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Magellan Vs. Garmin


GeoMike11

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preference

 

most people seem to like the gps they use and the closer to it the better, keep that in mind. different units have different pros and cons. big or little screen, resolution, memory size/ability, etc. some people also find the button or menu/page layout 'easier' on one brand than another.

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All seriousness aside, Mike, there are true fans of both units in the forums (and Lowrance and Cobra, although I don't know why <_< ). They all have pros and cons, they all get you to within 20 or 30 feet of the cache most of the time. Browse around and see what you think. If you have a specific question about a GPS you're thinking about, ask away.

 

Welcome to the recreational activity/sport/hobby/addiction!

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I can tell you that I've always owned garmins, and friends have always owned magellans - and I get consistently closer to caches than they do. In fact with my 60c when there is any sort of tree cover around they are wandering around 50-60 feet away with their magellans while I'm screaming "GOT IT!!" Its all about that "quad-helix antenna".

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I have used both brands and I have used them at the same time, they both work just fine, there are times the a Magellan might bring you closer and there are times a Garmin will, but both are going to get you to the cache. To say one brand is always going the get you closer than another one is nonsense.

 

Edit to add link

GPS info

Edited by JohnnyVegas
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I can tell you that I've always owned garmins, and friends have always owned magellans - and I get consistently closer to caches than they do. In fact with my 60c when there is any sort of tree cover around they are wandering around 50-60 feet away with their magellans while I'm screaming "GOT IT!!" Its all about that "quad-helix antenna".

With the exception of the explorist all the Magellans have Quad Helix antennas,

The Garmin E-trex have patch antennas just like the explorist.

Edited by JohnnyVegas
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Its all about that "quad-helix antenna".

Not again! :rolleyes: Those darn "quad-helix antenna". I swear there is someone on this site who has a "patch" antenna that works better then the "quad" under trees. Today would you stick with the 60CS or get 76CS with even more memory? Looks like...well I don't have a clue yet but I'm working on it.

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Here's another good one...

 

Joystick and buttons on front face or rockers on the side? But I'd like that temperature readout, a rechargeable & replaceable battery, and a SD cartridge. Seriously, doesn't the eXplorist 600 sound great? But it doesn't do auto-routing?

 

Ratsneve

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Its all about that "quad-helix antenna".

Not again! :rolleyes: Those darn "quad-helix antenna". I swear there is someone on this site who has a "patch" antenna that works better then the "quad" under trees. Today would you stick with the 60CS or get 76CS with even more memory? Looks like...well I don't have a clue yet but I'm working on it.

And my wife has 2 etrex and asked for a Meridan for Christmas because she was tired of turning off her GPS and just going with mine when we got under the big redwoods.

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Here's another good one...

 

Joystick and buttons on front face or rockers on the side? But I'd like that temperature readout, a rechargeable & replaceable battery, and a SD cartridge. Seriously, doesn't the eXplorist 600 sound great? But it doesn't do auto-routing?

 

Ratsneve

Why wouldn't it do auto routing, the other current Magellans do with the exception of the Sport track and the Sport track Map.

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I used an old invention that it would seem a lot of people in the internet world forgot how to use and called Magellan---The Explorist 400, 500 and 600 will do auto routing with Map Send Direct Route.

 

If anyone wants to try the old invention (It's called a telephone) Maggelan support from the Magellan Web Site

North America

Our technical support phone representatives are available Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. P.S.T/P.D.T.

Telephone: 800 707 9971 or +1 909 394 5000 (Outside North America)

You may also reach technical support by fax: +1 909 394 7073

Europe:

From all European countries please dial:

00800 MAGELLAN (free phone), our customer representative will assist you in your language.

Edited by JohnnyVegas
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... some people also find the button or menu/page layout 'easier' on one brand than another.

That's primarily what caused me to go with my Magellan Sportrak Pro.

 

Software-wise, both comanies offer similar features and there are pros & cons to how each implements things. Buying from either company I knew I'd be both happy and disgruntled.

