Explorist 400-500-600 Units

[+HALFC]

I am looking for a gps and have seen remarks about explorist 400-600 series

do you need the extra software to download waypoints from this site ? or is the software just for mapping cities?

[+sarhound]

The easiest way to get waypoints into the Explorist series is to get GPX files from pocket queries, which you can generate as a premium member. I usually make a query for 100 waypoints at a time (keeps things more manageable in the Explorist) and import them into GSAK. That program has an export function specifically for the Explorist series, amongst other formats. Premium membership and the registration cost of GSAK are well worth the money in time saved. Using some of the available software out there has made life much easier.

 

The TOPO and Streets software will help you put a more detailed map in the Explorist. I use the 3D TOPO, since we do a lot of off road prowling. I used it on a trip to Austin this weekend (I haven't been down there in about 10 years,) and the map on the GPS was pretty accurate. I was impressed.

 

I like my Explorist 500 more and more the longer that I use it. The accuracy usually puts me within 5 to 7 feet of the cache, most of the time; there are days when I might be 30 feet off, but that's not a common occurrence.

 

Good luck and happy caching!

 

sarhound

[WH]

My best advice about the Magellan Explorist series is not to buy one.

[+IVxIV]

That's good advice. You should buy TWO, because you're going to enjoy using it soo much

[+macatac1961]

My best advice about the Magellan Explorist series is not to buy one.

Why not?

[WH]

Some people will swear by them, but I was lucky enough to win an Explorist 500 in a contest so I did a side by side comparison with my Garmin 60CS and, in my opinion, the 60CS is a FAR superior unit.

 

Heres a short list of reasons why I like the 60CS vs the Explorist

 

The explorist uses a proprietary rechargeable battery. So when its dead, you have no choice but to go home and charge it. You can't just throw in a spare set of AAs and continue on your way.

 

It's slow to update your position. You could be stansing at the cache and the Explorist will show that your still 200' away. The 60CS updates just about instantly.

 

I get better satellite reception under tree cover with the 60CS due to its quad helix antenna.

 

Navigating between the different file menus on the Explorist is slow and tedious.

[+Team Perks]

The explorist uses a proprietary rechargeable battery. So when its dead, you have no choice but to go home and charge it. You can't just throw in a spare set of AAs and continue on your way.

Whoa, you gotta be kidding. That alone would turn me off immediately.

 

Considering how often I forget to charge my cell phone, PDA, iPod, and everything else electronic, the last thing I'd want to do is discover I forgot to charge my GPS too.

[+badlands]

The rechargeables are a plus for me. I just charge it in the car as I go and I've never had a problem. Beats the heck out of buying batteries every day. Granted if I were to go for an extended period of time where the car wasn't available I would have to buy a spare battery or two, but that's easy enough to do.

 

If someone wants to send me a 60CS I'll be happy to do a side by side , but for now I'm happy with the E500.

[+EScout]

The rechargeable battery is a plus for me also. Just like my cell phone and PDA, I can charge in car, office (connected to computer) or home. I would hate life if I had to charge these devices like most AA bats in GPSrs----remove, charge, reinstall. You can buy spare battery packs for $8, which I have done on ebay. The lithium packs keep their charge for a couple months, much longer than Nimh bats. They are small and light and you can carry a couple for spares.

 

Regarding the position lag, I have not experienced this. I have done numerous tests at waypoints including the super-accurate benchmarks. I enter the coords of the benchmark, and walk up to them quickly. Within a second of arrival, it shows only a few feet to the coords, better than the "accuracy" reported.

 

Regarding reception, reports here in other topics show the eXplorist at the top, better than even the 60C. I have not verified this, but I have not found an outdoor location where I could not get a good position fix.

 

Yes, it is slow in doing some functions such as veritical profiles, accessing files. But the file management, including saving and accessing maps, waypoints, tracks and routes, is state of the art, best of any GPSr. After using the file management/SD card memory, I dont know of many who would go back to a unit without it.

[+JohnnyVegas]

The explorist uses a proprietary rechargeable battery. So when its dead, you have no choice but to go home and charge it. You can't just throw in a spare set of AAs and continue on your way.

 

It's slow to update your position. You could be stansing at the cache and the Explorist will show that your still 200' away. The 60CS updates just about instantly.

 

I get better satellite reception under tree cover with the 60CS due to its quad helix antenna.

 

Navigating between the different file menus on the Explorist is slow and tedious.

a proprietary rechargeable battery

 

This is an out and out lie You can use a Motorla cell phone battery the will run you about $3.00 on e-BAY, the battery is not proprietarty, besices which the battery is good for about 14 hours, this is more time than most geocahers will ever need for a day of geocaching

 

You could be stansing at the cache and the Explorist will show that your still 200' away.

