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Contemplating A New Gpsr


gdaybloke

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Posted

Afternoon folks, I thought I'd solicit some opinions.

 

I currently own a little Garmin eTrex yellow. It's been a good and faithful little GPSr since I took up the hobby, but I find myself wondering "Is there more to life than a small yellow eTrex?". The fact that I have some funds burning a hole in my ebay pocket right now doesn't help.

 

I've been watching ebay auctions on GPSr's, and seen the Magellan Sportrak, Explorist 300, Meridian (including one in colour) and Garmin eTrex Vista, eTrex Legend, GPS 72, Geko 301 all going for under $250 (about all I can afford at max).

 

My question is, what should I be aiming for here? Which units are better than the others? Is, for example, an eTrex Vista on par, above, or below an Explorist 300?

 

Anyone feel like helping a hopeless comparative newbie out?

Posted

The Vista might be a good bet if you're happy with the form factor of your yellow extrex but mapping, while great, adds to the cost which may put you over budget. The 72 isn't much better than what you have now and is larger.

Posted

My GF has an eTrex Yellow. I have an eTrex Vista. The Yellow aggravates me, the 6-character waypoint limit, the more coarse graphics, the memory limitations, the lack of mapping, the lack of a compass.

 

I love the Vista. Well worth every single penny.

Posted

My brother-in-law has a Vista; his only issue with it seems to be the sporadic need to recalibrate the compass.

 

Can anyone vouch for the Magellan's in comparison to the Garmins?

Posted

Can anyone vouch for the Magellan's in comparison to the Garmins?

I have a Meridian Gold, a GPSMap 60CS, and a Geko 201.

 

Comparison:

The Meridian locks and holds satellites far better than either Garmin in heavy tree cover. I just bought an external antenna for the 60CS which I haven't tried out yet, but I'm disappointed in its performance without the antenna. The Meridian also uses a card instead of fixed internal memory, so you can load up a huge amount of maps. It's on the large size and the monochrome display is not very crisp.

 

The 60CS has some great features -- geocaching mode, great point to point routing software, electronic compass. The colour display is easy to read and sharp. Its shape fits in your hand well. Battery consumption isn't too bad. Reception in the woods without external antenna is pretty bad. Fixed internal memory limits the amount of maps you can have loaded up, which could be a disadvantage for a long trip.

 

The Geko 201 is an OK starter unit, I keep mine in my pack as a backup. Similar problems to the 60CS with reception in the woods. Small and lightweight, display is fuzzy. Eats AAA batteries pretty quickly.

Posted

I use the Magellan SportTrak Map. I really like it because you can upload maps (6 mb) to it. No, it isn't colour and doesn't have the fancy features of a 60CS, but the price tag is right and I have never not found a cache due to the machine. I have cached with others who use Garmin Ventures and Legends, and I feel that my satellite lock is better. With all that said, next time I would look at a 60CS if I had the money. I like the features and the 1000 waypoint memory of the 60CS.

Posted

Half-Canadian did a great job on that review.

 

I started with a Yellow ETrex with no complaint.

 

I have a 60C now, and feature wise, I would have done things differently but still like it.

 

My main caching buddies, one uses a Vista (he loves it, but just bought a 76), and the other uses a Magellan Sporttrack (the 'card' option is great)

 

I've noticed that same thing others mension....

 

Garmins stay more accurate but tree cover affects satellite lock, often it's a long pause till it realizes it is 'off line'

 

Magellans maintain satellite lock well, but the screen refreshes too slowly so you end up passing the cache by 30 meters.

Posted (edited)

The Magellan definately has that "slingshot" effect. In my experience, the longer the GPS is on, the less the slingshot effect. If I am going out for 5 caches, I will sometimes walk past the first cache by 20 metres. It does correct itself, but it is frustrating. By the fourth and fifth cache, the GPS is right on. Weird :huh:

Edited by Chillibusher
Posted (edited)

Latecomer here. I had a Magellan eXplorist 200 (yellow) stolen last week, and have been trying a Geko 301 as a replacement, so I thought I'd share my brief experiences. What attracted me to the Geko over another eXp 200:

  • Size. The Geko is only about as big as my cell phone. Since I do a lot of urban caching and don't like to attract attention this (and the gray color) is a big plus. The Explorist is like a yellow baseball by comparison. If someone starts wondering what I'm doing with the Geko, I just hold it to my ear for a few seconds to "check my voicemail" :o
  • PC connection. Haven't played with this yet, but the idea of being able to grab a whole boatload of waypoints for browsing later sounds great. Major reason for trying Garmin over Magellan this time.
  • Digital compass. I always hated having to reorient the GPS-only compass on my 200 by walking extra steps -- when space is limited it's not always easy.
  • Altimeter. Sure, why not. (This and the digital compass are the only features the 301 has over the Geko 201.)

