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The Explorist 500 Experience


Jamie Z

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Here are some learnings regarding an SD card and uploading maps to the E-500. I am using Map Send Topo 3D USA, and my SD card is 512 Mb.

 

First use Map Send to define your regions on the map to be uploaded. Once the map regions are chosen and marked, I then "upload" them to my hard drive first. This has to be done if uploading to an SD card. I am creating map regions in the 60 Mb size, give or take. About 8 of these regions will fit on a 512 Mb SD card.

 

If you are uploading more than one map region to the SD card, you will get a message stating that you can only upload one map region at a time. Ignore this, as it is meant for uploading directly to the internal memory of your unit, and of course your unit can only display one map region at a time (in 64 Mb or less chunks).

 

After choosing "Save to hard drive", it will then create the map regions and save to the default folder which is in the main program folder on C-drive. I have yet to figure out how to save them to My Documents folder.

 

Now I don't know what process Magellan uses, but creating and saving these map regions to my hard drive takes a long time. And I have a Pentium 4 with 2.4 Ghz processor, and 1 Gb Ram, and a high speed hard drive on my laptop. It took over an hour to create these 8 map regions on my hard drive.

 

Now you're only half done! Now you have to use the supplied Magellan Conversion Manager to convert and copy these map regions from your hard drive to your SD card in the E-500, using the supplied USB cable. It must be USB 1.0 in the unit because it takes almost as long to copy these map regions to the SD card as it did to create the maps in the first place.

 

All in all I spent well over 2 hours just to upload these 8 map regions to the SD card in the E-500. By comparison, the GPS Map 60C takes less than 3 minutes to upload a 50 Mb map file. I do believe Magellan has a long way to go in this area.

 

I don't know how long it would take using a data card programmer, but I assume at least the upload portion would be a bit faster.

 

And of course, you only have to do this once, then the data is there to be used over and over again. You could set up the entire country on 2-3 SD cards, and not have to mess with it anymore.

 

I place only my maps on the SD card. The waypoints (500 geocaching points) will only use up a few Kb's in the unit's internal memory. Of course if you have more than 500 points, then you will need to store the rest on the SD card.

 

I did have a problem one time early on when I came out of "transfer mode" to "power only" mode. I went to set my default Detail Map, and it showed nothing. I tried to look at the SD card and it acted like it wasn't there. So I removed the SD card (a 256 Mb card) and plugged it into my laptop which told me that the card was unformatted. That's funny, since I had been using it for several months. So I went ahead with the format, re-uploaded the maps, and everything has been fine since.

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I'm not sure why one would want to have multiple regions. In Topo3D you can make a region as big as you like. In DirectRoute it *is* possible to have multiple regions in a single file by editing the regions parameter in mapsend.ini. However, you cannot autoroute between regions, and I think you run into operation problems if you have a file size over 64MB.

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I'm not sure why one would want to have multiple regions. In Topo3D you can make a region as big as you like. In DirectRoute it *is* possible to have multiple regions in a single file by editing the regions parameter in mapsend.ini. However, you cannot autoroute between regions, and I think you run into operation problems if you have a file size over 64MB.

Thanks, Embra, I stand corrected on the size limit. I had not tested anything bigger than a 60 mb chunk, because I knew that some units had a limit of 64 mb map size.

 

I just now did a test on a 121 mb map region, and it converted and uploaded just fine - a bit slow though!. However, keep in mind, the larger the map size, the longer the E-500 takes to load into memory (close to a minute).

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I just now did a test on a 121 mb map region, and it converted and uploaded just fine - a bit slow though!. However, keep in mind, the larger the map size, the longer the E-500 takes to load into memory (close to a minute).

Hmm, that's interesting. I haven't ventured into the land of huge files yet, so the extended loading time is news to me. Seems like a bit of an issue. Even with the ~60MB files, it seems to take a bit of a while to load. (Let's check: 17 seconds for a 64MB DR file).

 

I thought your analysis to be on track in your first post of this thread. I do think that if you have a USB 2.0 reader you could load the files significantly more quickly. But, as you noted, it is a one-time (or at least rare) thing.

 

I would offer the suggestion that you keep your POIs on the SD card rather than in internal memory. Although unlikely to be needed, the backup afforded by having the file on SD card memory might save some aggravation if you have an event that requires clearing all memory or something else that wipes out your internal memory POIs. Additionally, I haven't seen any real advantage to using internal over SD memory for POI data (I could well be missing something, though).

