point... but it's like saying you shouldn't get a particular cell phone because it doesn't use AA batteries. What if you had to change the AAs in your phone every few days? That'd be a PITA. Same with the GPS.

 

What makes the battery so convenient is that I think I've removed the battery cover from my GPS maybe three times since I owned it, and once was to take some pictures of the compartment. It's simply plug and play.

 

That said, I've not been pleased with the lack of options regarding autorouting. I really, really like autorouting, I just wish I had more control over how it does it... and the Explorist doesn't give many options to the user.

 

Is price an issue? Without verifying, I believe that the Explorist runs about $100 less than the 60. That too, was an issue for me.

 

Jamie

[+briansnat]

So I guess California just will NOT fit in 56megs, bummer... well i guess it's not that big a deal to load different areas as needed just have to have a laptop around...

 

Consider the 76C. Its functionally very similar to the 60C and has more than double the memory of the 60C.

 

Unless you are travelling frequently and widely I don't see why you would need all of the state loaded at the same time. If you frequent areas of the state you can load those areas and just use the basemaps for routing in between them.

 

For example, I live in NJ and am working in the DC area now. I have most of northern NJ loaded into my 60CS and the entire DC area. For the area in between I just use the base maps. With this setup I used the 60CS to guide me from my house in NJ to my hotel room in VA this week and all around town while I'm here.

Edited July 1, 2005 by briansnat

[+EScout]

Jamie Z covered the battery situation on the eXplorists well. I agree that it is very convenient haveing the internal Li-Ion charge like in your cell phone and PDA. The portable external USB pack holds 4 AAs and can charge the unit several times. Also, it has been recently discovered that a common cell phone battery is an exact internal replacement, and can be purchased for $8.

 

Regarding the price on the eX500, it has been seen for under $300 lately.

[+DaveA]

Long time Magellan user, own and like my Meridian. If I had to buy something today and choose between the explorist and 60C I would get the 60C.

 

The explorist, in my opinion, was a serious mistake by Magellan.

 

First they come out with near worthless 100, 200, 300 series units that have no data port. Absurd.

 

Then they come out with their 400,500,600 units which are really the only units anyone should consider in that line and they use some stupid proprietary($$$) battery and still get less battery life than the Garmins using AAs.

 

To top it off they did absolutely nothing to make the autorouting better than it was on the Meridians when Garmins autorouting offers a lot more flexibility and has for quite some time.

 

Also depending on what you want to do with the mapping software you buy for the Magellans you have to use the web to find ways to hack it to remove it's 1990's style limitations such as it being incapable of not overwriting your waypoints on the GPSr when you load new ones from the software. Easy GPS and GSAK can upload without overwriting, but the vendor software can't. Go figure. Magellans excuse is the software was published before the Meridian/Explorists were made. Ever hear of an update?

 

Explorist=a step backwards.

 

Please don't flame me explorist users, this is only my opinion.

[+DaveA]

Regarding the price on the eX500, it has been seen for under $300 lately.

That is because they aren't selling well.

 

I don't expect the explorist line to last very long.

[+Jamie Z]

That is because they aren't selling well.

What? Can you provide a link?

 

I purchased my Explorist 500 several months ago when they were first released for $280.

 

In fact, that the prices are still above $300 on most websites may well indicate that the Explorist is selling well enough to not lower the price.

 

However, that would be a baseless assumption, so I won't say that.

 

Jamie

[+DaveA]

That is because they aren't selling well.

What? Can you provide a link?

 

I purchased my Explorist 500 several months ago when they were first released for $280.

 

In fact, that the prices are still above $300 on most websites may well indicate that the Explorist is selling well enough to not lower the price.

 

However, that would be a baseless assumption, so I won't say that.

 

Jamie

Magellan's philosophy for a long time has been to release first and then to sell cheaper.

 

They don't support their products well either. Generation after generation the same problems persist.

 

When they released the Roadmate for $1500 they didn't even bother to provide a way to mount it in a vehicle. People had to use mapquest to get information to feed into the inadequate database.

