Magellan eXplorist 200 Handheld GPS (Yellow)

Rating:
Summary: Good for driving and backpacking.
Review: I love this little critter. I find the built in map for driving handles most major roads and all of the interstates. On my latest 14 hour trip to several relatives, I was on a marked road 98% of the time. Zooming out tells me when intersections will be coming and the GOTO ETA is pretty much right on (when will we be home, daddy? 1 hour 27 minutes plus or minus 5 minutes... Oh...) Thing is as bad as a cell phone for driving distraction.
Screen is very nice. Contrast is great. Looks good from full sun to dim light and the night light takes over from there. Words are very legible (it does take some skill to read Lake Mooselookmyguntic while driving tho)
Accuracy while hiking will get you within 30 feet regularly so works for trail finding and maps. The joystick does take some getting used to but works fine once you get the hang (push from the side not from the top). Lots of self help built in (reading material on my long walks out). Battery life is good and I use rechargeable double AAs NIMH and get a good 6-7 hours out of them. I carry a couple of extra with me. Swapping batteries is easy and can be done without tools but needs bare fingers to unscrew the D ring screw. Nothing is lost when swapping batteries. Takes about 1-2 minutes to sync up with the satellites when turned on. Picks up the satellites well in my pocket or nestled in the cars door handle. The night light feature is very nice and does not knock too much off of the battery. Lightweight, takes a drop onto concrete with just a nick here or there on the case. Buttons have a good feel and can be manipulated by feel while driving. Buttons need to be pushed with bare fingers or very thin gloves. One very neat feature is that the sun and moon are located on the compass when they are above the horizon. Donno how they do that. Compass works only when moving but it only takes a few steps to get it to work
For backpacking there is one major issue. The odometer does not track accurately in the woods. If the GPS loses track somewhere where the trees are thick, the odometer stops logging during that time. The funny thing is that the active track is spot on. Just use the active track to figure out how far you have walked. The breadcrumbs work great. I could care less about downloading content or maps or topo stuff. That is what printed maps are for and I would never trust an electronic device to get me out anyways.


Rating:
Summary: Not for travelling hiways and biways
Review: 5 stars for trail use, 0 for travelling roads. while this gadget would work well for trekking offroad, its not great for roads.
Dont get this thinking your going to use it to navigate roadways.
While it does show interstates etc it does not map your route, so you better know how to get where your going already. It simply draws a straight line from point A to point B and indicates where you are.
The menus are also to slow to navigate, I drive for a living an need fast inputs, I need to put in street address's not just a city. I work long hrs and need an external power source as well. There is no connectivty to palm or laptop.

Rating:
Summary: Probably not worth your money.
Review: I already have a Magellan Sportrak and I'm perfectly happy with it. I just needed something with roadmaps. So when Magellan came out with the eXplorist 200, I said ok, and bought it. It got here today. I installed the batteries, turned it on and started driving. I was immediately dissapointed. The detail of the mapping of this unit is horrendous. It's as if they randomly picked streets they thought would be good to put in the device. It's almost funny how few streets this thing shows in my area. Now you're probably thinking I live in some backwoods place that this thing won't map. I live in Charleston, SC. One of the largest cities in SC. I'd say this thing shows less than .5% of the streets here. I bought a Garmin eMap well over 5 yrs ago that had a million times more detail than this thing. Save your money and get something with better mapping capability if that's what you're looking for.

Rating:
Summary: Great for the Explorer
Review: I have really enjoyed this product. I've found that most of the Magellan products have a fairly similar control/interface setup. It is easy for people of all ages to learn and enjoy. The maps aren't very detailed but I find they are detailed enough. If you are looking for something that will show you city streets in detail this is not for you. However if you still want a little bit of adventure give it a try. The backlight is great you can use it well after dark and still see perfectly. The battery life is fairly standard and the satellite lock is great. The only thing I don't like about the model is the joystick in the center. I find the unit often thinks I'm pressing enter instead of trying to scroll in a certain direction. Thankfully they have put the ESC button right below it. Sometimes this is a nuisance but I am learning and it definitely does not stop me from highly recommending this unit.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific GPS for Family Geocaching
Review: My 8-year old son read an article about Geocaching and really got excited. I wanted to get a GPS handheld that offered great value and ease-of-use. I tried the Garmin eTrex, eTrex Legend, Geko and the Magellan eXplorist 200 (a local Geocaching club let me field test the units) and I downloaded the manuals from the Garmin/Magellan websites and poured over them.
The verdict -- I bought the eXplorist 200. The base map gives you the major freeways, highways, and cities -- even parks and national landmarks. The buttons and functions were the most intuitive of any of the models tested -- very important when you have children operating the unit. The LCD screen is as big as the expensive models and highly legible in ambient light. My son loves it and the entire family is getting lots of hikes and geocaching done in the great outdoors.
What happens next? I will save up for a more powerful unit with a PC connection, map software, etc, now that we are hooked on GPS navigation. The eXplorist will remain with my son -- like cell phones, it is always a good idea to have an extra one around...

Rating:
Summary: No PC Connection
Review: The major drawback of this model is that it CANNOT be connected to a PC. My primary application of a GPS is to hook it up with my laptop with Microsoft Street and trips running. Therefore, I would recommend a Garin model at similar price which Does come with a PC cable.