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The reference I made being close to a minute for loading the Detail map was just plain wrong! :D I think my cat was sending me mental messages and confusing me. :P I did, however, redo the test again today when I was fully awake and it actually took 30 seconds, but that was from the point that I changed detail maps from one to the other. It actually takes even less upon startup. The 17 seconds you quoted for the 60 mb file is accurate. And it also takes only 17 seconds for the 121 Mb file.

 

I took it a step further this morning and tried with a 225 Mb chunk of map. This time I used a USB 2.0 SD card reader/writer, and chose "Upload To SD Card Programmer" option. It took 1 hour and 1 minute to create the 225 Mb map chunk on my laptop, and only 40 seconds to upload it to the SD card. And only 17 seconds to bring in this detail map upon startup. So it appears that 17 seconds is accurate for all sizes.

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I unwrapped my Explorist500 yesterday but am having trouble getting it to work in conjunction with my computer. I installed the software but all I get is some error message about the device malfunctioning and the computer not recognizing it. How did you get it so that you could send waypoints from the computer to the handset? My EasyGPS doesn't have "Explorist500" and the "GeoCache Manager" software that came with the receiver says no GPS found.

 

Help!

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Sorry I should have been more clear, WeekendWarrior1 is correct I meant make sure it runs down the backside of the GPS. Connect it to any known good USB port on your computer, it doesn't matter which you use. Also dont forget to upgrade to the newest firmware too once you get it working

Edited by D0T-C0M
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Czar...

 

This evidently happens often when people plug the gps into the computer before installing the drivers. Not sure if you did that or not, but I would try the following:

 

1. Unplug the gps from the computer.

 

2. Go to Device Manager on your computer (several ways to get there, but a couple ways are: a) Open Control Panel, then double-click on System; or... B) Press the Windows key and the Pause/Break key simultaneously.

 

3. Once in Device Manager scroll down to USB devices, highlight the explorist entry and then click Remove, then confirm the removal.

 

4. Now, I would shut down the computer, wait 15-30 seconds and re-start it. The drivers are probably still present on the system, so once the computer has restarted THEN plug the explorist into the computer, making sure the cable is running the proper direction. Now, the computer should recognize the new device.

 

5. If this doesn't work, then I would repeat steps 1-3, then shut down/restart, then run the installation CD again, then shut down the computer and restart it with the explorist hooked up while the computer boots.

 

Good luck.

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I've been having the same problem with my Explorist 400. I spent nearly an hour with a Magellan Tech today who determined that there was probably an issue with the data cable or the receiver itself.

 

I will probably exchange it at Costco this weekend.

 

I've also had a lot of trouble with the software not playing in the optical drive in my 2 month old notebook. The Tech conceded that they've had some bad discs and will send me a replacement set.

 

The guy at Magellan went through the whole uninstall, reinstall, troubleshoot process just to be sure that we tried everything and was very patient.

 

I wasn't too happy that my problem couldn't be resolved, but I was pleasantly surprised at the high level of customer service I received from Magellan. I'm already very happy with the performance of the the Explorist 400.

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Ninja,

 

Wow! What a great idea. Give me some time (tomorrow) to give some thought and type it up.

 

I'll have to re-read my original review, but I think I can say now that I feel about the same as I did then, but I'll make a bit of research before I put that in writing.

 

Jamie

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I just got an Explorist 500 - primarily because of the "unlimited" storage capability of the SD card. It seems to work great for maps so far, but I'm having a problem with geocaches. Every time I try to work with geocaches, they are not all showing up. I know there are geocaches in the file that are not showing up on my map screen, nor do they show up when I search by "nearest". I get a message "Some Geocache data can't be read due to size limitations" - and that's on a set of only a bit over 500 points. What's the point of "unlimited" if you can only load less than 500 - and even then, they STILL don't all show up.

 

For example, I just loaded a set of 493 geocaches, but the 3 closest to my house aren't showing up on the map or search.

 

Any help/info would help!

 

Thanks!

 

Jerry

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I just got an Explorist 500 - primarily because of the "unlimited" storage capability of the SD card. It seems to work great for maps so far, but I'm having a problem with geocaches. Every time I try to work with geocaches, they are not all showing up. I know there are geocaches in the file that are not showing up on my map screen, nor do they show up when I search by "nearest". I get a message "Some Geocache data can't be read due to size limitations" - and that's on a set of only a bit over 500 points. What's the point of "unlimited" if you can only load less than 500 - and even then, they STILL don't all show up.

