magellan triton

[+style70]

I'm thinking about upgrading my magellan exploritst 210 to a magellon triton, iv been seeing alot of negative reviews but most of them seem to be older. my explorist has been great for over 3 years ivbeen geocaching and im a little surprised by all the bad reviews of the titon. if anyone has experience with this id love to hear comments, or why i should switch to garmin. thanks in advance for the input!

[+SkellyCA]

I have a Triton 400; I've heard the negative stuff too, but I like mine. The only 2 things is that you can't load caches directly to it from GSAK; you can't download gpx files from the website directly to it; you have to download them to your hard drive, then import them into Vantage Point, which isn't that big of a problem.

 

The good:

 

The Triton is easy to use; very easy learning curve.

 

Has geocaching functions.

 

I use the Nat Geo TOPOs; works very good

 

Seems very accurate

 

Needs work:

 

You can't load caches directly to it from GSAK.

 

You can't download gpx files from the website directly to it; you have to download them to your hard drive, then import them into Vantage Point, which isn't that big of a problem.

 

You can't mark caches as found in the field.

 

The bad:

 

Magellans customer support isn't very good, but there is good help on the Triton forum

 

My opinion:

 

I've never had a hand held before, so nothing to compare it to, but I do like mine; easy to use; accurate. geocaching functions; uses Nat Geo TOPO maps.

[+mchaos]

Triton is good. The things you can't do are not necessary things. Mostly just bells and whistles.

 

VP is pretty good software. works well. Its awesome for keeping track of every thing. Also, there is a way to mark caches found, I discovered it and it works.

 

Every time I have used it, it has taken me right on top of that cache.

 

Compact. Fits in mobile phone belt pouch. Comes with its own pouch as well. Cool looking.

 

AND, if you get the Nat Topo, the maps are killer and super cheap. Get a bonus pack and you will get it free. And you will get 25 free credits for maps. 1$ gets you 25 credits, 1 credit gets you a map.

 

I have a feeling that since Mio owns Magellan now, that the Customer service will get better. I had an explorist 200, its like another universe of goodness comparing stepping up to a triton.

 

There is a big following of garmin lovers. Not a bad thing, its a just a popular device. I wouldn't call garmin superior to the magellon tritons. The both have their pros and cons.

[+RidgeRunnerz]

How do you log your finds on the triton 1500? We have been trying to figure it out with no luck.

 

Triton is good. The things you can't do are not necessary things. Mostly just bells and whistles.

 

VP is pretty good software. works well. Its awesome for keeping track of every thing. Also, there is a way to mark caches found, I discovered it and it works.

 

Every time I have used it, it has taken me right on top of that cache.

 

Compact. Fits in mobile phone belt pouch. Comes with its own pouch as well. Cool looking.

 

AND, if you get the Nat Topo, the maps are killer and super cheap. Get a bonus pack and you will get it free. And you will get 25 free credits for maps. 1$ gets you 25 credits, 1 credit gets you a map.

 

I have a feeling that since Mio owns Magellan now, that the Customer service will get better. I had an explorist 200, its like another universe of goodness comparing stepping up to a triton.

 

There is a big following of garmin lovers. Not a bad thing, its a just a popular device. I wouldn't call garmin superior to the magellon tritons. The both have their pros and cons.

[+RumandCaches]

I had a triton 200 and hated that thing! I owned it for less then 30 days and it kept freezing up, going through pages when no buttons were being pushed, etc. I took it back and decided to just spend the money to get something good and exactly what I wanted/needed (Oregon 400t). I have always swore by Garmin and ventured away one time....needless to say I will always stick with Garmin now.

[+buster71]

I've had no problems with my Triton 200 in the first month of use. It is my first handheld, so I don't have much to compare it to. For now, I only need it for geocaching, and I actually bought and then sold a 60CSx within a week because I felt the Triton was better suited as a dedicated geocaching unit. If you need something for hiking/backcountry exploration, then the Triton will be limiting.

 

I will stick with my Triton until I decide whether I want to upgrade to the Colorado, Oregon, or PN-40

[+rpestes]

I had a triton 200 and hated that thing! I owned it for less then 30 days and it kept freezing up, going through pages when no buttons were being pushed, etc. I took it back and decided to just spend the money to get something good and exactly what I wanted/needed (Oregon 400t). I have always swore by Garmin and ventured away one time....needless to say I will always stick with Garmin now.

I can't believe your comparing the 200 with the 400t. They are so different it is not even close to being fair. Try comparing with the Triton 1500 or 2000. They are both great units and work just fine.

[+gpsblake]

How do you log your finds on the triton 1500? We have been trying to figure it out with no luck.