 

Hardware-wise, I liked the smaller form factor of the Garmin Etrex line, but didn't like that little single 'thumb' button that does all the menu navigation. When I played with that in the store, it was a show stopper for me. Besides carrying on my person when hiking, I wanted something I could mount in my Jeep and manipulate while driving. That seemed like it would've been too hard to do with the etrex, so I went with the Sportrak. The sportrak seemed a little more rugged to me, too. All just IMO, of course.

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The Magellan and Garmin seem to be the primary handheld GPS units.  Is one better than the other...or is just a preference thing?

It's a preference thing.

 

Garmin has a better color screen.

Magellan uses a 3 Axis compass.

Magellan uses SD cards in some GPS units.

Garmin uses more RAM and More native waypoints in some GPS units.

Magellan uses a different way to process the signal than Garmin. Garmins don't have a boomerang effect where they walk past the cache and come back to it. Magellan users don't run in as many circles in the woods.

In my opinion the Garmin has an easier to use interface.

In my opinion the Magellan is more customizable.

In my experiene they get about the same reception when you compair quad helix antanea based units.

 

After that it gets fuzzy.

 

In the end it is preference. Niether is broken, both make good GPS's and you won't go wrong with either. But you will take crap if your caching buddy uses the other brand, but then if he's your buddy you should be flipping it right back and having fun.

Edited by Renegade Knight
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I used an old invention that it would seem a lot of people in the internet world forgot how to use and called Magellan---The Explorist 400, 500 and 600 will do auto routing with Map Send Direct Route.

 

If anyone wants to try the old invention (It's called a telephone) Maggelan support from the Magellan Web Site

North America

Our technical support phone representatives are available Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. P.S.T/P.D.T.

Telephone: 800 707 9971 or +1 909 394 5000 (Outside North America)

You may also reach technical support by fax: +1 909 394 7073

Europe:

From all European countries please dial:

00800 MAGELLAN (free phone), our customer representative will assist you in your language.

You're right. Time to call Magellan--especially since the eXplorist 600 isn't out. Their tech support confirmed that Map Send Direct Route would work in the 600. The problem is that the 600 isn't out yet and isn't supported yet and the guy I talked to didn't have a clue to offer when it would be coming out. I suggested that if that was the case it might be premature to be mentioning it on their website but what was he suppose to say next?

 

Magellan's Map Send Direct Route lists for around $150 I think and may on special for $99 now. It works the same as Garmin's autorouting with audible signals. You must look at the screen to tell what direction to make turns. Reading through Magellan's cautions doesn't sell the software in very good light imho--not any different then the dangers of reading a paper map while driving. Don't know why they and Garmin can't do audible left and right turn beeps or a beep to go straight through an intersection.

 

If Magellan's tech support is clueless about the 600 I might be miles ahead if I would stick with the Garmin Vista C. With my luck at this though as soon as I buy the Vista C the 600 would be released the next week.

 

Thank you.

 

Susan

Edited by Ratsneve
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The person I talked to said they were not suppose to talk about the 400, 500 and 600 Until I told her that they were on Magellans web site. I am guessing the tec support staff will not bet the pages for the new items in there binders untill they are shipped to the dealers. My guess, based on past experiance with Magellan when I was a GPS buyer for a sports shop is that they should be in the stores by the end of Feb.

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The person I talked to said they were not suppose to talk about the 400, 500 and 600 Until I told her that they were on Magellans web site. I am guessing the tec support staff will not bet the pages for the new items in there binders untill they are shipped to the dealers. My guess, based on past experiance with Magellan when I was a GPS buyer for a sports shop is that they should be in the stores by the end of Feb.

It turns out there is a guy at the community college here who teaches a GPS class. I'm going to look into that, relax, and delay my purchase until I pick his brain clean.

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In my opinion, Garmin's autorouting is vastly superior to Magellan's. I think a discussion of the pros and cons of each's autorouting would be in order.

 

Nonetheless it was pretty cool that Magellan took GPS's that would not autoroute and released software that enabled the Magellans to route after the fact.

