Magellan Triton 300, good for starters?

[agent216]

i'm about to buy, a Magellan Triton 300, is that a good unit to get started with?

[+SkellyCA]

I have a Triton 400, The only difference is that the 400 can take SD to store more maps on. Works great for me. It even does paperless caching

[+Team Cotati]

i'm about to buy, a Magellan Triton 300, is that a good unit to get started with?

 

It is a reasonably good unit. However Magellan has indicated that they have no plans to continue their handheld GPS line of products. Further, their tech/customer no support is woefully lacking to the extent of making it essentially useless.

 

Also, the predominance of Garmin users in here means that the available assistance of a knowledgeable user community is minimal and heading to non-existent or close to it.

 

To me, at this point in time, there is no logical reason to purchase a Magellan product unless the above issues are unimportant.

[+briansnat]

As the shirtless fellow above me pointed out Magellan has a terrible reputation for customer support. If your unit works fine and you never need to deal with them the Triton is a decent geocaching unit. If not prepare yourself for an experience that might make a dentist visit seem enjoyable.

 

Very few geocachers use Magellans these days. Go to any event you'll probably see 80-90 percent Garmins, with the rest split among Delormes and Magellans with a few Lowrances sprinkled in. 6 years ago it would have been roughly 60-40 Garmin/Magellan. There is a reason Magellan is losing market share.

[+Arrow42]

I have a Triton 400, The only difference is that the 400 can take SD to store more maps on. Works great for me. It even does paperless caching

 

I have one too and I like it... that being said, I likley won't be buying a Magellan next time I buy a GPS.

[+WeeWillie]

If you are going to purchase a mapping GPS then get one with a SD card. The on board memory generally isn't adequate for map coverage.

 

I don't recommend Triton. Support, documentation and periodic updates are terrible. Tritons are battery hogs. They really stuck it to their customers when the line first went into production. Read Triton forum for more info.

[+ltlpink]

That is what I am using. I have not had any problems with it yet so I havent had service problems. I am new at this so I had a fairly long learning curve but I now haven it pretty well figured out. One thing I like that others have complained about is that it about 90% of the time takes me to within 3 or 4 feet of the cache. I see others complaining about accuracy of 30 feet with just about any type of GPSr while mine will generally put me right on to of the cache.

 

The only real complaint I have is I can not load Cache info directly from Geocaching.com but have to load from there to my computer and then to the GPSr.

ltlpink

[+briansnat]

I see others complaining about accuracy of 30 feet with just about any type of GPSr while mine will generally put me right on to of the cache.

 

Well considering that the cache was likely hidden with a Garmin how do you know that your unit isn't off?

 

If the hider's unit was 30 feet off when he hid it and your unit puts you right on the cache then your unit may also be 30 feet off.

[+greenswinger]

i'm about to buy, a Magellan Triton 300, is that a good unit to get started with?

bought magellan triton 400 . accuracy ? was about two miles off . Took it back and bought triton 1500 ....which was even worse . about three miles off . now that i am cured , i bought garmin legend hcx . works perfect !!!! :

[+nfmike]

I have a Magellan Triton 500 and it works great. Very accurate, usually w/in a few feet. I think you will quickly want a T400 or T500 and grow out of the T300. The 400/500 have slots for SD cards and you can purchase a variety of detailed maps and download them. I particularly like the ability to download National Geographic Topo maps. Most if not all of the problems that Magellans had a year ago have been fixed with the firmware updates and my T500 now has way more features than I need or use. They also come with Vantage Point software to manage all of your maps and all of your geocache info on your PC. The Magellan trade name was purchased about a year ago by a company called MiTac. There is no indication they are going to stop makeing handheld GPS units that I am aware of, at least nothing has been posted on the Triton Forum and those guys generally are very informed (many are Beta testers I think). Its all in what you get used to but my Maggie seems easier to use for me than my buddy's Garmin.

[GaryGGR]

It is a reasonably good unit. However Magellan has indicated that they have no plans to continue their handheld GPS line of products.

 

 

Not True

[+brslk]

It is a reasonably good unit. However Magellan has indicated that they have no plans to continue their handheld GPS line of products.

 

 

Not True

 

I have been looking to purchase a new GPSr and have looked at most of the retailers for one. I have noticed that the hand held units (at least here in Canada) are hard to find... they seem to only sell car navigation units.

 

wtf?

 

I understand that they sell what sells but then I see threads talking about there are too many people getting into geocaching and worry it will become too prolific .

 

One would assume that if the demand was there... there will be a supplier.

 

Sorry for getting a bit off topic.

 

Bruce.

[+anakerose]

We started out with the Magellan Explorist 210 paired with GSAK and it worked pretty well. We now have a Garmin Colorado 300 and I absolutely love it! The device has cache descriptions and hints. A little on the pricey side, but great if you want to go paperless.

[+briansnat]

It is a reasonably good unit. However Magellan has indicated that they have no plans to continue their handheld GPS line of products.

 

 

Not True

 

I have been looking to purchase a new GPSr and have looked at most of the retailers for one. I have noticed that the hand held units (at least here in Canada) are hard to find... they seem to only sell car navigation units.

 

wtf?

 

I understand that they sell what sells but then I see threads talking about there are too many people getting into geocaching and worry it will become too prolific .

 

One would assume that if the demand was there... there will be a supplier.

 

Sorry for getting a bit off topic.

 

Bruce.

 

You need to shop retailers that cater to the outdoors crowd to see hand helds. REI, EMS, LL Bean if you have them. Though you will find significantly better prices online.

[+Arrow42]

i'm about to buy, a Magellan Triton 300, is that a good unit to get started with?

bought magellan triton 400 . accuracy ? was about two miles off . Took it back and bought triton 1500 ....which was even worse . about three miles off . now that i am cured , i bought garmin legend hcx . works perfect !!!! :

 

I think it's fair to say that your experiences do not represent manufactures specifications or the practical experience of many people on the forum.

 

While it's posible that you got two flawed units in a row, I suspect that it is a user-error caused problem. If I remember right, the out of the box configuration is different then the defaults on the geocaching.com website. Inputting the coords in the wrong format could certainly cause a 3 mile error - I did exactly the same thing.

[+caesargolfleague]

I have been looking to purchase a new GPSr and have looked at most of the retailers for one. I have noticed that the hand held units (at least here in Canada) are hard to find... they seem to only sell car navigation units.

 

wtf?

 

I understand that they sell what sells but then I see threads talking about there are too many people getting into geocaching and worry it will become too prolific .

 

One would assume that if the demand was there... there will be a supplier.

 

Sorry for getting a bit off topic.

 

Bruce.

 

Bruce,

 

I found that most department stores sell their auto GPS units in the Electronics Dept., but keep handhelds over in the Sports Dept. Take a look there and I think you'll track one down.