 

Even today their software and units are less user friendly than Garmins. You still can't save 2 maps to the units unless you save the files to the hard drive, rename them and then use a card reader to transfer the file to SD card.

 

You can't upload 10 new waypoints without overwriting the other 400 on the unit you wish to keep.

 

As a result Magellan has consistently lagged in market share behind Garmin in the auto, handheld and aviation units. Only recently when Thales snagged the Hertz Never Lost contract did they take the lead in the auto GPS market.

 

As for the consumer handheld market they are suffering and only have about a 20% share. Guess who has the other 80%?

 

See the below cut and paste from http://www.ueaf.net/actualites/fis_298.html

 

Thales Navigation generates approximately one fourth of the 1 billion euros revenues of Thales Security division. Covering four different markets (outdoors, automotive, topography and OEM), the company claims to be the leader in mobile automotive navigational systems with 45% of market share in the United States. “Today, only 12 to 15% of all cars are manufactured with an integrated onboard GPS system”, noted Henry Gaillard, CEO of Thales Navigation based in Santa Clara, California. For the owners of the subsidiary company, the generalization of these products at the manufacturing level is likely to take years. Consequently, the company is focusing on portable and removable products for which sales should increase of 50% by 2010. For its other main activity, GPS for leisure use, Thales Navigation claims to hold 20% of market share. The Magellan branded products generate 30% of the revenues and their sales are expected to increase of 17% over the next five years.

 

Magellan isn't competing well in terms of user friendliness for hardware or software or customer support so they try to be the first to market with things like color screens and then instead of supporting and improving their products they simply under price Garmin to try and continue sales. That is why the Meridian line used a color screen before Garmin, but the Meridian is 16 color, the Garmin 256. With the Explorist guess what Magellan did. They kept the 16 color screen and under bid Garmin.

 

Please understand I have never owned a Garmin, it has always been Magellan for me, but I have just gotten sick of them. Garmin, in my opinion, offers better hardware, software and support in the handheld market. The explorist line, for me, marks the final straw in my patience with Magellan for actually addressing the problems with their stuff. They left the defects and added some more like a proprietary battery.

 

Usually when folks defend the Magellan defects the use this line "Well, it isn't really that bad, and here is how I work around it".

 

Look in this thread for examples. "The proprietary battery isn't that bad, you can find a cell phone battery (in short supply) for $8 instead of paying $45 for the one Magellans sells." How about the other comment "You can buy an additional portable charger to hang off your unit that uses AA batteries to charge the $45 proprietary battery that still gets shorter life than AAs in a Garmin." The quotes are my paraphrases of course.

 

I used to make those same excuses for Magellan, but no more. Garmin simply makes a better product and there is no need to make excuses for it like Magellan owners have to.

 

Market share doesn't lie.

[+Loki+]

Thanks,

 

I am leaning towards the Garmin.

 

I really like the bigger screen on the 60 vs. the 76 series even though more memory is always better, the 76's are bigger too aren't they?

 

Is the Compass & barometer worth it? Work well?

 

Or should I just get the 60c and a good Compass? and barometer?

 

Closing in on the GPS and getting closer to caching

[+DaveA]

Is the Compass & barometer worth it? Work well?

 

Or should I just get the 60c and a good Compass? and barometer?

 

Closing in on the GPS and getting closer to caching

In my opinion the compass and barometer are not worth it.

 

First let's deal with the barometer since it is a less controversial issue. Have you ever in your life needed one? Do you need to know what the atmospheric pressure is? Ever? If you answered 'no', then you realize you have no need of a barometer in your gps.

 

Ok, now the compass. It can be nice, but you need to understand the limitations before shelling out the extra money.

 

A GPS without an integrated electronic compass cannot tell you which way to head to get to your destination unless you are moving. A GPS doesn't know what direction you are facing, it only knows where you are and if you are moving it knows what direction you are moving in. Adding a compass allows the GPS to know which direction you are facing while standing still.

 

Do you ever need to know this while using a GPS? For caching generally no. For autorouting it can be helpful.