 

I was/am hoping that the new explorist 600 has caught up and passed the Garmins, but I am afraid that it may not be so. (except in the area of memory)

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I was/am hoping that the new explorist 600 has caught up and passed the Garmins, but I am afraid that it may not be so. (except in the area of memory)

Each SD you use is going to cost some money. If you have a laptop or palm isn't it just as easy to reload directly to your Garmin as reloading directly to a Magellan or a Magellan SD?

 

Thanks.

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not really. right now my 60c has 56 megs. I can store all of TN, birmingham, atlanta and the interstates between each. If I bought a 512 meg card for $50, I could store all of the SE.

 

It hasn't been THAT big a deal with the Garmin, a minor inconvenience really. and I wouldnt trade to a Magellan Direct Route for the 512 M chip, but if Magellan got its act together and released a polished autoroute similiar to Garmin, I would consider leaving the Garmin family. I guess one could say that I am not a Garmin fanboy, but that I just want the best :rolleyes:

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not really. right now my 60c has 56 megs. I can store all of TN, birmingham, atlanta and the interstates between each. If I bought a 512 meg card for $50, I could store all of the SE.

 

It hasn't been THAT big a deal with the Garmin, a minor inconvenience really. and I wouldnt trade to a Magellan Direct Route for the 512 M chip, but if Magellan got its act together and released a polished autoroute similiar to Garmin, I would consider leaving the Garmin family. I guess one could say that I am not a Garmin fanboy, but that I just want the best :rolleyes:

Also, I just remembered that my laptop sticks me with USB 1.1--not 2.0--although I guess I could buy a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card for more bucks. Anyway @ 1.1 I wonder how long and how much longer to load a Garmin or a Magellan SD?

 

Why is Garmin's AutoRouting considered so superior to Magellan's Map Send Direct Route?

 

Thanks.

 

Susan

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It turns out there is a guy at the community college here who teaches a GPS class.  I'm going to look into that, relax, and delay my purchase until I pick his brain clean.

A gps class? now that is neat! that would be a good time killing elective and an easy A. so what do they teach? i mean what can be taught that would fill a whole semester?

 

i wish my CC did a gps class.... and dumped humanities as well!!! lol

Edited by BlackBeard Pirate
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Why is Garmin's AutoRouting considered so superior to Magellan's Map Send Direct Route?

 

Thanks.

 

Susan

I do not know that Garmins is superior to Magellan, I have not use Garmins auto routing for while, I have been using Magellans Direct route for about a year and I like it. it is not perfect, but there is no perfect auto routing software. A friend of mine use the Garmin product in his street pilots and he is alway commenting on things he does not like. I think some people get Magellans map sent streets and destinations mixed up with Map Send direct route.

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It turns out there is a guy at the community college here who teaches a GPS class.  I'm going to look into that, relax, and delay my purchase until I pick his brain clean.

A gps class? now that is neat! that would be a good time killing elective and an easy A. so what do they teach? i mean what can be taught that would fill a whole semester?

 

i wish my CC did a gps class.... and dumped humanities as well!!! lol

I hope he keeps it simple and does not get over techie. I have given GPS and Geocahing classes to the public in my last job. I saw some one do a GPS class once and he got so technical he was even talking about the frequncies the sattelites operated on, most of the class fell asleep. Some people do not understand K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) You call him and ask if he is going to cover both Garmin and Magellan brands.

Edited by JohnnyVegas
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not really. right now my  60c has 56 megs. I can store all of TN, birmingham, atlanta and the interstates between each. If I bought a 512 meg card for $50, I could store all of the SE. 

 

It hasn't been THAT big a deal with the Garmin, a minor inconvenience really. and I wouldnt trade to a Magellan Direct Route for the 512 M chip, but if Magellan got its act together and released a polished autoroute similiar to Garmin, I would consider leaving the Garmin family. I guess one could say that I am not a Garmin fanboy, but that I just want the best  B)

Also, I just remembered that my laptop sticks me with USB 1.1--not 2.0--although I guess I could buy a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card for more bucks. Anyway @ 1.1 I wonder how long and how much longer to load a Garmin or a Magellan SD?

