Magellan Triton Series

[+cpnowak]

 

I am so disappointed in the new Triton series. I spent $500 and have a unit that doesn't work. Magellan customer support has been useless and now I am just stuck. The reason that I am posting this topic is to warn people that you will be making a bad investment if you purchase a Triton. I am a loyal Magellan fan and have looked past the poor customer service because I never had a problem with my Meridian Marine. It worked exceptionally well. Now, the product and the customer service are bad...not a good combination.

 

Customer service gave me the number and e-mail of Magellan's Senior Public Relations Manager:

 

Rafael Finelli

408-250-1778

rfinelli@magellangps.com

 

I called him for assistance but I have not received a response. Maybe if enough of us call, Magellan will get the message that there is a problem and do something to resolve this fiasco!

[yogazoo]

I do not own a Triton but...

 

I have checked out the Triton forums.com. What a bunch of crap! All the cheery, happy Triton users that post on that site are all probably Magellan employees. Its so biased I can't see how anyone gives that site creedance. Such a load of bull!

[+Walt Jabsco]

I do not own a Triton

 

I do own a Triton.

 

I have no association with Magellan except as a customer.

 

Ask me. I'll give you an unbiased opinion about what I like or hate about the Explorist 400 or Triton 400 which I do have first hand, actual, physical experience with.

 

You might be surprised.

I've found tritonforum.com to be an invaluable credible asset in setting up my unit.

 

But then again. I do own one.

[+gpsblake]

I own a Triton 300.

I own a Explorist 100, Legend Cx, Legend B&W, and Etrex Yellow. I tried the Magellan Meridian and Etrex H.

 

And the Triton is by far the biggest piece of crap out there.

 

If, and I say **IF**, they fix all the software bugs in the unit, it would be a great unit.

 

Tritonforum is a good site but it doesn't fix the units. They are crap. I would strongly advise anyone not to buy this unit unless Magellen gets all the software bugs worked out.

 

The unit was so horrible that REI had to stop selling them.

 

-----------------------------

[+gpsblake]

<deleted>

Edited February 8, 2008 by gpsblake

[+Walt Jabsco]

And I do respect gpsblake's opinion because he owns one.

Despite his propensity to double post

[+gpsblake]

And I do respect gpsblake's opinion because he owns one.

Despite his propensity to double post

My bad, website froze up while I typing. One good thing I will say about it is the reception is great on them, even though they aren't picking up WAAS like they advertise. I think the 2000's are picking up WAAS.

Edited February 8, 2008 by gpsblake

[+verdugan]

My bad, website froze up while I typing. One good thing I will say about it is the reception is great on them, even though they aren't picking up WAAS like they advertise. I think the 2000's are picking up WAAS.

 

I can confirm that the 2000s get WAAS. Mine did for a few mins after startup, but then the "w" did not show up anymore in the sat screen. Accuracy did not go down though.

 

http://www.tritonforum.com/forum/viewtopic...ilit=waas#p1205 Scroll down for some pics.

 

I ended up returning my Triton 2000 to REI after 5 weeks. I don't mind being an early adopter (aka beta tester), but the Tritons are alpha units. They still have a way to go before they can be considered beta units.

[+TotemLake]

I noticed REI pulled the Triton series completely off the shelf and their Internet store.

[leshope]

I own a Maestro 3250 and while I haven't run the system through all its paces, I'm quite happy with it. Had one minor issue and customer service took care of it quickly, so my experience with support was fine.

 

Per the experts (and users of earlier products), Magellan basically has strong technology. But they released the Tritons too soon, with loads of firmware problems. MAYBE they'll learn from this and not only issue fixes ASAP, but create a beta program for new products like the Tritons going forward, so users can run the products through their paces and provide feedback before Magellan releases them to the general public. Of course, they aren't the only company who needs to do this....there are similar complaints about Garmin's new Colorado....

 

On the plus side, I've heard rumors that Magellan is improving their customer service, adding an escalation team and giving the customer service reps more training, and maybe even transitioning customer service away from India. It will be good to see if this happens. Guess we'll just have to wait and find out. If they DO fix customer service, and fix the firmware issues with Triton, maybe they can turn things around, eh?

 

Les

[+D0T-C0M]

I noticed REI pulled the Triton series completely off the shelf and their Internet store.

 

Well that will be the real stimulus for magellan to wake up and fix them. If stores are pulling them off shelves it speaks worlds of the product quality.