 

Unless you are in some serious vegetation you generally can take a couple steps to get the GPS to give you directions to destination. The compass comes in handy when you are lazy and don't feel like moving to get your heading. Some have said that they seek caches in heavy vegetation and movement is very slow so the compass helps them continue in the correct destination. I dunno, never had any issue moving fast enough to have my GPS know the direction I was headed in.

 

For auto routing it is more useful. Imagine you are in a parking lot and you are in an unfamiliar area. When you leave the parking lot should you turn left or right? Without a compass your GPS can't tell you that while not moving. Your GPS remembers the last known direction you were headed in and bases directions upon that. Once you start moving the info will update and you have accurate directions, but do you want to be staring at your GPS while navigating a parking lot or would you rather it indicated a left/right turn correctly while you were still stationary?

 

However, electronic compasses in general are not very good. They must be held flat or they give bad directions. The electronic compass in my watch I can make go off by 90+ degrees simply by tilting it. Also electronic compasses need to be calibrated frequently. Explosing them to anything magnetic like metal in your car can cause them to indicate south as north. Recalibrating fixes the issue, but they seem to get decalibrated very quickly and easily. In my opinion having no idea what direction to head in is better than confidently heading in the wrong direction.

 

My personal solution is I wear a small liquid filled zipper pull style compass that cost me about a buck. It is generally more consistently reliable than the electronic compasses I have used.

 

Anyway, make up your own mind on this issue. I hope I have supplied you with good info to base your decision on, but ultimately only you can decide if the drawbacks and limitations are outweighted by the benefits in how you will use the GPS.

 

I personally wouldn't pay the extra money for the integrated compass, but many do and swear by it.

[+evergreenhiker!]

I'm a hiker in adddition to being a geocacher, so my next gps will be the Garmin 60CS. The barometer is very useful. Maybe not for caching in general unless you are doing a wilderness box. But I use the gps for off trail navigation and plotting routes. I plot waypoints in my mapping software and then download to gps.

[+JohnnyVegas]

They don't support their products well either. Generation after generation the same problems persist.

I have never had a problem with Magellans product support

 

For many years I was a GPS buyer and I delt with garmin and magellan quite a bit for my customers and I always found there support to be very good.

 

Even today their software and units are less user friendly than Garmins. You still can't save 2 maps to the units unless you save the files to the hard drive, rename them and then use a card reader to transfer the file to SD card

You do not need a card reader with the explorist 400, 500 or 600, and it only takes a minute or two to name a map before you save it to the hard drive.

 

Market share doesn't lie.

All market share does is tell you who does the best marketing, It really has nothing to do with quality.

 

I have used Garmin and Magellan, I strarted with Garmin but after using Magellan topo software and Garmins I decided to stay with magellan.

 

lets not forget Garmin has yet to offer a GPS that uses a std memory card, Sure they had there e-map that was not even waterproof that required a garmin proprietary memory card that they tried to shaft their custmers with on the price.

 

The Garmin rep told my they had a gps in the works that would us and SD card, but that was only 3 years ago.

 

As far as the need to have all of Ca, in a hand held GPS, this is really not needed but it can be done with a magellan explorist 400, 500 or 600.

 

Is the Compass & barometer worth it? Work well?

 

As far as having a magnetic compass-it is a waste of money, same goes for and altimerter,

If you really want a compass though the 600 uses a triaxial compass so that you do not have to hold the GPS level for it to work as is required with a garmin.

 

As far as auto routing in a hand held unit, the screens are just not big enough for my taste, I do use auto routing in a meridian gold though but a begger screen would be nice, in my Eplorist 500 I use topo software.

 

 

They kept the 16 color screen and under bid Garmin.

The color screen in the exlorist 500 and 600 is not the same screen that is used in the other Magellans, I have a sport track color and and explorist 500, the screens are not the same. It would appear that you have never used an explorist 500 or 600.