 

Why is Garmin's AutoRouting considered so superior to Magellan's Map Send Direct Route?

 

Thanks.

 

Susan

I have not used Direct Route in my Meridian, but there is a few area's that Garmins autoroute is better implemented.

 

1. You can choose things to avoid (highways, toll roads, and U-turns)

2. Select model of transportation (e.g. a car route is determined by the fastest way there, where a bike route would be the shortest)

3. You can select either the fastest way to a location (e.g. use interstates and other highways even if it's slightly longer than another way-this is the mode direct route uses), and shortest route.

4. The unit will automatically reroute (optional)when you get off track with out having to press the goto button twice.

5. Can add one via point to a route.

6. When creating a manual user route you can select it to follow roads (Magellan is similar with it's manual routes, except it uses the first and last waypoint in the route to determine route-Garmin uses all the waypoints)

7. Garmin does not require you to have free waypoint and comment space for the program to work correctly (this may be just be due to using units that originally were not designed to autoroute).

8. Does not mess with all the setting when you make a route (except for "lock to road" feature, grrr...).

9. Can adjust the length of time a route takes to calculate.

 

But keep in mind that Garmins autoroute software had been out longer, and Magellan added this functionality to units that were not originally designed to autoroute.

 

Wyatt W.

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I think the re-routing is huge. I don't want to have to hit a button if I miss the turn the gps wants me to take. I want it to have the intelligence to reroute me based on where i am going.

 

Also I think when approaching a turn, the Garmin's visual display showing turns is bigger and shows more information at a glance.

 

BUT I want the new Magellans to be better. Garmin has thrown down the gauntlet, and its time for Magellan to pull an AMD.

 

As Phantom said Magellan turned a non-routing GPS into a routing one, but its time to take another step on its new units IMO

Edited by Volwrath
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I own a SporTrak, a budy of mine has an eTrex, and in over 40 caches and one climb of half dome we've noticed very little difference between the two. I've heard from others that as you get into the more high-end GPS market that Garmin is just a little better. But it just boils down to the fact that He's a Garmin man, and I'm a Magellan man. B)

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It turns out there is a guy at the community college here who teaches a GPS class.  I'm going to look into that, relax, and delay my purchase until I pick his brain clean.

A gps class? now that is neat! that would be a good time killing elective and an easy A. so what do they teach? i mean what can be taught that would fill a whole semester?

 

i wish my CC did a gps class.... and dumped humanities as well!!! lol

Oh, it is just a 6 hour adult ed class. Meets two Wednesdays in a row for 3 hours each. I'm going to talk to the instructor. I suspect the class is largely for those who don't like to read or understand their GPS manuals if the units are not intuitive enough.

 

Actually that is an interesting question...

 

Are these hand-held GPS very intuitive and forgiving as to what buttons to push? Can you learn how to use one just by pushing buttons and seeing what happens. Is either Garmin or Magellan better at engineering in intuitiveness or is it a real mixed bag depending on each model design??

 

Regarding the class again... Since I don't have a GPS yet and may very well wait for the eXplorist 600 there may be no point in the class at all for me and I will withdraw in time for a full refund. Since there was only one seat left I signed up. :rolleyes:

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One thing I like about Magellan is the layout of the buttons. Also the Magellan have a copy of the dierection built into the Help menu of the GPS itself. This help if you need a quick study in the field.

I have to think too that Magellan's SD capability is a HUGE advantage as to what software they or others could turn out for the units and what convenience(s) the space could afford one. In fact it is weird and short sighted by everything else in today's standards that Garmin has no means of RAM expansion/convenience.

Edited by Ratsneve
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I have a SporTrak Color GPS, and had a Meridian Platinum, also I have had a few other Magellans, like the 315, 4000XL, and ColorTrak GPS units.

 

As far as my experience with recording tracklogs for street mapping in a couple communities where i live in Michigan, nothing comes close to a 60C, except the GPS V I had, Even the Trip Computer info is far superior in a 60C or GPS V, than any Magellan. Even when I used the SporTrak or Meridian on Auto Detailed, the tracklog was of poor quality. As far as Mapping, and Auto Routing, a Magellan with an SD Memory card option like the Meridians is good to have.

