Lowrance Expidition C Plus Vs. Magellen 400 Wilderness Bundle

[da hobbit]

Greetings,

I have to wear glasses and need a larger screen than the Garmin offers and when outdoors I wear sunglasses. My limit is $325.00 and I have bolied it down to either the Magellan 400 or a Lowrance Expidition C. After reading the posts it seems that Magellan is not so great in the customer service department and that Lowrance seems much better. I can get the Magellan 400 with a Wilderness Bundle for about $250.00 or a Lowrance Expidition C with the Plus package for around $325.00 (my upper limit). Is the Lowrance worth the additional amount? Does the color screen make all that much difference? Here are things I want to do with my GPS unit:

1. Geocaching

2. Marking fishing spots on lakes

3. Use it for trips (I think I have decided I do not need auto-routing but the Expiditon does guide you with "turn arrows" as you drive along along a route - at least the manual says so)

4. General hiking navigation

 

Along the same lines, would the Lowrance H2O color meet my needs or is the 30 dollors worth it to still go with the Expidition? Any suggestions or recommendations will be extremely helpful.

 

Thank you much,

--dave

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[+GOT GPS?]

The only eXplorist unit I know of that would work with people that have fuzzy vision, would be the eXplorist XL, but I don't know the actual screen resolution of the eXplorist 400, but might be less than 176x220.

 

I think the Expedition C would be a much better unit with a larger screen.

 

I got rid of my eTrex Vista, when suddenly I could no longer see the screen anymore, and this was just in the past couple of years, and I should have kept the Meridian Platinum.

 

I have somewhat fuzzy vision too, and find the GPS units with small screens, a bit too hard to read, but the best GPS I ever had, was the Meridian Platinum, that GPS is just about perfect with a large screen, and you should be able to find used or new ones on the internet, like at amazon dot com. I picked the Meridian in this reply, because the Meridians seem to have the best screens for people with fuzzy vision.

 

Too bad there is no way to clip on a magnifier on a garmin unit, but there is no clip-on magnifiers for any GPS unit ive seen. My Map60Cx, is just a bit too small to see while driving.

[+geognerd]

The eXplorist 400 specs page has the resolution listed at 160x122. A color screen would help with maps.

[da hobbit]

Thank you very much for your replies,

Where the Magellan may seem small, it is still bigger than a comparably priced garmin. I am however, leaning towards a Lowrance Expidition Color but can anyone tell me the difference between the H2O Color and the Expidition (outside of the altimeter and compass) and despite the fact the Lowrance products do not have "auto-routing", is that something that I "need"?

 

Thanks again,

--dave

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[+Airmapper]

Lowrance products do not have "auto-routing", is that something that I "need"?

 

I haven't had any problems without it. You just have to plan your route ahead of time. If you create a route, and center the legs on turns, it will tell you which way to go at every turn.

[+Jeeters]

Thank you very much for your replies,

Where the Magellan may seem small, it is still bigger than a comparably priced garmin. I am however, leaning towards a Lowrance Expidition Color but can anyone tell me the difference between the H2O Color and the Expidition (outside of the altimeter and compass) and despite the fact the Lowrance products do not have "auto-routing", is that something that I "need"?

I just bought an Expedition C close to a month ago. From what I could tell from my research, the only significant difference between it and the H2O was, as you've already noted, the electronic compass and altimeter. It also has a barometer. I bought it from tigergps and the price difference was only (i think) $20, so I figured "why not?"

 

Since you're concerned about readability, I can offer that the screen is truly bright and easy to see. I think it's best to leave the backlight on even in sunlight, but it's kind and will go out when inactive (i.e, you dont touch any buttons) and go back on when you press a button to help save batteries. The map is highly configurable, too... there is a lot of customization you can do to it to turn on and off various map details to make it as cluttered or uncluttered as you like to help in reading. One complaint is I wish the waypoint icons were a bit larger. They're pretty small (in comparison to what my Sportrak Pro waypoint icon size). That's nice in that when several are being displayed, they dont hog up the screen, but bad in that that one can be a bit hard to find amonst other map clutter. But then it's still new to me, I imagine I'll get used to it.

[+spamhead]

da hobbit,

 

If customizable maps is improtant to you, then the software that comes H20 C Plus or Expidition C Plus seems to be the best. You can customize the size and shape of the map, where with the Magellan software you take a big square that could include a lot of information that you don't need.

 

I have been struggling betweetn the Garmin LegendCx or the H20 C.

 

The biggest concerns I have with the Lowrance are:

1) The limit ot the number of SD cards you could use with the unit and

2) The possible communication problems with the unit and other software you might have.

 

I don't have personal experience, but I did a topic search in the forums for Lowrance and there seemed to be these issues.

 

Good luck,

spamhead

[+Airmapper]

I have been struggling betweetn the Garmin LegendCx or the H20 C.

 

The biggest concerns I have with the Lowrance are:

1) The limit ot the number of SD cards you could use with the unit and

2) The possible communication problems with the unit and other software you might have.

 

1. You have 5 cards. If you have 5, 1GB cards, what more do you need?

2. GPSBabel, works with Lowrance, and will translate it into .gpx or anything else you need.

[da hobbit]

Greetings,

Well guys, I went ahead and ordered a Lowrance Expidition Color Plus as there is not that much difference between an H20 Color and the Expiditon Color (<$30.00). The bigger screen was a big factor and like Airmapper pointed out, if you can only use 5 cards, going with a bigger capacity makes that issue less of a concern for me. I picked up a Sandisk 1 gig for $44.00 from Amazon and that should last for a while. I have been using a 512 CF with my PocketPC for about 2 years and have yet to fill that up. The big thing are music files and as the Expidition uses org vorbis which is a more compact format that an MP3, judicious use of music files on the Expiditon sounds like the way to go.

 

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions. Now comes the hard part - waiting for it to arrive. On the plus side (no pun intended ;-) that will give me time to read my Idiot's Guide to Geocaching....

 

Have a good'n everyone!

--dave

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[+spamhead]

Idiot's Guide to Geocaching....

 

 

Isn't that what the forums are?

[da hobbit]

Idiot's Guide to Geocaching....

 

 

Isn't that what the forums are?

 

My main problem is that being a Quality Management Nurse for the last 16 years, I instinctively think I need all my information in a concise albeit complete as possible format...The forums have indeed turned out to be a great and wonderful source of such information but I reckoned that hey, a book on the geocaching site touting to be authored by a renowned expert on GPS usage and the editors of Geocaching.com could not be all bad! I know my way around computers real well but when it comes to gps units I am 12 levels below a grasshoppa...

 

Again, thanks to all the help you guys have given me already...

--dave

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