[+DaveA]

I have never had a problem with Magellans product  support

 

I wasn't referring to how they talk to you when you call them, I was referring to how well they support their products. As a concrete example they released their topo software for the Map 330 unit. The software has the limitations of the Map 330 hardware built into it. If you have a Meridian or Explorist it doesn't matter, the software limitations remain even though the hardware limitations (memory/processor speed) do not. Decent support would involve a patch/update to the software for users of more modern hardware to remove those limitations wouldn't it?

 

You do not need a card reader with the explorist 400, 500 or 600, and it only takes a minute or two to name a map before you save it to the hard drive.

 

The limitation isn't in the hardware, it is in the software. The software saves all map files with the same name so you can't upload multiple maps to the GPSr directly. You have to save them to disk first, rename them and then upload them to the GPSr. There is simply no excuse for such non friendly software in this day. Granted the renaming process only takes a minute, but this kind of sounds like one of those excuses Magellan owners (like myself) make for the inferior product by saying "well, it really isn't that bad, here is how I work around it". For 300+ for the hardware and around 100 for the software we really shouldn't have to make excuses and perform work arounds should we? How difficult would it be for Magellan to release a software patch to correct this? So why haven't they done it? See my comment about their support for the answer.

 

All market share does is tell you who does the best marketing, It really has nothing to do with quality.

 

Fair enough.

 

I have used Garmin and Magellan, I strarted with Garmin but after using Magellan topo software and Garmins I decided to stay with magellan.

 

I agree that the topo software by Magellan is superior in some ways to the Garmin. The Magellan software drills down to better detail than the Garmin. IIRC though the Magellan topo is using Tiger data and the Garmin is using USGS data. Tiger data is notoriously inaccurate having been compiled for census workers, not hikers and cachers. I also believe Garmin has updated their topo offering to provide more detail (seperate product) wheras Magellan is still publishing the same thing they were 5 years ago.

 

lets not forget Garmin has yet to offer a GPS that uses a std memory card,

 

Agreed, in my mind this is the single most important factor that results in some choosing Magellan over Garmin. I have no idea why Garmin doesn't use a memory card. If Garmin made a 60C series with memory card I think Magellan's market share would fall from 20% to around the same as Lowrance's.

 

The color screen in the exlorist 500 and 600 is not the same screen that is used in the other Magellans, I have a sport track color and and explorist 500, the screens are not the same. It would appear that you have never used an explorist 500 or 600.

 

I didn't say they were the same screen, there is actually a significant difference between the color screen on the Meridian and the explorist. The explorist screen is much smaller. I said the Meridian used a 16 color screen and was first to market with the color screen. Then Garmin answered with a 256 color screen and Magellan's response with the explorist was to again use a (much smaller) 16 color screen and try to set their price point under Garmins.

 

The explorist's color screen is a 16 color display, right? The Meridian's is 16 colors, right?

[+JohnnyVegas]

While the explorist uses a 16 color screen it is not the same type of screen that is used in the Meridian color or the spor track color. When held next to the old Magellan color screens even to low brightness setting(the explorist has 3 settings) is much brighter than the Meridian of sport trak. When I compared it to the Garmin 60C in my local REI for bightness and sharpness they appered to be about the same.

 

I also believe Garmin has updated their topo offering to provide more detail (seperate product) wheras Magellan is still publishing the same thing they were 5 years ago.

Magellans new Topo software is not the same as the old one.

[+Markwell]

Moving this to the GPS Units and Software forum

[+EScout]

You can't upload 10 new waypoints without overwriting the other 400 on the unit you wish to keep

 

I do this all the time on my Meridian. You can keep adding until you get to 500.

 

What it comes down to is your preference in the storage and map/waypoint/route/track management with the Magellans versus the Garmins. This is very good on the Meridians, and outstanding on the eXplorists. The eXplorists have the latest, best file management of any GPSr. Those who value the benefits of this, will go to the Magellans, even though some other features are superior on the Garmins.

[+Team Cotati]

Not as much.

[+DaveA]

You can't upload 10 new waypoints without overwriting the other 400 on the unit you wish to keep

 

I do this all the time on my Meridian. You can keep adding until you get to 500.

not with Magellan's software you can't. With 3rd party yes, Magellan, no.