 

I use GPS units more for Data loggers of Tracks, Waypoints, and Trip Info, so for this, a Map60C is best to have, but for AutoRouting, and the GOTO's, a MeriGold is best for that. WHY CANT I GET all these features under a single manufacturer??

 

You can save Data to the Memory card in the Meridians but the Magellans as Dataloggers does not come close to that of a 60C. Try this to see if im right, take a Magellan to the start of a trail, then clear the tracklog and trip info in both the Garmin and the Magellan, on a trail of at least a mile, then download both tracks to your PC when you get home, and also write down the information from the Trip Info screens of both the Garmin, and Magellan. Dont even consider comparing an Etrex, for I have the Extrex Vista, and find it of poor quality for Data Logging.

 

Please Can I get a good Data logging GPS, but also with a Memory card?? (MAYBE NOT POSSIBLE)

 

Got my fingers crossed that the Magellan Explorist 600 will be a better overall GPS, with a better tracklog quality, and more than 2000 trackpoints in the tracklog memory of the GPS.

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For being able to learn by pushing buttons E-Trex is great you can get the basics that way. You might miss some things but you'll have the basics down fast. You never thought this post would start World War III did you? :huh: Honestly as others have said before each brand has its perks and each brand has its supporters. Its a matter of preference, it really isn't that important, and given the chance some cachers would fight to the DEATH over which is better. Also notable is that before giving in an inch in this battle they will truly kill us all. :huh:

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Routing options such as "Avoid" or "Prefer" toll roads, interstates, and left or right turns

We have no toll roads in Ca. :( We have lots of bridges with tools, but by the time you avoid them, paying the toll would be cheaper :huh: I am not sure about the avoiding left and right turns :huh:

 

One internal memory card slot for using customized mapping saved on SD/MMC digital memory cards up to 512MB in size

What happens in a couple of years when the only SD cards offered are 1GB and larger :( I remember when you could by a 64MB SD card :(

 

Edit to add:

I have not seen any mention of TOPO software? Unless I just missed it.

Edited by JohnnyVegas
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..I have not seen any mention of TOPO software? Unless I just missed it

The iWay uses Navteq maps. From their website it says "relative road heights" are included in the data.. not sure about woodsy stuff like hill contours etc..

 

If the Freedom Map cartridges work in the iWay as they do in the iFinder, then they will have rich TOPO info, but am not certain the iWay can use those despite the fact the model looks physically like an iFinder.. time will tell.

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If the Freedom Map cartridges work in the iWay as they do in the iFinder, then they will have rich TOPO info, but am not certain the iWay can use those despite the fact the model looks physically like an iFinder.. time will tell.

According to iWay manual, it has an option to disable Turn-By-Turn and after you disable it iWay gets additional screens and behave like iFinder H2O. Even software version screen says iF_H2O_TBT. It should in this case work with FreedomMap or MapCreate Topo.

BTW, Gpscity.com stock status for iWay is "in stock", but I called Lowrance cust. serv. on Friday and they are saying they are not shipping it yet. I also asked about iFinder or iWay with color screen. No plans for iWay yet, but they have iFinder PhD Color in development. ETA - late summer.

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Looks like a big kludgy GPS that is bundled with map software.  If this had come out 3 years ago it would of been a great GPS.  Now it's a generation behind but maybe it will force Garmin and Magellan to do a few things they should be doing but can't seem to get off their butts and do.

???

 

The Lowrance iWay 100 is dimensionally SMALLER than the Magellan Meridian or the Garmin 60... But it's display is larger than either and of higher resolution (albeit not in color, yet)

 

It's technology is brand new state-of-the-art. It's auto-routing and auto-rerouting even supports audio prompting,, you'd have to get a Garmin IQue to match that feature, but the iQueu is not very robust ("outdoorsy")

 

True though that perhaps it will stoke the coals under Magellan and Garmin to consolidate their features into a single robust GPSr.

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