 

Not true I have found over 200 caches with my explorist and have never seen this happen

 

I get better satellite reception under tree cover with the 60CS due to its quad helix antenna.

THis is also not true, I have used mine under tree cover and evne used it with my Meridian gold that has a quad antenna and the reception was just as good.

 

Navigating between the different file menus on the Explorist is slow and tedious

 

Simply not true, It might takes me just a few seconds to change a waypoint or cache file, the only time you are going thru files would be to change the cache fole or waypoint file you want to use. I have a file I use just for parts of multi caches, I just select that file when I save the next part of a multi.

 

THings you can do woith the explorist the you can not do with the Garmin 60CS

 

With the explorist you can have seperate cache files that you can bring up as you want them, these could be files for a particular area. If you find yourself traveling to a city you have not been to, you can have a file of caches in that city.

 

They could be files for a particular type of cache. You can have file for reg caches, files for multis, files for mystery cache and so on. Or files for easy cache or files for hard caches. I have one file that contains all the caches that I have hidden for referance. Lets say you want to hide a cache, you can create a file a all the caches in the area you are going to scout for a new cache so you know you are not to close to ither caches in the area.

 

 

Lets not forget the SD card, you can have as much memory as you want, you can maps for differant cities or states, if you are goind on vacation you can have a map of that city load and ready to go. if you are going to several cites you can load every city you are going to without having to worry about how much memory you have, I have a 1GB card in my 500 that I got for $50.00.

 

When you load a geocahe file into an explorist those caches show up on your GPS screen using the same icons that are used on the geocaching.com web site.

Edited September 21, 2005 by JohnnyVegas

[Clan Riffster]

I've got a Magellan SporTrak Color now, which is typically an OK unit, but I want to upgrade to the eXplorist series. For me an Electronic compass is a must, (just a personal preference), and if I read the ads right, that limits me to the 300 or 600. I'll probably go with the 600, cuz I happen to like lots of bells & whistles.

[+JohnnyVegas]

I've got a Magellan SporTrak Color now, which is typically an OK unit, but I want to upgrade to the eXplorist series. For me an Electronic compass is a must, (just a personal preference), and if I read the ads right, that limits me to the 300 or 600. I'll probably go with the 600, cuz I happen to like lots of bells & whistles.

Both the 600 and the 300 have a Magnetic compass but the magnetic compass in the 300 is not a triaxial compass like the one in the 600, Sport track color or the Meridian platinum. THis means you have to hold the GPS level for the compass to work in the Explorist 300, just like in all the Garmins with Magnetic compasses.

Edited September 21, 2005 by JohnnyVegas

[+briansnat]

Moving this to the appropriate forum.

[WH]

The explorist uses a proprietary rechargeable battery. So when its dead, you have no choice but to go home and charge it. You can't just throw in a spare set of AAs and continue on your way.

 

Ok, maybe you can find 1 or 2 other pieces of electronics that use the same battery. Bottom line is, the explorist does not support standard batteries and unless you've got a spare battery pack in your pocket fully charged, if the battery dies on you, you are done for the day.

 

It's slow to update your position. You could be stansing at the cache and the Explorist will show that your still 200' away. The 60CS updates just about instantly.

 

It is commonly known that Magellan GPSr's update significantly slower than Garmin causing the infamous boomerang effect. I never stated that the explorist was inaccurate, I simply stated that it updates alot slower than the 60CS. You can be standing at the cache and the explorist will show 200' away and will slowly catch up over the next minute or 2.

 

I get better satellite reception under tree cover with the 60CS due to its quad helix antenna.

 

Ok, maybe the quad helix antenna isn't the reason but I have certainly seen better reception with my 60CS.

 

I often go caching with my kids and I let them use the E500. Their GPS was constantly losing SAT lock while my 60CS never had fewer than 4.

 

Navigating between the different file menus on the Explorist is slow and tedious.

 

It seems like I've spent more time waiting for that thing to load files than actually getting to use it. With my 60CS, 3 button pushes and I'm ready to go.

 

Perhaps the unit I've got is deffective, I don't know. All I do know is that I get far superior perfomance out of my 60CS than the E500

[+IVxIV]

The explorist uses a proprietary rechargeable battery. So when its dead, you have no choice but to go home and charge it. You can't just throw in a spare set of AAs and continue on your way.