[+Scryer]

I got four replacement batteries for the eXplorist 500 from eBay -- they're Moto SNN 5595B, 1100 mAh instead of the 1300 mAh that come with the GPSr, and they do run about $8 each plus shipping. (As an aside, watch the shipping -- I got them from a company that "combined shipping", and although they were light and came in a small box, it still knocked only a couple bucks off the shipping cost. Still, it was *way* cheaper than a real replacement.)

 

All four fit snugly into a standard Altoids tin, including their protective plastic bags. No rattling. That should last me until I can get to a power plug.

[+damel]

Is the Compass & barometer worth it? Work well?

 

Or should I just get the 60c and a good Compass? and barometer?

 

Closing in on the GPS and getting closer to caching

Well I can only speak for the Garmin side of this. I love my GPSmap 60c. I have had it for about 2 months and it does everything I could want and more. Seems like Garmin is ontop of updating the firmware often too as I have upgraded mine 3 times since buying it.

 

I personally bought the 60c over the 60cs because I have no need for a barometer and I have read about many problems with the compass. So I opted for the cheaper model and bought a good compass. I dont regret this at all. I have not even used my compass for geocaching yet and doubt that I would very often. I also like that the unit takes just 2 AA batteries. Cheap to buy and easy to carry, the AA batteries keep the unit running for a long time.

 

As far as the software with Mapsource City Select you will not be able to hold the whole state of CA on the unit. CA has 99 maps totaling 122.4 megs. I too once thought like you but then realized that I really dont ever go all over the state. I live in the LA area and just loading that maps from this area fill up the unit. This is more then fine because I hardly go outside this area for caching on a normal basis. When I do go outside this area I just load a new set. 56megs is quite large. I took my 60c on a road trip with me (4000+ miles including CA,AZ,UT,WY,MT,ID,WA and OR) recently and I was able to load all the maps for my entire trip minus the San Francisco and LA areas. Lets face it...on a trip you dont need the area around where you live. So I was more then surprised at all the space the unit has. I would love the addition of an SD slot, but I really feel no need for it as the trade off would most likely be lower battery time.

[+Loki+]

Very good info here Thanks everyone,

 

How about fitting Santa Barbara, Ventura & san Louis Obispo counties ?

 

Would all 3 fit or at least just Santa Barbara & Ventura counties?

 

This would be City Select on a GPSMAP 60CS

 

Thanks

[+BrianRTS]

any way to strip the POI data out of city select sync'ed maps to reduce filesize?

[+Loki+]

"How about fitting Santa Barbara, Ventura & san Louis Obispo counties ? on the GSMAP60CS ??"

 

Anyone know if this will fit?

 

Also I think I found the best price so far at GPSonSALE $369.99 no tax BEFORE the $50 rebate if ordered by 7/05/05.

 

Just have to get the wife to let go of a few dollars

 

Even if I miss the rebate its sill a good price.

[+Blind Avocado]

"How about fitting Santa Barbara, Ventura & san Louis Obispo counties ? on the GSMAP60CS ??"

 

Anyone know if this will fit?

 

Also I think I found the best price so far at GPSonSALE $369.99 no tax BEFORE the $50 rebate if ordered by 7/05/05.

 

Just have to get the wife to let go of a few dollars

 

Even if I miss the rebate its sill a good price.

Yes that will easily fit, along with all of Los Angeles county, Monterey county, Orange county, and parts of Riverside, San Bernardino, and Kern counties. 56 Megs will hold a lot; its just that California has some very densely populated areas that take up a lot of memory.

[+Loki+]

Thanks mr Avo,

 

Its gonna be a GPSMAP 60CS for me!

[+JeepCachr]

I bought a explorist 600, I should have bought a 60cs. The SD card is not all that I thought it would be.

[vr12]

The SD card is not all that I thought it would be.

Why ?

 

I dont't travel too far and 56M is enough for me but still wish Garmin put SD in it or better - put 512M instead of 56M

Edited July 4, 2005 by vr12

[+Jamie Z]

The SD card is not all that I thought it would be.