 

You can't. What I do is change the icon to something else. Yea, it's a lot of steps to do versus pressing a FOUND button.

[+SkellyCA]

I have a Triton 400. Works great for me, gives me all the cache info except the size, but I have a work around for that. Unit works fine for me.

[+RumandCaches]

I had a triton 200 and hated that thing! I owned it for less then 30 days and it kept freezing up, going through pages when no buttons were being pushed, etc. I took it back and decided to just spend the money to get something good and exactly what I wanted/needed (Oregon 400t). I have always swore by Garmin and ventured away one time....needless to say I will always stick with Garmin now.

I can't believe your comparing the 200 with the 400t. They are so different it is not even close to being fair. Try comparing with the Triton 1500 or 2000. They are both great units and work just fine.

 

Not comparing, just saying what I upgraded to..

[+sleddogs2]

All I can say is RUN from Magellan. I can't belive the company that had such a pioneering lead in hand held GPS has fallen to worst of class. I have owned 6 magellans. from merideans, explorists roadmate, and my latest Triton 500. I must say the Triton, Vantaqe Point, and their convoluted approach to propriatary and S/N encripted maps and software make this product such a pain that I stopped using it. Follows is an excerpt from a letter I sent to every magellan email contact i could find on their web site. Not one response. Not even an acknologement. Magellan ??? Run away !!

 

Memo to Magellan

...I upgraded again to a Triton 500, Vantage Point, Accuterra Great lakes map and National Geographic TOPO! I guess I expected an upgrade not a severe backward step!!! After a number of months trying to get used to the new products let me share my list of mistakes your design team has made with the new line. Multiple Geocaching tries and a solid week of using it while hunting this fall has left me frustrated. I honestly believe your development people have not even personally attempted to use the product in the way customers would use it or they would have discovered at least a few of the following significant flaws.

 

Triton 500

- Most outdoors persons do occasionally wear gloves. Did you ever think about that when you made the buttons so small and hard to push that they are near impossible to use. The power and light buttons are impossible to press even with thin gloves on. When below 0 degrees F, the rubber over molding is so stiff you can hardly press it in at all. By the way I could operate my Explorist 500 with snowmobile gloves on at – 20 F.

-The Joystick i s horrible. It is so tiny that a center push is tough to feel differently from a push on the outside ring. Unless you use your thumb nail you can’t work it accurately. With gloves, impossible.

- Menus.”‘We don’t need no stinking menus”. This must have been a design objective. What were you thinking? You took a well organized series of menus that you could easily go into and back out of and scattered them about many different screens. On some screens the menu changes if you are navigating or not. Many menu items are missing from the past entirely. Some menus you get to by pressing the page button. Hint, save the memory space for fancy menu graphics and give us a real and logical menu system.

- Battery Life. Horrible for all kinds. I have tried alkaline, lithium AA’s, and rechargeable NmHi. 4 hrs at best and worse yet when cold.

- Electronic Compass. It has never been accurate. 90 degree off or more is common and inconsistent with every use. I have recalibrated while hunting so many times I have resorted to once again carrying a $5.99 magnetic compass.

- Altimeter and barometer are a nice touch but even the old Meridian had a trend graph. Just a number here doesn’t help much unless you have hidden a pencil and note pad on the Triton somewhere that I haven’t found yet.

- Size matters. Last I have heard, electronics were getting smaller. So why is your newest larger and heavier than the Explorist it replaced. My Blackberry with free GPS map and Geocaching should be more like it.

- 100’ smallest zoom scale. In the days of WAAS and excellent repeatability, having only a 100’ maximum zoom makes this a poor GPS for Geocaching.

- SD card. Great idea for memory but not having a open file structure for .gpx or even old Explorist formats or map send file versions makes the functionality absurd. If you had the best software of the class you might take a proprietary position but you are not an I Pod. It is bad enough that your schemes to protect your maps make functionality for multiple device people a pain. Now, we must go thru multiple software steps and migrations to even get old way points and geocaches loaded. After finally getting old waypoints loaded, I find out that Windows can’t see or use them on the SD card. What were you thinking?

- USB cord. It is a good thing it is easier to connect as it is the only way to interface with the unit. Using the marvelous new web based tool Vantage Point is a special experience. Let me share.

 

Vantage Point

- There is so much missing here that it is nearly an impractical tool to use. Unfortunately you made the new Triton devices not compatible backwards to use Map Send products.