 

Ok, maybe you can find 1 or 2 other pieces of electronics that use the same battery. Bottom line is, the explorist does not support standard batteries and unless you've got a spare battery pack in your pocket fully charged, if the battery dies on you, you are done for the day.

I don't see the difference in your point? If you go out caching with your 60CS & forget to pack spare AA's,, you're still screwed.

 

Yes the Explorist battery is "semi-proprietary" for lack of better term (used by a couple companies). The advantage I see to it over AA's though is, the form factor. Standard A/AA/AAA/C/D batteries are round tubes of energy storage,, not the most streamline format for a rectangular'ish shaped device. They work good in (cylindrical) flashlights though

[WH]

I personally like having a standard battery for all my caching gizmos.

 

My GPS, flashlight, digital camera and headlamp all use AA's. I find it real convenient to have 1 type of battery that fits everything.

 

On several occasions, I have taken batteries out of one gadget to use in another when I forgot to pack along spares.

[+JohnnyVegas]

It is commonly known that Magellan GPSr's update significantly slower than Garmin causing the infamous boomerang effect

 

the boomerang effect is not an issue with the explorist, so it is not commonly known to be a problem in the explorist, what is coomonly kown though is that WH really knows nothing about the magellan explorist 400, 500 or 600

 

You can be standing at the cache and the explorist will show 200' away and will slowly catch up over the next minute or 2.

Again this in not true, I have never seen this happen with my exoplorist, you must be doing something wrong, sounds like operator error to me.

 

if the battery dies on you, you are done for the day.

no, you just put your spare battery in and keep going.

 

It seems like I've spent more time waiting for that thing to load files than actually getting to use it. With my 60CS, 3 button pushes and I'm ready to go.

 

Garmin does not have a file structure like the one in the explorsit, you can not have files set for differant geocache files, different waypoint files differant map sets, and so on.

 

You are comparing apples to oranges.

[+Marky]

You could be standing at the cache and the Explorist will show that your still 200' away.

 

Not true I have found over 200 caches with my explorist and have never seen this happen

I've found over 600 caches with mine and have never, ever seen this happen. If you were talking about a meridian or sportrak, that would be another story.

 

I get better satellite reception under tree cover with the 60CS due to its quad helix antenna.

THis is also not true, I have used mine under tree cover and evne used it with my Meridian gold that has a quad antenna and the reception was just as good.

I've done side by side comparisons in heavy tree cover with friends who had 60CS units and my 600 always outperformed them. It was generally better than my platinum and sportrak color as well.

 

--Marky

[WH]

Perhaps I got a deffective unit because that's not at all what I see.

 

It does make an outstanding paperweight though.

[flir67]

I've got a Magellan SporTrak Color now, which is typically an OK unit, but I want to upgrade to the eXplorist series. For me an Electronic compass is a must, (just a personal preference), and if I read the ads right, that limits me to the 300 or 600. I'll probably go with the 600, cuz I happen to like lots of bells & whistles.

dont get the 600, I have the same upgrade as yours. I wish I had my sports track color back. the accuracy on your unit is much better than 600.

 

the only thing I like is the usb connection 600.

 

go with garmin.

[Parsa]

I generally like my new eXplorist 500. I owned a Garmin 12XL before.

 

Batteries: I used to use regular or rechargeable AA batteries in the 12XL (4 of em!), but still prefer the eXplorist rechargeable. It lasts for hours and when I am driving for any length of time, I just plug it in using a $6 charger I bought at Mal-Wart. In other words, my eXplorist is almost always fully charged. For the 12XL it only got power from the car, but the batteries slowly lost power during use and I had to recharge them eventually. If I only had one set, that's when I was screwed. I had to take out the set and either recharge them, or buy, borrow or steal 4 new standard ones to put in.

 

Boomerang: No problems so far, but I have noticed may be a tad slower in the last few feet than the 12XL. I just slow down a bit near the cache area. I haven't noticed any real boomerang effect though.

 

Reception: My 12XL had a quad antenna that was pretty good, but in trees I'd lose the signal. The eXplorist holds the signal for dear life. It is rather slow in aquiring the signal though. I could never ever get a signal on the 12XL in my house, but the eXplorist can.

 

Buttons and toggling: Well, there's a lot more features, so there's more to toggle through. I'm amazed at all the things this unit can tell me. My only complaint is that once you have a POI (waypoint) as a GOTO, there doesn't seem to be a fast and easy way to access it again to alter or delete it. I still have to go to "nearest" in My POIs to find and delete the GOTO waypoint. That takes quite a few pushes on the joystick. Most non-cachers won't care about this. They get one POI and go to it. We often go through 25 waypoints, and delete or alter them as we go. If anyone has a good strategy on this, let me know....