Hmmm.. the SD card is what made me stay with Magellan, otherwise I probably would have gotten some type of Garmin.

 

Can you elaborate? What is it that you thought it would be?

 

Jamie

[+Klemmer]

All of California, Nevada, and parts of AZ (inluding Topographic maps!), along with LOTS else (basemaps for Japan and Canada, thousands of benchmarks, etc.) fits in in my Magellan Meridian Platinum with 256MB SD card. Works great!

 

I just wish it had the slick transflective color display that the Garmin 60 has..... sigh .... can't get it all in one place!

 

STAY AWAY from the Magellan Meridian Color. Friend bought one, and he can't use it. Screen not readable in sun without the backlight on, and then it sucks batteries like crazy!

 

I WILL NOT have a GPS that doesn't have an SD card slot. It's silly. Does Garmin make money selling memory? Why not just put in the SD socket and be done with it?

 

I need a Magarmin Meridian 60CS.

[+GOT GPS?]

I have bought many Garmins and Magellans since 1998, and found that when I bought them right after they come on the market that the Magellans were poorly made, with the GPS housings being low quality. The very best GPS with Electronic compass was the Meridian Platinum, and it beat out all my Garmins. I sold the Platinum due to its complexity and my Cronic Fatigue problems, and the problems with how to use the raw tracklog data saved to the SD Memory card at the time. I found that with my Fatigue problems that the 60C with it's 10,000 trackpoint memory is a very simple and easy GPS to use, also I like the fact that Garmins segment their tracklogs whenever the tracklogging is toggled ON and OFF or they lose signal, as you can remove those tracklog breaks when you get home, and see where you lost signal on your computer's screen. Also the Cronic Fatigue has greatly knocked out my caching activities, but I still love to hike and boat with the 60C and download the tracklogs of my activities to the PC. All the above is why I stuck with Garmin, but I have to say is my Vista, even with the paint sanded off of the antenna, the Vista is still garbage, and should never have bought the thing, for It keeps loosing LOCK when paddleboating out in open waters.

 

Edit: corrected spelling errors

Edited July 5, 2005 by GOT GPS?

[+briansnat]

but I have to say is my Vista, even with the paint sanded off of the antenna, the Vista is still garbage, and should never have bought the thing, for It keeps loosing LOCK when paddleboating out in open waters.

 

That sounds like a defective unit. My Vista works perfectlyt under open skys and quite well under trees.

[FiddlinFool]

DANGER, danger Will Robinson, if you ever plan to use your GPSr in a boat, stay away from the eXplorist series. For some reason known only to God and Magellan they made the eXplorist series INCOMPATIBLE with their own BlueNav software, so the units are pretty much kaput for marine navigation.

 

I own both a Meridian and a 60C and my opinion is that the Garmin is WAY more of a machine than the Magellan, with oodles more features. That said, the memory limitation on the 60C, or even the 76C is a problem for me. I can't fit all of my home state (MI) on the 60C and since I own homes in MI and FL, I have to drag a laptop along with me every time I travel to swap charts, a big nuisance.

 

I have noticed a HUGE difference in satellite reception. The Magellan stays locked despite heavy tree cover, overpasses, works indoors, you name it. The Garmin drops reception everytime a large butterfly flies overhead (a bit of hyperbole, but that's the way it feels). I know some folks claim this is just because the Magellan fails to report loss of lock, but I've found that claim to be baseless. I've addressed this problem by ordering an active amplified external antenna for the 60C.

 

Autorouting IS vastly better on the Garmin, with auto recalculation, which the Magellan doesn't do.

 

All in all, I'm happy to have replaced the Meridian with the 60c. If they did come out with an expandable memory version, it'd be about perfect.

Edited July 6, 2005 by FiddlinFool

[+JohnnyRotten]

I think that you can't go wrong with the Garmin GPSMap 60CS. The display is unbelievably clear, and it can hold quite a bit of info. I can get the whole state of NJ, with little bits of NYC, Long Island and parts of PA in about 45 MB. I would think tthat depending on the detail that you need, you could get a large portion of CA onto the GPSMap60CS, using MapSource. I would suggest against putting a TOPO map on there. It just seems that the topo uses an enormous amount of memory. Unless you are a climber, or like to specifically hike mountains, I would stay away from topo mapping.