 

For example, I just loaded a set of 493 geocaches, but the 3 closest to my house aren't showing up on the map or search.

 

Any help/info would help!

 

Thanks!

 

Jerry

 

Come by here tomorrow and I'll see if I can give you some on hands help. Also only 200 geocaches per file but the amount of files are only limited by the amount of free space on your SD card. If I remember correctly you can have 500 P.O.I.s per file.Come on down you'll meet a lot of nice cachers.

Edited by vagabond
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I just got an Explorist 500 - primarily because of the "unlimited" storage capability of the SD card. It seems to work great for maps so far, but I'm having a problem with geocaches. Every time I try to work with geocaches, they are not all showing up. I know there are geocaches in the file that are not showing up on my map screen, nor do they show up when I search by "nearest". I get a message "Some Geocache data can't be read due to size limitations" - and that's on a set of only a bit over 500 points. What's the point of "unlimited" if you can only load less than 500 - and even then, they STILL don't all show up.

 

For example, I just loaded a set of 493 geocaches, but the 3 closest to my house aren't showing up on the map or search.

 

Any help/info would help!

 

Thanks!

 

Jerry

 

Come by here tomorrow and I'll see if I can give you some on hands help. Also only 200 geocaches per file but the amount of files are only limited by the amount of free space on your SD card. If I remember correctly you can have 500 P.O.I.s per file.Come on down you'll meet a lot of nice cachers.

 

Thanks for the offer! I was already going to be there - helping with set-up and then returning from 4-6. I hope to run into you there.

 

Jerry

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I just got an Explorist 500 - primarily because of the "unlimited" storage capability of the SD card. It seems to work great for maps so far, but I'm having a problem with geocaches. Every time I try to work with geocaches, they are not all showing up. I know there are geocaches in the file that are not showing up on my map screen, nor do they show up when I search by "nearest". I get a message "Some Geocache data can't be read due to size limitations" - and that's on a set of only a bit over 500 points. What's the point of "unlimited" if you can only load less than 500 - and even then, they STILL don't all show up.

 

For example, I just loaded a set of 493 geocaches, but the 3 closest to my house aren't showing up on the map or search.

 

Any help/info would help!

 

Thanks!

 

Jerry

 

I completely agree with you ! I bought this Explorist a few days ago and I'm not happy at all with it, compared to my previous experience with low budget Garmins. This situation of limiting the points per file is completely insane and drove me to tears. All right, I'm almost there... I don't think I can resit another pair of days and not puting this unit for sale.

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I just got an Explorist 500 - primarily because of the "unlimited" storage capability of the SD card. It seems to work great for maps so far, but I'm having a problem with geocaches. Every time I try to work with geocaches, they are not all showing up. I know there are geocaches in the file that are not showing up on my map screen, nor do they show up when I search by "nearest". I get a message "Some Geocache data can't be read due to size limitations" - and that's on a set of only a bit over 500 points. What's the point of "unlimited" if you can only load less than 500 - and even then, they STILL don't all show up.

 

For example, I just loaded a set of 493 geocaches, but the 3 closest to my house aren't showing up on the map or search.

 

Any help/info would help!

 

Thanks!

 

Jerry

 

I completely agree with you ! I bought this Explorist a few days ago and I'm not happy at all with it, compared to my previous experience with low budget Garmins. This situation of limiting the points per file is completely insane and drove me to tears. All right, I'm almost there... I don't think I can resit another pair of days and not puting this unit for sale.

 

The unit is limited to 200 geocaches, and 200 points of interest (POIs). The workaround for this is to filter through GSAK geocaches by whatever criteria you like. I filter micros from all other types, but you could make it micros, small, regular, and large - or whatever. Only one type of filtered geocache could be loaded at a time in this way. Also, it is pssible to load POIs as waypoints. I load all my micros as POIs, and all the other geocaches under the geocache file. I reduce the distance on the filter until I get just under 200 to a file.

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The geocache files are limited to 200, the POI files are limited to 500. You can load caches as regular POIs (waypoints.) One of each type of file an be active and the points show on the map screen of the eXplorist. This means that up to 700 points will show on the screen. You can have an unlimited number of files in memory at a time, and make any one active. You can also access a waypoint/POI/geocache in any file whether it is active or not.

Edited by EScout
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The geocache files are limited to 200, the POI files are limited to 500. You can load caches as regular

 

...and of those latter 500, only 200 can contain comments.