[yogazoo]

Wow! I can't believe that there are still questions regarding whether the unts can pick up WAAS or not. I thought there were quirks with my new Colorado. Since the Meridian series, Magellan has seriously dropped the ball. IMO, leader to lackey in lightning speed.

 

Two guys at work owned Tritons and I know the guy who sells them at a sporting good store in town. All confirm that the units are deeply flawed and haven't met anyone who is satisfied in the least with the product. Visit the Tritonforums and you'll find a great deal of discussion on how to get this flawed unit to work. What you wont find is a deeply critical post laying out the reality of the Triton mess.

 

But then again, Jabsco's right, I don't own one.

Edited March 16, 2008 by yogazoo

[+gpsblake]

The Triton's are much better now with the newest firmware updates released. You can geocache paperless with them now and the accuracy is really good when compared to NGS benchmarks with adjusted coordinates.

 

My recommendation: A cheap way to paperless geocache if that is your intended use for the unit. It shows the cache, name, long description, short description, hint, terrain/difficulty rating, cache owner. About the only thing it doesn't do is show the last couple of finder logs. The only negative is there is no way to mark a geocache as found although what I do is change the icon to the one with the flag to mark it as found. It really is a good geocaching unit.

 

For anything else besides geocaching right now, Garmins are simply better.

[+Marky]

I returned my Triton 2000 on Saturday. I've given up waiting for a stable update. Sorry Magellan, you've lost one of your loyal customers.

 

Meridian Platinum->Sportrack Pro->Sportrack Color->eXplorist 600->Triton 2000->Garmin Colorado 400t

 

I had high hopes for the Triton line, but it just didn't live up to my expectations. I've been a long time evangelist of the Magellan GPS line, but no longer.

 

--Marky

[+JustinHEMI]

I returned my Triton 2000 on Saturday. I've given up waiting for a stable update. Sorry Magellan, you've lost one of your loyal customers.

 

Meridian Platinum->Sportrack Pro->Sportrack Color->eXplorist 600->Triton 2000->Garmin Colorado 400t

 

I had high hopes for the Triton line, but it just didn't live up to my expectations. I've been a long time evangelist of the Magellan GPS line, but no longer.

 

--Marky

 

It is sad. There are a lot of us turning away.

 

Justin

[+minnesotabrad]

 

Customer service gave me the number and e-mail of Magellan's Senior Public Relations Manager:

 

Rafael Finelli

408-250-1778

rfinelli@magellangps.com

 

 

I think this is an important contact. USE IT!

 

Rafael was helpful, and admittedly upset, with my string of e-mails; but HELPFUL :-)

 

If I can offer some unsolicited advice to all that try this contact...just be factual in your communication and try not to rant (though I totally understand...believe me!...my list of facts was a long one!). I think they understand that there are a lot of unhappy customers out there. Sure, they've got a ways to go with the Triton series, and I often wish that I could have back my eXp 210, but I don't...So, we wait for the updates...

 

Also...If you're a Mac user, then PLEASE push on both Magellan and NG/TOPO to get their act together. NG has responded to my inquiries about Triton Mac support, referring to them as "invaluable". NG supports Mac, and if Magellan is going to be a full partner in the Triton-VantagePoint-TOPO development, then they need to develop for Mac, as well.

 

Just my 2 cents :-)

 

Cheers!

 

I had emailed the webmaster for Magellan then saw that contact and forwarded my email to him and got absolutely no response. Here is the email I sent.

 

Since there was not a way to contact anyone at Magellan through the website I sent this email to the webmaster hoping it would be passed on but have had no response. I found out your email through a forum board and though I would send you the email.

 

Well since there is no way to contact Magellan except for technical service I thought I would send this to you and you can forward to the appropriate people. In less than a year I have purchased a Explorist 500LE, RoadMate 2200T, TrafficKit for the RoadMate, the Crossover upgrade for the RoadMate 2200T and recently the Triton 2000. I wanted to let you know my disappointment with Magellan, their products and customer service. I will say the Explorist 500 has worked fairly well for me. The RoadMate 2200T is a mediocre GPS and the Crossover upgrade was not worth the money charged for it. The TrafficKit never really worked in my area, which is Minneapolis. It has never notified me of traffic issues and will not renew my subscription. The Triton 2000 should never have been put out in the market. You are basically asking people to spend good money to be beta testers. I am glad I bought the unit at REI and was able to return it after a couple of weeks of trying to get unit to function. The customer service has been terrible. Most that you talk to do not even seem to know how to work the units and give general obvious answers to problems. I am really disappoint in Magellan and their seemingly lack of concern for its customers. I was really excited and looking forward to the Triton 2000 and ended up with nothing but frustration. After this kind of poor product release and customer service I have decide to take my business to Garmin. This maybe will not concern you as I am only one customer but I definitely will let others know of my experience with Magellan.