I have a Garmin GPSMap60CS, and I LOVE IT!!! The quad helix antenna makes all the difference in the world.

[+Hynr]

Recently I had to make the choices that the OP is asking about. I already have a Yellow etrx, Etrex Legend and iQue 3600. I researched this forum extensively and the decision-making paired the 3 Garmins: Vista C, 60CS, 76CS with the Magellan Explorist 400, 500 and 600.

 

The Explorist drew my attention because I thought the memory card would allow me to look at cache descriptions, but the unit does not do that and the geocaching feature seemed "dead on arrival". The extra memory does not grab me as much since I have a 512mB SD card in my iQue and I use only a fraction of that. I find that if you put too many points on the map, these slow to a crawl. Unrelated to that I've been ticked off at Garmin over making me buy the same maps I already own (new unlock codes) for my new purchase. So buying Magellan would have gotten me new maps (you can never have enough maps). But with the Garmin iQue I have the experience that Li-ion batteries are crap since they don't last very long (a few months of serious geocaching) and also don't hold much of a charge between recharging. I had also read about numerous problems with crappy construction and joy-stick problems for the entire Explorist line. I could not find any comments reflecting serious manufacturing defects for any of the Garmins. So despite the disincentives to purchasing another Garmin, I bought a 60CS. I have not regretted that decision.

[+pghlooking]

on the 600:

can you project a waypoint still?

 

Whats the comaparision of screens from the sportrak color to the 600 to the Garmin 60cs? anyone have screenshots so we can see? i have the sportrak color and have seen the 60cs. While i want to stay with Magellan (I am happy with it and customer service has been fine, and this really is just personal opinion anyhow), I was extremely impressed with the screen of the 60cs. If the eplorist 600 is even close to it i will be happy to move over to that line.

[HugoOne]

Unrelated to that I've been ticked off at Garmin over making me buy the same maps I already own (new unlock codes) for my new purchase.

 

Normaly you should have been able to unlock a second unit for free, or did you already use the second free unlock of the iQue maps for eTrex Legend?

Edited July 6, 2005 by HugoOne

[HokieBird]

Please refresh my memory - what are the screens that were in older Magellans but are not in the explorist 500/600 series? What fields did that have that are not available on the explorist?

[+briansnat]

I would suggest against putting a TOPO map on there. It just seems that the topo uses an enormous amount of memory

 

I've found the opposite. I can fit pretty much the entire northeast from Delaware to Maine in my 60CS using Mapsource Topo. City Select will only allow me to fit northern and central NJ, NYC, Long Island, eastern PA, CT and southeastern NY in my 60CS.

[+GOT GPS?]

Please refresh my memory - what are the screens that were in older Magellans but are not in the explorist 500/600 series?  What fields did that have that are not available on the explorist?

The SporTrak COLOR Screens are:

Satellight Screen

Map Screen

Compass

Large Data Screen

Position Screen

Road Screen(Highway)

Data Screen(6 fields with compass below)

Speed Screen(Speedometer page)

 

Explorist Screens are:

Map Screen

Compass

Position

Satellite Page

 

I like the SporTrak Color with TOPO, for where the 60C fails me when finding Event caches around bodies of water that don't show up on City Select on the 60C.

 

Scratching my head over why Magellan does not use TRIP TIME at all on any of their GPS units. I find it important to know how many hours and how far my car has gone and the total average speed of the driving. This is one thing Garmin aways had.

Edited July 7, 2005 by GOT GPS?

[+Sputnik 57]

any way to strip the POI data out of city select sync'ed maps to reduce filesize?

You can strip out the autorouting information, but not the POIs, as far as I can tell. Of course, stripping out the autorouting info sort of defeats one of the great benefits of the unit. If you are loading the maps onto a Legend or some other unit that won't autoroute anyway, it's a good way to reduce map size. Sorry I can't give you the statistics on the change.