 

Oh, and if you want turn-by-turn directions, that comes out of the budget of those last 500/200. So in reality, though you might have a spiffy 2GB memory card in your Explorist, if you are hunting caches in an even vaguely cache-rich target, this "200 of a kind at a time, but with excuses" thing can be a real drag.

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I just purchased and received a 500 a couple of days ago. I had been using a 210 for some time and decided I should move into the real world and operate in glorious living color! And I am very please with it. Can't say enough good words about it but my only experience with a handheld is with Magellan. I put in a small SD card and works well. I use it with Mapsend DirectRoute as I did with the 210.

 

One point when using that configuration (Mapsend an Explorist) Mapsend will only communicate with one Explorist. So if you have 2 units or upgrade as I did, you need to get rid of the old serial number and get the new one in and configured with Mapsend. That took me quite some time...trying to communicate with the help desk and almost non-English speaking technicians!

 

But bottom line I am very pleased.

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One of the reasons that I have been discouraged to purchase a color screened GPS unit is, the experience that I had going from the old black lcd screen cel-phones to the color phones. The color phones have way cooler features, but get them out in direct sunlight, and the screens visibility drops to near zero. Any similar problems in the field with the new color GPS units verses the old black lcd screened units.

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The geocache files are limited to 200, the POI files are limited to 500. You can load caches as regular

 

...and of those latter 500, only 200 can contain comments.

 

Oh, and if you want turn-by-turn directions, that comes out of the budget of those last 500/200. So in reality, though you might have a spiffy 2GB memory card in your Explorist, if you are hunting caches in an even vaguely cache-rich target, this "200 of a kind at a time, but with excuses" thing can be a real drag.

 

To be fair, the 500 regular waypoints have a 20 character name, and you can use several smart tags to include the type, difficulty, container size and more.

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One of the reasons that I have been discouraged to purchase a color screened GPS unit is, the experience that I had going from the old black lcd screen cel-phones to the color phones. The color phones have way cooler features, but get them out in direct sunlight, and the screens visibility drops to near zero. Any similar problems in the field with the new color GPS units verses the old black lcd screened units.

 

I can only speak for the 500...it shows up great in any light.

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Ok, after a few days of experiences, I came to some conclusions about the Explorist 500, some of them in a perspective of "versus my Garmin eTrex". And they are not good:

 

What I don't like in the Explorist:

 

1) Battery capacity; Garmin makes it easier with AA rechargable batteries.

 

2) Limited datafields in compass screen and absence with a screen with plenty of datafields.

 

3) Icons of Magellan. Garmin icons are much nicer.

 

4) How can I be 10 meters west of a point and the unit pointing 10 meters to east with 2 m of accuracy?

 

5) General graphical design of interface; I prefer by far Garmin concept.

 

6) Unlike Garmin it won't show the units up to meters until you are 100 m away of target.

 

7) Price vs Features.

 

8) Dump software, generally based in good ideas but with lousy development.

 

9) Limits on Geocaches in each file and specially in hints characters.

 

10) Would like to move waypoints (and geocaches) between files.

 

11) Is it refresh rate? Magellan takes long time to update compass when I turn, while walking. Garmin is almost imediate.

 

12) System to plug in the cable is not easy to use. Same goes to open the battery / SD cover.

 

13) Absence of a good software solution to manage waypoints between files, on unit or on PC.

 

What I DO like in Explorist:

 

1) File structure for user data.

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1) What are you talking about? So a single recharchgable battery is worse than two? Or the ability to use traditional AAA's or AAA rechargeables?

 

3) Uh, my icons look like the icons on GC.com.

 

4) Welcome to the world of consumer GPSr.

 

6) Must be from another country - we use miles and feet here. :laughing:

 

7) What features does your unit have that the 500 doesn't?

 

8) Not even sure what this means

 

9) Garmins have their limits too

 

10) It's called copy file or move file

 

enough of this - maybe you need to read the manual and take your garmin fanboy attitude somewhere else.

 

:laughing::(

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1) What are you talking about? So a single recharchgable battery is worse than two? Or the ability to use traditional AAA's or AAA rechargeables?

 

3) Uh, my icons look like the icons on GC.com.

 

4) Welcome to the world of consumer GPSr.

 

6) Must be from another country - we use miles and feet here. :(

 

7) What features does your unit have that the 500 doesn't?