 

Lastly, let me just say that I have no real loyalty to any GPS maker. They have all been poor in software updates, slow in technological hardware advances, and especially bad in working with Mac owners. At least the Magellan files are all text files (maps, waypoints, geocaches, etc.) and can be stored and loaded via a Mac. That can not be said about Garmin. If you want to talk proprietary I can give you an earful on Garmin. Oh... and can the Garmin hold the maps for the entire USA on one SD card? Gee... I forgot, it doesn't have an SD card....

 

Parsa

[+hogrod]

It's slow to update your position. You could be stansing at the cache and the Explorist will show that your still 200' away. The 60CS updates just about instantly.

 

i use to have a meridain gold and yes it would sometimes in heavy tree cover show me 200ft off when i first got to the cache site. i got rid of them and bought a legend C and never looked back!

one of my caching buddys stuck with magellan and bought a explorist 500. on a multicache we did over a few day period his would always claim better accuracy than mine while we were in the woods. yet it seemed to me that these new explorist models still have some boomerang effect. we would walk right by the cache area if it were not for my garmin. this boomerang effect with the new models corrected itself much faster than the old magellans and wasn't off by 200ft but still did have some overshoot problems. even with mine not claiming the accuracy his was, i would get there first everytime...... though after a few minutes seemed as though we were both searching the same area.

Edited September 21, 2005 by hogrod

[vagabond]

I'll add my .02 cents worth I've had my 500 for a little over 2 months and found around 400 caches with it. I've never had any problems with battery, or slingshot effect or any other problems just a few minor headaches which I'm sure will be taken care of with a firmware update. And the 500 has constantly outperformed my gold.

My gold is now set up with my laptop and msn streets and trips.

Edited September 22, 2005 by vagabond

[flir67]

I'm not trying to bad mouth the explorist 600, its a great unit and I like it alot. its just the firmware needs updating and I don't think its going to happen.even though there is word that a update is coming.

 

the 600 is a amazing piece of technology, but with a firmware that needs updating , I just can't depend on it, like I could on my old gps devices.

 

I know the manuals say do not depend on this in extreme conditions. but I use my explorist 600 for driving alot. and have come to depend on it giving me accurate readings on my position on the road. I travel alot of the same routes day after day.

I need to knowwhere I am on the road, not how to get there.

 

its helped me numerous times, like go 60mph then hitting a fog bank with 20% visibility. a quick look and I'll know my position on the road zoomed in all the way. with a 7 foot accuracy reading, which is was.

 

but if I get a lock up while doing this you could seethe possiblities of the danger.

 

[+ScottOSki]

its helped me numerous times, like go 60mph then hitting a fog bank with 20% visibility. a quick look and I'll know my position on the road zoomed in all the way. with a 7 foot accuracy reading, which is was.

 

but if I get a lock up while doing this you could seethe possiblities of the danger.

 

Uh, you might want to slow WAYYYY down and use your senses to drive in a situation like this and not rely on an electronic device that can fail. If not, you don't need a GPS but you might need a physician!

[flir67]

its helped me numerous times, like go 60mph then hitting a fog bank with 20% visibility. a quick look and I'll know my position on the road zoomed in all the way. with a 7 foot accuracy reading, which is was.

 

but if I get a lock up while doing this you could seethe possiblities of the danger.

 

Uh, you might want to slow WAYYYY down and use your senses to drive in a situation like this and not rely on an electronic device that can fail. If not, you don't need a GPS but you might need a physician!

I do slow down but if you can't see anything when it rolls in from the side your screwed either way

[+Milbank]

what is coomonly kown though is that WH really knows nothing about the magellan explorist 400, 500 or 600

 

 

 

It does make an outstanding paperweight though.

 

[+JohnnyVegas]

its helped me numerous times, like go 60mph then hitting a fog bank with 20% visibility. a quick look and I'll know my position on the road zoomed in all the way. with a 7 foot accuracy reading, which is was.

 

but if I get a lock up while doing this you could seethe possiblities of the danger.

 

Uh, you might want to slow WAYYYY down and use your senses to drive in a situation like this and not rely on an electronic device that can fail. If not, you don't need a GPS but you might need a physician!

I do slow down but if you can't see anything when it rolls in from the side your screwed either way

People have been finding theirt way around with cars sense the invention of the horse less carrige without the aid of a GPS, if you need a GPS to find your way around on a road that you tavel all the time may you need to start taking a cab.

