New Magellans

[Brasileiro]

I was reading a little bit about these new units from Magellan and I couldn't tell if any of the three models has the capability to accept and store maps. The 200 and the 300 models say that they have background maps, but it doesn't say anything about memory. Does anyone know if the new eXplorists have this feature?

 

Here is the link if you are interested.

eXplorist series

[tubemonkey]

There's no info out yet, so anything we say is just speculation. I too noticed their terminology -- "background maps". Since they made no mention of additional memory in their press release, I'm inclined to believe that a "background map" contains even less detail than the "basemap" found in their other units.

 

I think these three units are competition for Garmin's eTrex series -- eTrex, Venture, Summit. I bet they'll eventually add memory to two new models (400 & 500) and compete directly with the Legend and Vista.

 

Who knows what they're up to. It would certainly be nice if they added SD and USB 2.0 slots to all of their new units. Afterall, serial ports are yesterday's technology and slow, slow, slow. Additionally, running around with a laptop just to be able to download more maps into rather limited memory is not my idea of portability while on vacation.

 

What's wrong with expecting a shirt-pocket sized unit with unlimited memory (via SD or even xD)? It's not like it can't be done.

 

tm

[peter]

What's wrong with expecting a shirt-pocket sized unit with unlimited memory (via SD or even xD)? It's not like it can't be done.

Certainly not - in fact it has been done by both Garmin (eMap) and Lowrance (iFinder). Unfortunately neither unit exactly captured the market and so we're still seeing new models like the 60/76c/cs with only a fixed internal memory and the Explorist 100/200/300 presumably without any uploadable map memory at all.