 

8) Not even sure what this means

 

9) Garmins have their limits too

 

10) It's called copy file or move file

 

enough of this - maybe you need to read the manual and take your garmin fanboy attitude somewhere else.

 

:laughing::laughing:

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1) What are you talking about? So a single recharchgable battery is worse than two? Or the ability to use traditional AAA's or AAA rechargeables?

 

3) Uh, my icons look like the icons on GC.com.

 

4) Welcome to the world of consumer GPSr.

 

6) Must be from another country - we use miles and feet here. :(

 

7) What features does your unit have that the 500 doesn't?

 

8) Not even sure what this means

 

9) Garmins have their limits too

 

10) It's called copy file or move file

 

enough of this - maybe you need to read the manual and take your garmin fanboy attitude somewhere else.

 

:laughing::laughing:

 

I agree with your last comment!!!

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ok I just reveived my 500 on friday and spent the weekend caching with it. The one and only thing I found that i did not like about the unit is that I cannot zoom in on the map any closer than 100ft. The garmin I had allowed me to get down to 20 feet on the map. Are my just missing a setting in my 500?

Also the price of the maps is a let down but that is the same with garmin too.

 

Jayman11

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ok I just reveived my 500 on friday and spent the weekend caching with it. The one and only thing I found that i did not like about the unit is that I cannot zoom in on the map any closer than 100ft. The garmin I had allowed me to get down to 20 feet on the map. Are my just missing a setting in my 500?

Also the price of the maps is a let down but that is the same with garmin too.

 

Jayman11

First, I loved Jhwk's post. :( Now to answer your question. I've heard this criticism before, and what you are observing is correct. On the eXplorist you cannot zoom in any closer than the 100ft scale, while the Garmins let you zoom in closer.
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ok I just reveived my 500 on friday and spent the weekend caching with it. The one and only thing I found that i did not like about the unit is that I cannot zoom in on the map any closer than 100ft. The garmin I had allowed me to get down to 20 feet on the map. Are my just missing a setting in my 500?

Also the price of the maps is a let down but that is the same with garmin too.

 

Jayman11

First, I loved Jhwk's post. :( Now to answer your question. I've heard this criticism before, and what you are observing is correct. On the eXplorist you cannot zoom in any closer than the 100ft scale, while the Garmins let you zoom in closer.

Yeah, but what really chaps me is that the maps haven't been updated for years (Maggies). Not sure, but I think Garmin puts out some updates to there maps. anyone? anyone?

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Yeah, but what really chaps me is that the maps haven't been updated for years (Maggies). Not sure, but I think Garmin puts out some updates to there maps. anyone? anyone?

DirectRoute v3 does have updated maps--Q1 of 2005. However, since the original goal was annual updates, one can still manage to feel underwhelmed without breaking a sweat.

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Yeah, but what really chaps me is that the maps haven't been updated for years (Maggies). Not sure, but I think Garmin puts out some updates to there maps. anyone? anyone?

I'll give Garmin kudos for their autorouting and street maps. They seem more vigilant about updating their maps and have a much more generous licensing scheme. Who is Magellan kidding with their one license/one PC/one GPSr deal?
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I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, or even if this worked, but I did a lot of shopping around when I first purchased my GPS so when I saw the ad I figured I would post it, because I would have appreciated it. Anyway, if anyone belongs to Costco, (It's like BJ's or Sam's Club), I just saw an offer in the flyer good until 10/29, for a 500LE WITH 3-D Topo software included for $199.99 delivered. Hopefully this may help someone.

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I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, or even if this worked, but I did a lot of shopping around when I first purchased my GPS so when I saw the ad I figured I would post it, because I would have appreciated it. Anyway, if anyone belongs to Costco, (It's like BJ's or Sam's Club), I just saw an offer in the flyer good until 10/29, for a 500LE WITH 3-D Topo software included for $199.99 delivered. Hopefully this may help someone.

Actually, it's now listed at $179.99 delivered. Having just bought mine, I'll be asking for a $20 credit. :)

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My experience with my new eXplorist 500LE, having come from a Garmin Etrex Vista, are mostly positive. For me, the biggest gripes are:

  • only able to load 200 geocaches
  • unable to edit a geocache waypoint
  • unable to create a geocache on the unit (using 'mark')
  • no puzzle cache icon (all others are there, even events!!!)

Going from 1000 to only 200 caches loaded is frustrating given the amount of storage memory available between the internal memory and the SD card, so I'm hopeful this will be changed to at least 500 in an upcoming firmware upgrade.