 

No one in that company seems to care about their customer or their reputation. I have since bout a Colorado 400t and have been very happy with it.

Edited March 18, 2008 by minnesotabrad

[+litngbug]

Add me as one of the silent fans of the unit, (T2000) I bought it knowing it was not ready for prime time and now with the latest upgrade, am happy with how it works. It may have been luck of the draw, but my unit worked before the upgrade, (with some problems) and now is even better! If only I could get my

local BlueNav chart to work on it! I have owned only Magellan's, STPro, Meri Color, eX 500LE, eX600 and a Meri Plat I got off eBay last year, the only problem I had was when I left the MeriGold on the roof and drove off. It still works, just no screen!

 

litngbug

 

chippie ho !!!

[+JohnnyVegas]

My bad, website froze up while I typing. One good thing I will say about it is the reception is great on them, even though they aren't picking up WAAS like they advertise. I think the 2000's are picking up WAAS.

 

I can confirm that the 2000s get WAAS. Mine did for a few mins after startup, but then the "w" did not show up anymore in the sat screen. Accuracy did not go down though.

 

http://www.tritonforum.com/forum/viewtopic...ilit=waas#p1205 Scroll down for some pics.

 

I ended up returning my Triton 2000 to REI after 5 weeks. I don't mind being an early adopter (aka beta tester), but the Tritons are alpha units. They still have a way to go before they can be considered beta units.

The REI by me just got one model in last week. It is a 1500 or 2000.

[Hanged man]

The Triton's are much better now with the newest firmware updates released. You can geocache paperless with them now and the accuracy is really good when compared to NGS benchmarks with adjusted coordinates.

 

My recommendation: A cheap way to paperless geocache if that is your intended use for the unit. It shows the cache, name, long description, short description, hint, terrain/difficulty rating, cache owner. About the only thing it doesn't do is show the last couple of finder logs. The only negative is there is no way to mark a geocache as found although what I do is change the icon to the one with the flag to mark it as found. It really is a good geocaching unit.

 

For anything else besides geocaching right now, Garmins are simply better.

 

Is there any hope of going paperless with triton 400?

[+The Willis Family]

I would not reccommend the Triton series.

 

I purchased a T200. The nav keys locked about 2 weeks after owning it. I called Magellan, they had me send it in and sent a refurb.

 

The refurb kept bringing up internal errors. Called magellan, they had me send it in. Sent out a refurb T300.

 

T300 locked up and popped error screen. Called magellan, they shipped a new T300 and sent a shipping label for the refurb.

 

Opened the box, put batteries in the New t300, turned it on, said initalizing error must shutdown. Called magellan, they shipped out a New T400.

 

Have had the T400 for a couple weeks. Keep getting Internal Error unit has to shut down. Calling Magellan today yet again.

 

I just want my money back!

[+CentralCArn]

Found a Triton 400 at Walmart for $75 dollars and figured I would grab it while it was available. The 500 was on sale for $100, but I decided the electronic compass wasn't worth that.

 

I fell in love with my explorist 400 all over again after struggling with the Triton 400 software for only one night. Spent until the wee hours of the morning trying to get the software figured out and I always thought I was on the computer literate/savy side.

 

After calling tech support in the morning and finding out that there were no solutions to my problems, I returned the unit for a full refund. The biggest hindrance was the limitations to loading geocaches. You can only load to the unit from the Magellan Software. GSAK is essentially useless for the Triton because you would have to somehow load all the caches you wanted to look for into a massive database and constantly replace the one file on the Triton.

 

With my Explorist 400, I could load a separate file for each pocket query that I ran and could switch between these files as I entered a different caching area. Even with the limit of only 200 in a file, this worked really well.

 

Now that my explorist buttons are wearing out though, I am forced to look for another product. I always considered myself a loyal Magellan user, but I have been forced to jump ship by such a poorly designed product. Waiting for a Garmin Colorado as of yesterday.

