Triton 2000 real world experience?

[+movemaine]

Anyone own a Triton 2000 - and how is it for you for caching and anything else you might use it for?

 

thanks!

[+GClouse]

I've owned a triton 2000 for a over a year.. Bough it used from a pawnshop for about half of the retail price.

 

For caching, it works pretty good. I had to buy detail topo maps for it. The base map us not very useful and the detail maps each cover several states and a wider area than I would ever cache in.

 

It gets an initial fix rather quickly, which is a good feature, and it seems to work well in most weather conditions. It has some built in paperless geocaching features allowing you upload cache descriptions and hints to the unit in separate category from waypoints.

 

Another useful feature is the backtrack function. This allows you to create a reverse route from you current tracklog and is very useful for those times you forget to set a waypoint for your parking location.It also supports three configuration profiles (Geocaching, Hiking and Marine) which allows you to quickly switch between three customized configurations.

 

It has a lot of nifty hardware features. built in compass, led flashlight, barometer, 1.3 megapixel camera for still and video, digital voice recorder, color touch screen, SD card slot, external antenna connector. and earphone jack. It's a comfortable form factor for a handheld. It is rugged and lightweight. The display is daylight viewable, but recessed which can make it difficult to see some situations.

 

I don't know how it works for navigation use, since I don't have the street maps.I use a different GPS for navigation. The triton has a rather small and weak speaker, which would make voice guided navigation tricky due to the low maximum volume.

 

Downsides:

 

Battery life with standard alkaline batteries is abysmal and I usually use the high performance lithium disposables to get 8 hours of use. I have not tried rechargeable yet. I usually disable the compass to reduce power use.

 

The original firmware on the gps is buggy, but Magellan has a free firmware update that fixes most of the problems. It is Windows Mobile based with a custom user interface, and I suspect the unit employs SQL CE for data storage. This means that you must use the Vantagepoint software to load waypoints and caches through the cable. No dumping a gpx file to an SD card and popping it in.

 

The PC software is slow during transfers, occasionally goes into a guru meditation mode, and is only compatible with MS Windows. No versions are available for Mac or Linux. In addition the communication protocol appears to be proprietary and Magellan has shown no indication of supporting non-Windws OSes. (This is particularly asinine on Magellan's part as many cachers are also Linux geeks.. including me)

 

Transferring waypoints requires the proprietary data cable, and the VantagePoint software. Pictures, videos and audio files require the use of an SD card, but locations are stored in the unit.

 

Generally it's okay for caching, but the MSRP is kind of high in my opinion.If you can find a good used one at a hock shop for half price, and upgrade the firmware, it's not a bad deal.

[+Mongo1965]

Anyone own a Triton 2000 - and how is it for you for caching and anything else you might use it for?

 

thanks!

 

Picked mine up for when I go out hunting this fall. Discovered about geocaching after I bought the unit. This unit usually puts me within three feet of the cache. Though if there is a lot of tree cover it does kinda bounce around. As for battery life I usually get at least one full day of caching out of rechargeable batteries and that is with keeping it on from the time I leave the house until I get home.

 

I have road maps installed and it is usually right on. Have not tried to have it tell me how to get from point A to point B

 

Have only had this unit a little over a month now so still finding some of what it will do. The big thing I wish it had was somewhere to add notes about caches that I have found. The work around that I am doing right now is putting my notes in the hint box.

 

All in all in my opinion if you can get this unit for under $200 its a good unit. Take my opinion with a grain of salt though as I have not been able to compare this to any other units.