 

Speaking of which, anyone heard if/when one will be coming?

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ok I just reveived my 500 on friday and spent the weekend caching with it. The one and only thing I found that i did not like about the unit is that I cannot zoom in on the map any closer than 100ft. The garmin I had allowed me to get down to 20 feet on the map. Are my just missing a setting in my 500?

Also the price of the maps is a let down but that is the same with garmin too.

 

Jayman11

 

Odd, my explorist got me closer than my friend's 60CSx he was using . Doesn't hat seem wierd that despite a usual 6 foot or less accuracy on a good day maggies can't zoom closer than garmins? Maybe magellan will change this in the next firmware update. Oh, 2 questions.

1. What does it mean when you zoom to 100 ft? (100 sq. ft.? 10,000 sq. ft.?)

2.Does anyone know when magellan will update the 500's firmware?! :)

Edited by ossumguywill
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* only able to load 200 geocaches

Yes, but in each file, with unlimited files. It would be nice if this was more than 200.

 

* unable to edit a geocache waypoint

You can mark a geocache as found. And toggle whether you want found ones to show on the map.

 

* unable to create a geocache on the unit (using 'mark')

Most of use have a file where we put multi-cache waypoints and enter caches manually, while in the field.

 

* no puzzle cache icon (all others are there, even events!!!)

Yes there is. I am looking at mine now and there is a ? icon for a puzzle cache.

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My experience with my new eXplorist 500LE, having come from a Garmin Etrex Vista, are mostly positive. For me, the biggest gripes are:

  • only able to load 200 geocaches
  • unable to edit a geocache waypoint
  • unable to create a geocache on the unit (using 'mark')
  • no puzzle cache icon (all others are there, even events!!!)

Going from 1000 to only 200 caches loaded is frustrating given the amount of storage memory available between the internal memory and the SD card, so I'm hopeful this will be changed to at least 500 in an upcoming firmware upgrade.

 

Speaking of which, anyone heard if/when one will be coming?

 

For puzzle caches label it "mystery" cache.

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1. What does it mean when you zoom to 100 ft? (100 sq. ft.? 10,000 sq. ft.?)

2.Does anyone know when magellan will update the 500's firmware?! :yikes:

1. The distance represented by the scale bar on the map.

2. Whenever Magellan feels like it. Last (and only) update was December of 2005. I don't anticipate anything for the 4/5/600 because the last update fixed the more glaring issues, and not as many users are complaining of anything critical right now. I do wish Magellan would bring the folks with the 210s and XLs up to speed. The 210s and XLs are using what the eXplorist 4/5/600s came out with 2 years ago.

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My experience with my new eXplorist 500LE, having come from a Garmin Etrex Vista, are mostly positive. For me, the biggest gripes are:

  • only able to load 200 geocaches
  • unable to edit a geocache waypoint
  • unable to create a geocache on the unit (using 'mark')
  • no puzzle cache icon (all others are there, even events!!!)

Going from 1000 to only 200 caches loaded is frustrating given the amount of storage memory available between the internal memory and the SD card, so I'm hopeful this will be changed to at least 500 in an upcoming firmware upgrade.

 

Speaking of which, anyone heard if/when one will be coming?

 

For puzzle caches label it "mystery" cache.

 

Ah, that was the problem. I was generating my .gs files using CacheMate for PPC and it was using 'Unknown Cache' rather than 'Mystery Cache'. When I edited the file manually and uploaded it, the correct icon now displays. I've let the developer know so this should be fixed soon.

 

Thanks for the help!

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I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, or even if this worked, but I did a lot of shopping around when I first purchased my GPS so when I saw the ad I figured I would post it, because I would have appreciated it. Anyway, if anyone belongs to Costco, (It's like BJ's or Sam's Club), I just saw an offer in the flyer good until 10/29, for a 500LE WITH 3-D Topo software included for $199.99 delivered. Hopefully this may help someone.

 

1st post here. Probably more once I get my GPSr and get into the steep part of the learning curve.

 

I bought the 500LE last night on costco.com. You can still order if you are not a member, they just charge a 5% fee on top of the price, plus sales tax, as I think most states have a Costco store. I paid a total of about $205, and this includes Mapsend Topo 3D. So still much (~$80) cheaper than any comparable (i.e. color screen, expandable memory, and topo software) Garmin or Magellan offer.

 

Looking forward to getting started in Geocaching. My 7-year-old keeps saying "When are we going to go look for treasure?"

 

Later,

David

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