Garmin Venture CX or Magellan 500 Le

[gkgraphics]

Which is better the Garmin Venture CX or Magellan 500 Le?

 

I just bought the Magellan 500 Le package from Costco (comes with mapsend 3D). I thought this unit could do auto routing with this software but it can't. I also thought the battery life was 18 hours but apparently with the 3 AAA batteries it's only 11 (even less if you use the back light). I am trying to decide if I should return it and get a Garmin Venture CX with mapsoure. It has more than double the battery life and from what I have read it has better auto routing features. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

[+casey97]

Which is better the Garmin Venture CX or Magellan 500 Le?

 

I just bought the Magellan 500 Le package from Costco (comes with mapsend 3D). I thought this unit could do auto routing with this software but it can't. I also thought the battery life was 18 hours but apparently with the 3 AAA batteries it's only 11 (even less if you use the back light). I am trying to decide if I should return it and get a Garmin Venture CX with mapsoure. It has more than double the battery life and from what I have read it has better auto routing features. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

 

Yes, good idea.

[+munro290]

Which is better the Garmin Venture CX or Magellan 500 Le?

 

I just bought the Magellan 500 Le package from Costco (comes with mapsend 3D). I thought this unit could do auto routing with this software but it can't. I also thought the battery life was 18 hours but apparently with the 3 AAA batteries it's only 11 (even less if you use the back light). I am trying to decide if I should return it and get a Garmin Venture CX with mapsoure. It has more than double the battery life and from what I have read it has better auto routing features. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

or you could get the lit-ion batterie seperate and uce batterie clip with le for back-up, just a thought.

[+briansnat]

If autorouting is important to you, then yes get the Venture CX. The 500 will autoroute with the appropriate Magellan software, but their autorouting software isn't quite up to Garmin's level of sophistication.

[+geognerd]

I agree with briansnat. My eXplorist 400 is downright pokey when calculating a route, and I only have about 25MB of maps loaded. I have read here in the forums that Garmin's handhelds calculate routes much faster. If they're as fast as a co-worker's StreetPilot C320, I'll be in awe. The eX500 is a fine unit, but if I had to start from scratch, I'd probably go with the Venture Cx.

[gkgraphics]

Would you say the venture is as good as or better than the 500 Le in other respects as well? Such as accuracy, ability to hold a signal, durability, etc.