 

I do slow down but if you can't see anything when it rolls in from the side your screwed either way

 

Maybe your are not slowing down enough, if the fog is that bad, any speed can be to fast. GPS or not, it is not safe to drive in those conditions.

[+Old Sailor]

I've got both the 600 & GPSMAP60C..........In my opinon both are good units. Granted the 600 does need a firmware upgrade, but being new theres bound to be bugs. If companies waited to release products till they where sure all the bugs are addressed, things might not be out until they where a year older. I can wait till the upgrades. BUT; these are my thoughts.

[Mulot_Infernal]

I have both and the 600 was faster to lock on... The 600 was buggies... I use the 60CS because no bugs, it came with a better map, 652 colors, the AA batteries can be found any were, the joystick is very well made (in the 600 look like a toy), I have drop my 60CS without damage and finally happy who have choose a simple GPS.

[+D_Able_Cachers]

Explorist 600,

Palm Zire 72

using GSAK

After a couple of weeks of Trial and Error with the software, this is by far the best GPSR we have owned. The color screen on the 600 is fantastic, but is a want not a need. We bought this unit as a package with a car charger so the battery issue is not an issue.

 

Here is the make or break deciding factor we feel.... With a 600 and its electronic compass, if we dont find a cache, its because of human error not the GPSR. We have gotten accuracy down to 0 . We are former Explorist 200, 500, Meri GOLD and even started with a low end Garman. This is not meant to cut Garman or promote Magellan but just a factual statement... use it as you wish.

If you are ever in our area sometime, Central Indiana, would be glad to show you how it works.

[thehikingdude]

For amazing accuracy give the Brunton Titanium Anodized Eclipse Platinum Enhanced Gold Premium Compass with the optional Solar/Wind Power Upgrade a try. I've used one in a side-by-side comparison of looking for moss on the North side of a tree and have found that the Brunton is just as accurate.

 

 

My Explorist 600 is being delivered today, so the real test will take place this weekend.

 

-jeff

[thehikingdude]

I got my new Explorist 600 all setup today and have been doing some testing. So far I love it! Just upgraded from the Meridian Platinum.

 

-jeff

[+av8ndv8]

I just got an Explorist 600 yesterday and have spent the last 18 hours jacking with it. I also have a GPSmap 60CS, a Sportak Color and still have an old Garmin II+. In the past I've had a 1995 Magellan TrailblazerXL that never worked, a Garmin 19, 38, and a 12XL.

 

FanBoys aside, the 600 is just what I expected from Magellan - solid, waterproof hardware that performs well but is kludgy with hard/soft/firmware that's not ready for prime time.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Garmin apologist but it's exactly what I expect from Magellan. It's patch antenna is every bit as good as the QH on my 60CS and 2+ if not better,and it hangs onto satellites under tree cover like a bulldog. The 3 axis compass blows away anything Garmin has (they're almost unusable)and its color screen is decent for Magellan but doesn't hold a candle to my 60CS. It fits in the hand well and the buttons although small and close together, seem to work perfectly well. I do worry about that little joystick though, it doesn't work real well going up.

 

This thing only has four screens and only one is halfway configurable! Nowhere near what I'm used to with the 60CS. Also, the menus take hours to figure out and when you do, there's not much you can configure. WTF??

 

My 60CS lets me tell it what to show in what screen and when to go to the (lousy) internal compass. With the 600, there's only a couple of adjustments and it's up to me to figure out what they do. Not Acceptable.

 

I know I'm not like you - I don't take many trips anymore and don't work. Direct routing and mapping is almost useless to me - been there before and know how to get there. I can spend all day just messing with these things! Most all I want is a GPS that is easy to use geocaching, that's what we're here for afterall.

 

But my extreme pleasure working with my new 60CS was just the opposite of my first frustrating day with the 600. The godawful USB (1!!) connection is designed to be waterproof and it does a great job I'm sure but the implementation is terrible! Which way do I stick this thing on there?

 

Then there's the typical 10 turn Magellan wire bail on the screw... Why can't they come up with a nice mini USB port like Garmin or even copy the old purple connector?? I'm too dadgum old to mess with this.... Yeah, I know it's waterproof but it's a pain in the neck. Magellan has never had a decent interface.

 

Magellan makes some great hardware but they need to retire all their programmers and bring in some fresh meat, their current ones are living in the past and I'm not going to keep this thing long enough to see the next (If ever) firmware upgrade.

 

If Garmin would incorporate Magellan's 3 axis compass and antenna in my 60CS I'd be in heaven. 'Til then I'll keep looking.

 

Bruce