Re: Magellan Explorist GPS

Danny Colyer wrote:

I've had quite a detailed and informative e-mail from Nigel Cliffe
about the Garmins, thanks Nigel.

You're welcome (and I got online unexpectedly tonight).


............... So I now have a shortlist of 2
models, the Magellan Explorist 210 and the Gamine Venture Cx.

I'm assuming that the basemaps will be fairly similar for both.

The Magellan is £130 from globalpositioningsystems.co.uk, has a
monochrome display, a quoted battery life of 18 hours, features a
digital compass and is supposedly accurate to 7m.

The Garmin is £160, has a slightly larger 256 colour display, a quoted
battery life of 32 hours, doesn't have a digital compass and is
supposedly accurate to 15m.

The accuracy of both will be about the same. Better than 10m with good view
of satellites without WAAS/EGNOS correction. Good enough to track different
sides of an ordinary road.

The Garmin has a Compass based on GPS.
Check whether the Magellan is the same (I'd expect it to be).

The Garmin lacks a magnetic compass which the more expensive Vista model
has.
The magnetic works if unit is stationary, but its a heavy battery drain.
However, move 30 feet and the GPS compass can work things out.


I've read that if I want to load additional map data then the Garmin
will be restricted to Garmin maps, I believe the Magellan is less
restricted.

As I understand things, both use proprietry mapping formats. So, you get
what they choose to sell at the prices they choose to offer. I think
Magellan have a few more European topographical titles in their range than
Garmin.

Choice and price of maps might be a key deciding factor.


Garmin format has been largely cracked by reverse engineering, so public
domain stuff exists, including topographic data for the UK and much of
Europe. However, routable road maps are really beyond amateur hacking at
the moment due to time taken to construct the data.
Not sure if the same exists for Magellan, it didn't when I was deciding
between the two about a couple of years ago.


I like the idea of the compass on the Magellan,

Garmin has near identical compass screen, with up to four data fields which
can be customised to display whatever information you require (eg. distance
to next point, estimated arrival time at next, position, speed, glide slope
(or something, can't see the use on a bicycle!), or whatever)

and the greater
battery life of the Garmin. Aesthetically I prefer the look of the
Magellan, but that's hardly relevant.

Whether you can work the buttons on a bike does matter.
Both units were designed for holding in hand and working with fingers/thumbs
whilst in the hand, so on-bike use is always a bit "iffy".
Think about that aspect.


It looks as though the
Magellan can store more waypoints.

That looks to be the case. Though I've never had a problem in a couple of
years with the 500 limit of the Garmin.
My email gave hints of how to extend the waypoint total to millions by
converting to POI data as another map layer. This is easy if you are OK with
computer tools.


I've downloaded the user manuals for both, I'm going to have a look
through those to help with my decision.

Good plan.
However, I suspect both manuals don't really do both machines justice.

There is an alternative good Garmin manual available, some of it online, by
Dale Priest (no time to google the URL for you).



Overall I think the Garmin is the more capable, the display is a lot better
than B&W displays I've used. If you start adding maps to a B&W you run into
a problem distinguishing lines on the screen (is it a road, or a route you
are following?). Colour largely solves that problem.
But the Magellan will do the job, its a bit cheaper.



- Nigel


--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/


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