After a week, there haven't been any postitive surprises, really ... but:

  • The antenna just doesn't seem as good under tree cover, and it doesn't seem to lock in as quickly as the eXp 200. I need to have a CLEAR view of sky to get a good fast lock, and in Eastern US forests (or towns, for that matter) that ain't always easy :laughing:
  • Have to MANUALLY switch between WAAS and normal reception. Silly. If the WAAS data is present, it should use it, otherwise not. Magellan got this right.
  • I miss the eXp 200 rocker button for input. Granted if I get the PC connection going I may be able to do without, but it's nice to be able to enter a new waypoint name relatively quickly. The Geko controls are awkward in comparison.
  • Also miss the background map. Never realized how useful it was til it was gone.
  • Digital compass isn't as useful as I hoped. It still jumps around a bit, often to the point of being no better than the GPS-only compass.

So. I'm shopping again and may do an exchange, but I haven't decided for sure. If the Geko line is attractive to you at all, I would go for the 201 and skip the compass. OTOH if PC connection isn't important to you, I liked the eXplorist 200.

 

Good luck

Edited by nflagrante
Posted

Well, now that I've seen that one I've gotta throw my .02 in.

I just migrated from n eTrex Legend to an eXplorist 600.

 

The eTrex really had issues in downtown environments -- I couldn't get a lock after 30 minutes down on Front Street in Toronto for example. My eTrex was a faithful companion for 180 geocaches and worked like a champ, although it did tend to get confused by tree cover. It had mapping support and PC connectivity too.

 

My current GPS is above your spending point, so the eTrex may be for you. The eXplorist is pure black and looks a lot more cell-phone like than my eTrex did - but the main thing I'm noticing is that the satellite lock holds big time. Places my eTrex would check out don't seem to bother this little thing nearly as much -- and the screen update thing seems to be resolved. I find it leads me right to the cache more often than not, while I'm watching my wife wander all over the place with the eTrex. The newer eXplorists have PC connectivity and SD Card slots.

 

The geko line really didn't impess me much back when I was a "Garminite" with my Legend. Not when they were priced that close to the eTrex series and lacked some of the basic eTrex features. The map feature was a life saver on my Legend, as the GPS would get confused -- that's when I'd just aim for the middle of the mess of lines my tracklog drew on the map.

 

Can't say much about the Garmin compass but the one on my eXplorist sure helps.

Posted

Well, I got great deal on a Garmin GPSMap60 on ebay. The Magellan Sportrak Map was also on my shopping list, would have been nice, but I just couldn't catch a break in the auctions.

It's miles ahead of my eTrex yellow, so I ain't arguing.

Posted

Northern Penguin,

 

I have been waiting to see first hand, but have not had any time to get out shopping... Can you tell me what the situation is with the Explorist series, and the batteries? Is it an internal battery pack, or replaceable batteries? Or, is it a replaceable battery pack?

 

The reason I ask is that I would hate to be out for a day and have the battery run out before I could get home to recharge. Even worse would be a few days of camping with the battery dead after one day.

Posted

The eXplorist 500, 600 are now widely available. The battery pack is internal. There have been discussions in the forums of 'in the field' recharging methods - nothing official from Magellan though.

 

See this thread: eXplorist Accessories

 

My average caching session is about 12 hours and I have yet to hit the battery limits -- the key is to keep that backlight on the lowest setting.

 

I'm going to be using this unit on a 24 hour geocaching marathon in June. I'll be picking up an extra battery for it and using the car charging when I can.

 

On the one hand, it's a pain to not be able to grab some AA batteries and toss them into the GPSr out in the field - on the other, the battery pack is pretty small and will last a lot longer than a set of AA's would in the field.

Posted

Having read the thread about the Explorist plug being the same as the Sony Portable PlayStation I stopped by Walmart and it's right - there are all kinds of portable power solutions emerging for the PSP that will work with the Explorist (the PSP uses a very similar Li-ion battery).

Posted

I just bought my first GPS not too long ago. I chose the eTrex Legend. It seemed to be a good choice, in terms of overall features and mapping capability at prices comparable to other brands with less features. At first I was looking at the eXplorist 200 vs eTrex Legend as they were both just over $200 from Canadian Tire.

 

At first I was really leaning towards the eXplorist 200 because it seemed to be built most ruggedly, had 14 channels instead of 12 and sounds like its operation is very simple and fast where the Legend is supposedly not as easy (so I hear at least).

 

However, after finding out that it had no data input, that really helped make my decision. I believe it also had a reportedly shorter battery life (~4hr difference?). The final decision is that my uncle had bought MapSource already, and that with the Legend I could easily load up new maps and take advantage of that feature which I valued more than the advantages I perceived on the eXplorist 200. I didn't even consider the compass feature, I don't think that's very important. I will just carry a real compass if I need one, which doesn't need batteries to work.

 

I haven't really used other GPS' than this Legend or Garmin products, so I can't really compare this to others. But, the Legend seems to have a poorer signal due to its small size, and the proportionally smaller antenna that has to fit in the GPS body.

 

I wonder if it's possible to attach an external antenna port to it through modification? It would definitely void the warranty, and you'd probably need to have a good electronics background. I know people do this with some wireless ethernet cards.

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