- Using Vantage point with my Explorist 500 actually somehow deactivated previous maps from Map Send Topo 3D. Map Send S/N protection logic said I could not load maps to a new device. I tried to solve this problem long ago with your customer non-service and that was an unresolved issue. I learned from a GPS sharing site to just give up. Your team’s recommendation was to buy a new Accuterra map. Kind of sneaky. Plug in and oops, you must now spend money on an upgrade. So, now I had to buy a Accuterra map for my new Triton and my old Explorist. I will not connect my other 2 Explorists for fear they will lose map functionality as well. That makes them now somewhat useless then as well.

- I have spent hours trying to get tracks from the GPS onto the new software tool. I guess you didn’t suspect that users might want to print them? Save them? Manipulate them?... I couldn’t even figure a way to get a data file to load into a mapping program like Topo USA or even to migrate backwards to Map Send.

- I have downloaded all the updates so far. The web based tool to do this is a great idea. As far as using windows standard looking and intuitive menus, well you missed here almost as bad as with the Triton itself. Library, Journal, Connect, when even well experienced GPS users don’t know what they mean I guess we can at least give you creativity points.

- How about a simple fix. Update Vantage point to the old the Map Send functionality and tools and guess what, problem solved.

 

Accuterra

- I would have expected a topo map that cost $69 to download would have a little more detail and topo data. The elevation lines are so far apart that I thought it wasn’t a topo map when I looked at it.

- Some road names are missing. Topo detail like shading, swaps, etc is missing. Lake shoreline accuracy and detail is poor.

- After a number of times of trying to contacting your customer service via the web, I had to eventually contact Accuterra company (your supplier) to get your customer service to fix a bug that removed water from the map when zoomed in. This made the 2 versions I had purchased for my Triton 500 and Explorist 500 useless. When you finally fixed it I re-downloaded it. Once again your copy protection schemes made this a many hour exercise.

- While I soon recognized that Accuterra maps were marginal at best, I liked the idea of the interface with National Geographic detail maps. Or so I thought.

 

National Geographic TOPO!

- While not your product, they are obviously new at this too. Their interface to your GPS product is almost as bad as your Vantage Point. At least the latest update made the map transfer several steps easier.

- It seems as though every time I have opened TOPO! A new update was available. While I am glad they are fixing the deficiencies, their readiness and your readiness to launch was poor.

- National Geographic is always known for the highest quality maps. Why then are scanned image maps of so poor quality when downloaded to the Triton. Both Topo and aerial views are barely legible at 300’ scale. Zooming in further the map disappears. Detail topo maps that you can’t zoom in close are useless.

 

Good luck with Triton. I just purchased a Delorme PN40

[+redleg7]

I'm thinking about upgrading my magellan exploritst 210 to a magellon triton, iv been seeing alot of negative reviews but most of them seem to be older. my explorist has been great for over 3 years ivbeen geocaching and im a little surprised by all the bad reviews of the titon. if anyone has experience with this id love to hear comments, or why i should switch to garmin. thanks in advance for the input!

 

I was initially disappointed in my Triton 1500. But after the recent firmware upgrade I did, I'm happy with it. The accuracy is superb, and the unit kept a satellite lock in my glove box. I would definitely recommend one.

[+Knight2000]

Our local walmart had a Triton 1500 value pack for $195. Watched the video in store and it had some neat features.

 

I had some problems with my first Magellan and had a super hard time dealing with them. They only helped me once i made a BBB complaint. Then they took care of me. I dont have any faith in their CS though.

[+AstroDav]

I had a triton 200 and hated that thing! I owned it for less then 30 days and it kept freezing up, going through pages when no buttons were being pushed, etc. I took it back and decided to just spend the money to get something good and exactly what I wanted/needed (Oregon 400t). I have always swore by Garmin and ventured away one time....needless to say I will always stick with Garmin now.

I can't believe your comparing the 200 with the 400t. They are so different it is not even close to being fair. Try comparing with the Triton 1500 or 2000. They are both great units and work just fine.

 

That's how a great many of the negative reviews of the Tritons have started....someone comparing eggs to apples.

 

I had Garmin first, Magellan second, & still have BOTH. The Triton 400 is a VERY nice GPS.

 

For marking my caches as "Found", I just go to the info screen & add the word "Found" beside the name of the cache. Takes about 10 total keystrokes & 30 seconds. If the cache name is REALLY long, I might backspace thru several of the last leters, to keep "Found" from scrolling off the right-hand side.

[+Surferjo]

Got a Triton 500 and liked it so much i picked up a 1500. Was out for 6 hours today. batteries still almost full. Super accurate and no problems. Vantage point is realy easy and simple to use. holds 2000 caches. I see way to many problems threads about Garmin on this forum to even consider them. Tritons did have a lot of problems when they first came out but now they rock.