Magellan Explorist 310 vs. Versus Garmin

[+Furrhan]

So I have a Magellan eXplorist 310 GPS that I've been trying to use but I'm not hugely happy with it since I can't seem to make it track very accurately. It varies between 5 and 18m which isn't very helpful. Are Garmin GPS units any more accurate or is there some way to make my unit more accurate? Also I'd like to be able to bung in a set of coordinates and have it take me there but I can't work out how to do that so I'm stuck "following the needle" for now.

I see a lot of cachers talking about Garmin rather than Magellan units so should I just swap over or should I stick with what I have?

Any advice is much appreciated!

[+Viajero Perdido]

I've never used a Maggie, but...  I think Garmin is popular because it's popular - more people have them, know how to use them, and have made maps for them.  That last part is key:  3rd party map selection for Garmin is far better than any other brands.

But...  map selection is even better for phone apps, at least certain apps that focus on maps.  use Android?  Check out Locus Map, which is also a caching app.

[+gpsblake]

Magellan's are no longer made and haven't had any support from MiTac (who owns them now) for years.   Now in saying that, my old GC (which can also be converted to a 110 or 310 because they are identical firmware wise) will generally get you to the cache area.  I think the main reason Garmin won the GPSr unit war is that their tech support and product updates were much better than Magellan along with Magellan's horrible decision to use Microsoft and contract the development of their units to overseas entities while Garmin always kept control of their own units. 

My opinion, yes, get a Garmin or if you have a smart phone, use that, smartphones are really accurate GPS units now, even the $30 ones from Walmart. 

 

[+Mineral2]

Keep in mind that any GPS device will vary in its accuracy depending on:
weather conditions, sky visibility, terrain, and position of the satellites. I don't know if Garmins are any more or less accurate than a Magellan, but it's advised to make sure you have WAAS/EGNOS turned on. Being in Australia, I don't know if that will help or not.

The main advantage of switching to a Garmin, as pointed out above, is that Garmin still makes handheld GPS units, and Magellan does not. Thus you're likely to get continued support from Garmin as well as the much larger user community should you run into any problems using your device.