[+The Willis Family]

I am currently on hold with Magellan they will be upgrading my unit to a new Triton 500.

 

I like the fact that they have no problem sending out replacement units. But I think it would be more beneficial to just fix the problems.

 

I asked for a refund or credit towards another Magellan product and was denied. I will just use the 500 until it encounters a problem and go through the process of sending it in and waiting for the replacement.

[+SkellyCA]

I've been using my Triton 400 for over a year with no problems. I found the software easy to use, though I do agree that it is limited

[+The Willis Family]

Some get lucky I guess. Hopefully the 500 they are sending me will be a good one.

[+Surferjo]

My Explorist 600 died the a few weeks ago doing a firmware upgrade the. Called Magellan Tech support. Nice enough but I’m smart enough to know when an electronic device is fried.

 

I’ve had it for a couple of years now so I knew it was out of warranty but even still they sent me a refurbed Triton 500 as a replacement. That's freaking cool.

 

Now after reading everything on this forum I was a little hesitant. I don’t hear too many good things about the Triton series here on Ground speak.

 

No biggie I still have my 210 as a backup.

 

When it showed up it seemed new enough. Powered up no problem, plugged it in to my computer. Loaded the Vantage Point Software and immediately got an alert that there was a firmware upgrade. That’s pretty cool. Upgrade when in no problem.

 

Now on to Vantage Point. I’ve heard nothing good about this software. Took a 500 Cache PQ and dragged it onto the VP software. Didn’t think drag and drop was going to work but dam. 500 caches in VP in a few seconds.

 

Now how to get them to the Triton, ok here’s a big button that says Transfer Data from PC to Triton. 30 seconds later I had 500 caches on my handheld without so much as a hiccup or any need to read manual or use the help utility. I’m a network engineer and I can say I wish most of the things I do on a daily basis were 1/10 that easy.

 

On to caching. This thing locks on birds really well and quickly too. Rock solid under heavy tree cover.

 

Not too many screens to be confusing but just enough to give you what you need. Buttons are a little stiff and maybe difficult to use with gloves. And its almost paperless, no log data (no biggie as I have cacheberry) but it has all the cache info/hint. Very cool so far. I didn’t have that with my Explorist.

 

On to a multi, hated this with the Explorist since I always had to make a new POI. Not with the Triton, now I can just edit the cache for part one with the finals cords. That’s awesome.

 

I know I may have missed out on the early problematic firmware versions of these Tritons but I just don’t see where all the disdain is coming from on these. From start to finish this has been a great experience, so much so that I ordered a Triton 1500 from J&R on sale for $200. 5 Caches with that so far and it’s even better than the Triton 500.

[+SkellyCA]

My Explorist 600 died the a few weeks ago doing a firmware upgrade the. Called Magellan Tech support. Nice enough but I’m smart enough to know when an electronic device is fried.

 

I’ve had it for a couple of years now so I knew it was out of warranty but even still they sent me a refurbed Triton 500 as a replacement. That's freaking cool.

 

Now after reading everything on this forum I was a little hesitant. I don’t hear too many good things about the Triton series here on Ground speak.

 

No biggie I still have my 210 as a backup.

 

When it showed up it seemed new enough. Powered up no problem, plugged it in to my computer. Loaded the Vantage Point Software and immediately got an alert that there was a firmware upgrade. That’s pretty cool. Upgrade when in no problem.

 

Now on to Vantage Point. I’ve heard nothing good about this software. Took a 500 Cache PQ and dragged it onto the VP software. Didn’t think drag and drop was going to work but dam. 500 caches in VP in a few seconds.

 

Now how to get them to the Triton, ok here’s a big button that says Transfer Data from PC to Triton. 30 seconds later I had 500 caches on my handheld without so much as a hiccup or any need to read manual or use the help utility. I’m a network engineer and I can say I wish most of the things I do on a daily basis were 1/10 that easy.

 

On to caching. This thing locks on birds really well and quickly too. Rock solid under heavy tree cover.

 

Not too many screens to be confusing but just enough to give you what you need. Buttons are a little stiff and maybe difficult to use with gloves. And its almost paperless, no log data (no biggie as I have cacheberry) but it has all the cache info/hint. Very cool so far. I didn’t have that with my Explorist.

 

On to a multi, hated this with the Explorist since I always had to make a new POI. Not with the Triton, now I can just edit the cache for part one with the finals cords. That’s awesome.

