Explorist 400 Information

[stevethecache]

I just picked up this unit at a steal of a deal price at Radio Shack (150 CDN), but I have some questions about it. The basemaps for Canada that come with it are very very basic. There are only Highways and the Citys. The clerk at Radio told me that this unit did not have Canada maps included but that there were US Maps. When you scroll down to US there are highways and there are also lakes and parks. Is this common in every explorist? I thought that the 210 model had better canadian basemaps, if I recall and that it included sufficient information to find out where you were. Should I be looking at a 210 model instead? Also, a while back I remeber looking at a site with free user created maps. Does anyone have the link to this?

[+embra]

The basemap is very, well, basic. You will need something like MapSend DirectRoute or Topo3D for detailed, street-level information. The 210 is not apt to have any better detail in the basemap than the 400; the 210's basemap is described as "8MB World-wide" while the 400's is 16MB North America. The same basemap is used in the 400, 500, and 600.

 

I'm not aware of any free user maps that work in the Explorist. I think there are such things for Garmin models; I don't know about their quality.

[stevethecache]

What Garmin unit would offer similar features to the 210? like 20mb of memory? At a decent price?

[+geognerd]

The Garmin GPSmap 60 is sort of comparable to the 210. The GPSmap 60 is grayscale, autoroutes, and has 24MB of memory. There are positives and negatives about it. First is the cost. The GPSmap 60 costs way more than a 210. About $250-275 versus $140-150. Its reception isn't as good as the eXplorist line. I know this from firsthand experience. You can also look at Robert Lipe's evaluation here. The 210's reception is equivalent to the 600 and the GPSmap 60 is equivalent to the GPSmap 60CS. However, Garmin's autorouting implementation is better than Magellan's. Also, people seem to have better experiences with Garmin's customer service than with Magellan's.

 

Some people compare the eTrex Legend ($120) with the 210. But they aren't really comparable in my opinion. The Legend is old technology. Only has 8MB of memory, reception isn't as good, doesn't use USB (which can be an issue for some people), and as far as I know it doesn't autoroute.

 

Just more info to confuse you.