MAGELLAN EXPLORIST 500

PanK

Hi
Has anyone got any experience with explorist handheld gps?
Im wondering to buy one and peats have explorist 500 for 99e.
Looks like a good deal,just wondering if it works well in ireland? are there any maps available?

Alun

Magellan as a company seem to have lost their way (rather ironic for a GPS company!). They used to have good products and a pretty good reputation until they were taken over by Thales,a French company, when they started to go downhill, especially their customer service has a reputation for being worse than terrible. They were then bought up by a venture capitalist and have apparently now got even worse, if that's possible.

From what I hear, the eXplorist range aren't bad units, but if anything goes wrong with it, then you may as well throw it in the bin for all the use their customer service will be. As far as maps are concerned I don't know that much about them I'm afraid, but for outdoor use, I'd imagine it's the same situation as for Garmin products, i.e. none at all (unless you count the home-made contour maps that are available).

gzoladz

Hi Pank! I am actually here for exactly the same reason as you. I saw that deal in peats and I am considering it as a replacement for my Garmin Etrex (great piece of kit!) as the price looks great.

In relation to maps for outdoors (i.e. mountain hiking), I remember to have seen websites were people upload their own tracks and you can download them into your gps unit. That helps if the maps don't have the detail you need.

Have you bought the unit yet? Any first glance review?

Thanks,
Gustavo

PanK

hi
i bought it.
The reason why it was that cheap it was the last one.
Finally get it for 80e cause of the lack of the battery
2 batteries and extra charger cost me 14e on ebay,so not that bad.
It looks grate,the only problem is the irish mapping.It has base map of ireland (main roads) and I've downloaded Mapsend Europe,but it has only detailed map of dublin and belfast city (and biggest european cities).
I'll be appreciated if you give me any idea where i can find any maps or routes. I've been using only pda with oziexplorer so i've found it very strange to use the satnav with no maps

i've found interesting gadget http://www.satmap.com/

gzoladz

Great deal Pank, congrats. I actually went to Peats today and they didnt have any left.
I have no experience with GPS with maps as mine doesn't support them, but I have seen a website called openstreetmap.org where you may find useful information.
Other ideas might be to create your route on Google Earth and upload it into your gps or download routes from sites like mapmyrun.com, bikely.com, etc.

As said, I have not done any of those myself.

Enjoy,
Gustavo