 

I know I may have missed out on the early problematic firmware versions of these Tritons but I just don’t see where all the disdain is coming from on these. From start to finish this has been a great experience, so much so that I ordered a Triton 1500 from J&R on sale for $200. 5 Caches with that so far and it’s even better than the Triton 500.

 

I have a Triton 400 and I love it for the same reasons you describe. It's also compatible with Nat Geo TOPO maps which are very good. The map screen and other screens are customizable. A new firmware update is due out soon.

[+mchaos]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I did not want to start a whole new one on this.

 

I see a lot of flack about the triton series on the internet, and I just wanted to put out my 2 cents, and see if people are still having the same troubles, or if people are now generally happy with their tritons.

 

I was given my Triton 400 for christmas close to 2 years ago, and I have never had 1 problem with the unit. It has always worked great out of the box, but some of the upgrades have made it better.

 

First I see in reviews that people complain that the battery life is no where near what they say it is, "11 hours" on 2 AA batteries. I have seen some one say it didn't last 3 hours on Duracell's. Well I have had the same batteries in mine for weeks. And they were not new when I put them in. I had 3 bars of life in them. I went out caching last Saturday, and I was out near 5 hours with the unit on the whole time, and it dropped a bar, and is still working. I have had it on several times, and even left it on for who knows how long. I bought batteries while I was out caching, and I still don't need them. I feel the battery life is good. I believe that people who want to keep the back light on all the time and set it that way, kill the battery life fast. I leave mine so it goes out quick.

 

The other thing I have seen is people complain about the accuracy. But Mine has always been spot on. It takes me right to the GZ. I ran into another cacher using a Garmin 60csx. He had apparently been looking for it for a bit. After introducing each other, We proceeded to look for it. My unit took me right on top of it with in seconds. He had him several feet away. not to say his unit wasn't accurate, just saying the Triton 400 is just as accurate as any out there.

 

The next thing I see is people saying its buggy. Never once have I had my unit lock up or be buggy.

 

Some people don't like the software but I find it easy to use. Plus I have TOPO and the maps are off the hook. It makes finding caches so easy.

 

The only thing that is not my favorite is that it takes time to load caches via computer. But that's if you are loading 500 or more. But honestly, once you load that many, it will be a while before you have to do it again so who cares, besides, Geocaching.com now supports send to GPS for the Triton series, so you can zip them cache by cache to your unit. And it takes a second to do it.

[+Majesty4]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I did not want to start a whole new one on this.

 

I see a lot of flack about the triton series on the internet, and I just wanted to put out my 2 cents, and see if people are still having the same troubles, or if people are now generally happy with their tritons.

 

I was given my Triton 400 for christmas close to 2 years ago, and I have never had 1 problem with the unit. It has always worked great out of the box, but some of the upgrades have made it better.

 

First I see in reviews that people complain that the battery life is no where near what they say it is, "11 hours" on 2 AA batteries. I have seen some one say it didn't last 3 hours on Duracell's. Well I have had the same batteries in mine for weeks. And they were not new when I put them in. I had 3 bars of life in them. I went out caching last Saturday, and I was out near 5 hours with the unit on the whole time, and it dropped a bar, and is still working. I have had it on several times, and even left it on for who knows how long. I bought batteries while I was out caching, and I still don't need them. I feel the battery life is good. I believe that people who want to keep the back light on all the time and set it that way, kill the battery life fast. I leave mine so it goes out quick.

 

The other thing I have seen is people complain about the accuracy. But Mine has always been spot on. It takes me right to the GZ. I ran into another cacher using a Garmin 60csx. He had apparently been looking for it for a bit. After introducing each other, We proceeded to look for it. My unit took me right on top of it with in seconds. He had him several feet away. not to say his unit wasn't accurate, just saying the Triton 400 is just as accurate as any out there.

 

The next thing I see is people saying its buggy. Never once have I had my unit lock up or be buggy.

 

Some people don't like the software but I find it easy to use. Plus I have TOPO and the maps are off the hook. It makes finding caches so easy.

 

The only thing that is not my favorite is that it takes time to load caches via computer. But that's if you are loading 500 or more. But honestly, once you load that many, it will be a while before you have to do it again so who cares, besides, Geocaching.com now supports send to GPS for the Triton series, so you can zip them cache by cache to your unit. And it takes a second to do it.