Garmin Gpsmap 60cs V Magellen Meridian Color

[+badlands]

I’ve narrowed my choices down to the Garmin GPSMap 60CS and Magellan Meridian Color. Both are the same price ($335…best I’ve found so far)

 

I’ve read almost everything that I can find on this site about both units.

 

In general the Garmin is a little faster at obtaining a fix, but the Magellan is a little better at maintaining the fix. The Garmin is a little smaller but the Magellan has street names on their topo maps. The Magellan has a memory card slot, but the 56mb on the Garmin seems to be enough for the majority of users.

 

It seems that the Garmin fans (on this site anyway) are more numerous, or at least more vocal.

 

I’m new to geocaching and would appreciate any last advice before making my purchase.

[peter]

Note that Garmin just started a $50 rebate on their handheld color models including the 60cs.

 

I'd encourage you to find a local place where you can see the units, especially if you can take them outside for a minute in sunlight. There's a significant difference in the screen quality (both brightness and resolution), and also the overall physical size. If I were in the market for a color Magellan, I'd wait until the new eXplorist models are out.

[+EWDaron10]

I was reading the messages in here and also in the Yahoo groups. I saw many messages about problems with the Magellans and also lack of support since they became part of Thales. As a result, I just ordered the 76CS.

 

Just my $0.02

[+GOT GPS?]

Meridian Color would have practically unlimited memory with the memory cards you can put in the GPS unit. With all the Magellan GPS units ive had, I never had a very accurate reading with the Trip Odometer Reading, which always came up short, also the Tracklogs are not segmented into separate pieces, when you shut off the magellan, then turn it back on.

 

The Map 60C which I prefer, has better Tracklogging, and accurate Trip info. The Map60C of mine has a better screen for use in any lighting conditions, but you would need to have the backlight on while it is on your Dashboard. Overall, the 60C has been very usefull for me, except it needs at least 128 meg memory for my trips i take occationally.

 

Get your hands on both GPS units, at Geocacher Events, would be the way to go.

 

So here are the Downsides of both GPS units:

Meridian color does not have high enough resolution to go without the paper maps, and it can be trouble to see the screen out in bright daylight.

The Map60C/CS - Not enough memory and the screen should have been at least 180x240 minimum.

 

MY Choice in this matter would be the 76C or CS unit with 115 megs of memory.