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(More customer reviews)After much comparison of Magellan and Garmin GPS, I plunked my $$ down on Magellen.
Purchase decision - My impression from OTHER reviews and info for Magellan was great hardware, weak software but considering all pluses, minuses and price points and my usage: hiking, biking, back-country skiing, driving, boating, I chose a Magellan Meridian Gold, 32meg memory, and Mapsend Topo Sofware. Keep in mind there's a lot to choose from and yet none seemed PERFECT.
I've now had it for 2 weeks of vacation time biking, hiking, driving and land surveying in S. Utah. I monkeyed with this unit everyday, becoming completely familiar with it's usage.
The Good: Solid, durable hardware. The Gold has a great feel, is a good size and fits into any of my outdoor shirt pockets. It holds satellite signal extremely well in trees, 2nd story house, Utah canyons. Solid feeling buttons and rubber armoring are all great. Seems to do very well on batteries using roughly a pair or less a day. (I already have a charger and extra batteries from my digital camera and headlamps).
The Bad: Mapsend topo software at 1:100,000 is not really precise at closest level. However, the amount of built in software and downloaded maps are sufficient for my usage and I can imagine the memory and processor speed needed for 1:24,000 topos. Also on the positive side Mapsend and Magellan built-in software has a ton of info! It's great having altitude, moon/sun info, vertical trip projections, and much more.
The Ugly: Magellan's method of setting routes and backtracking is absolutely terrible for my usage. I am so annoyed with this, I would return it if I hadn't already used it 2 weeks. Here's the deal -
If you go out for the day and retrace your route exacty, or just set it for the car in general it works very well. But so does a few cents worth of flagging, popcorn, or the cheapest GPS available.
In reality, I usually go on a hike, bike, or ski in some type of semi circle and at some point want to return to my nearest backtrack point and THEN start backtracking. I want the unit to beep when I get near the next point and keep counting them down. In the canyonlands of Utah and backcountry skiing here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this could really be useful.
However, this ONLY works easily if you exacty retrace your trail.
So... in everyday usage where you aren't going exactly back down your same trail (why have a GPS?) you have to build a route with the GPS and/or go through the user database and select the nearest backtrack points. And then if you don't keep manually going through the database and selecting the next point, it will just keep pointing back at the last one. This is ridiculously time consuming on a day hike and makes operating the GPS the whole excecise instead of enjoying the outdoors. THIS SEEMS LIKE IT COULD BE EASILY CHANGED BY MAGELLAN BY SOFWARE PROGRAMMING.
More ugly: Really ugly.
Okay, so you set waypoints along your way using the GPS. Great, it does this well with 2 clicks. But THEN what??? It's back to the problem above.
It takes SEVEN screen operations and even more arrowing buttons to get a single one of these into a route. This completely insenses me. I could walk around circles for a day and eventually catch up to my wife and find the car in the time it takes to make a route! WHY CAN'T MAGELLAN MAKE IT SO I SELECT ALL THE POINTS FOR A ROUTE AT ONCE!!!???? How about storing waypoints in separate databases to start with? Or using two buttons in a computer-like fashion to highlight and select?
THEN: after I've got a route made HOW ABOUT if the GPS allows me to select manual or automatic retracing???? In other words, I want to go on a trip and set waypoints along the way. (Remember this is easy) Then, no matter where I am when I want to return to camp, I dump all my waypoints into memory in a few clicks, point the way to the nearest, and as I approach each new one, (automatic mode) the GPS beeps and rolls over to the next (lower number) waypoint.
If Magellan would make route setting and retracing easy, this would be a real must-have piece of gear for all my trips. At present, it's an electronic toy to play with while walking on flat ground or while my wife is driving the car. To give it the benefit of the doubt is also perhaps a good last resort safety measure so that if I get really lost I know where the nearest town is.
The annoying part is it is so close to being great, but Magellan's software programmers apparently never leave the office!
One last word - I find the Gold a great decision over the Platinum for using less batteries, having less to break, not needing re-calibrated everytime you change the batteries (daily) and knowing I haven't paid even more for some hardware that is mostly a toy because of the software behind it. Plus, I wouldn't go somewhere I could really get lost without a basic topo map and compass!
Three Stars overall for amazing toy that gives you info from satellites in outer space!
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With 16 MB of built-in map data and a Secure Digital Memory Card slot, the Magellan Meridian Gold Global Positioning System receiver gives you plenty of memory to store and access location information. This rugged handheld GPS unit coordinates data from up to 12 satellites to pinpoint your location anywhere on the globe. The Meridian Gold's 16 MB base map gives you detailed information on U.S. cities, interstates, and waterways. Slide in a data card to get even more detail, or use a memory card to store waypoints and routes. The Meridian Gold has a variety of navigation screens that make it a breeze to use. The map screen will show you where you are, or, in the Cursor Mode, you can scroll through the map of your current area to see where you're headed. The compass screen makes it easy to quickly check your bearing, whether you're on foot or in your car. If you need coordinates, the Meridian delivers with easy-to-understand position screens that show all the relevant information for longitude and latitude. And with other handy displays like the road, data, speedometer, and satellite status screens, the Meridian Gold makes it easy to gather all the information you might need to get home, find your waypoint, or navigate across the country.
The Meridian Gold is PC-compatible and stores up to 500 waypoints and 20 reversible routes with up to 30 legs. It also comes with a quadrifilar helix antenna for optimal satellite signal reception and fast position fixes. WAAS and EGNOS capability adds to the versatility of this receiver, which can be operated in English, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or Swedish. With Meridian Gold's seven navigation screens and vertical-profile graphs that show elevations of the route traveled you be able to see your exact position. The oversized, backlit grayscale display allows you to easily see location information day or night, and it comes equipped with a backlit keypad for easy button navigation in any condition. Waterproof rubber armoring and an ergonomic, compact design add to the Meridian Gold's functionality. The Meridian Gold is compatible with Magellan's MapSend software, including MapSend Streets Europe and the recently released MapSend Topo for the United States. Vehicle, bike, and swivel mounts are sold separately. What's in the Box Meridian Gold GPS receiver, PC cable, 2 AA batteries, wrist strap, user's manual, and CD-ROM (user's manual with 9 languages).
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