Handheld GPS Reviews

Magellan eXplorist 210 Waterproof Hiking GPS Product Reviews

Good Value PC Compatible GPS, Scratchable Display Plastic, January 17, 2006

I have not had this device long, but we did spend a day geocaching with it. It performs very well.

I chose this model because I wanted a GPS unit that I could access with my PC through USB and this seems to work very well. Included is a small application that will convert .loc waypoint location files to the .gs files that this unit uses.

When I plug the USB cable into the unit and then into my USB hub and power up the GPS unit, it appears as drive H:/ and I can move/rename/copy/etc. the files in the GPS unit without having to use the GPS interface, which is a time saver.

It has a nice readable map that can be zoomed out to see the whole planet, or zoomed in to a 100ft scale. It recognizes primary roads and highways in my town and knows the name of the lake I live near. Apparently I can also purchase and download custom maps from mapsend, but I haven’t tried that yet.

Without even reading the manual, just by fiddling with the gizmo, we were able to figure out how to find our geocache destinations, set a route, add waypoints, and choose custom icons for the waypoints from a selection of maybe 20 or 30.

I can’t comment on battery life because I haven’t worn out a set of batteries yet, but I think other people have commented on that.

This unit is accurate enough that it can tell when I *turn around in place and face a different direction* which is pretty amazing to me. I am very pleased with the performance.

I did take one star off because already the clear plastic over the display has gotten scratched. BE WARNED: the display is VERY EASY to scratch. I’m going to have to find a little leather case or cloth bag or something for it. As a comparison, I have carried my nokia cellphone around in my pocket with my car keys for about three years and there is no significant scratching on the display, but with this GPS unit, whatever plastic they chose, it got scratched up quite a bit with just a few hours in my pocket (with carkeys). I realize that wasn’t too bright of me, but I know there are more durable plastics out there because of my experience with my nokia, so… just be careful! Now the screen looks like its got dust on it that can’t be wiped off…

Other than that, I am very pleased and feel that this unit is a good value.

A Low Cost GPS with USB Connectivity, October 25, 2005

I have owned the Explorist 210 for 3 weeks and have no complaints. The accompanying Geocache Manager is simplistic but effective for loading geocache data into the GPS. It certainly beats entering it by hand like the 200 and 100 models require. The unit is light and the dual level amber backlight is effective in low light situations. I have not taxed the reported 22M of memory yet. I bought this unit specifically for geocaching and it definitely fills the bill.

Easy to use device but a bit quirky, May 7, 2006

After a few hours of research, I chose the eXplorist 210 as my GPS unit of choice for geocaching. I have only played around with a GPS unit once, so don’t really have a lot of experience with other models. The 210 was chosen for it’s PC capability and 22MB of space for background maps. Non-PC capable GPSs don’t sell for much less, but you’ve got to plunk down a lot more money for a unit like the 410 that has an SD card interface.

The price here is really good, but I took another user’s advice and looked online for the Outdoor Bundle – it saves you a lot of money if you want the PC cable, the car charger, the carrying case, and the Topo-3D software. I view all of these as essential, and highly recommend that you get them with the GPS unit.

Overall usability of the unit is great. I was able to figure out how to use the unit in little time without much use of the manual. The first boot was a pain, probably due to the residential neighborhood that I was in that offers a limited sight line. According to the manual, the device should search for a few minutes and ask you questions to help if it doesn’t work in that timeframe. I found one sattelite only, so there was no chance to get to this magic screen. While driving to work the next day I was able to get signals and it’s worked fine since then.

On my first geocache trip, I was able to about 30 feet of accuracy in thick woods. Sometimes it would be less accurate, but judging by the reviews of others, seems it performed rather well. 7 hours of use left me with a little more than half ot he battery life left.

I feel that this unit misrepresents a bit in it’s claim of being USB capable. While the cable does use USB to connect to your computer, it’s really a serial interface with the unit. This makes it MUCH slower than a USB interface – a 20MB background map took about 7 minutes to download to the unit. Also, the serial connector is symetrical, so you can connect the cable to the GPS upside down, making it fail to work with your computer. The special design of the port means that you’ve got to buy their cable – you can’t use a much cheaper off the shelf cable. The manual doesn’t say the correct orientation to use. If you connect the unit and get an “unrecognized device” message from Windows, flip the connection around so the cable is pointing to the bottom of the unit.

The Topo 3D software that came with the bundle was Version 1. I’ll review it separately, but thought I should mention that it doesn’t natively support this device. You need the eXplorist’s own software to convert files – a big inconvenience. I thought the software was also flaky.

The cable interface and the software are the reason why I took away 1 star.

Overall, I’d say that with the Outdoor Bundle you’re getting the best GPS value for under $200 total. If you’ve got more money to spend, take a look at the eXplorist 410, which offers an SD card to save larger maps to the unit. The Eastern Shore of MD, DE, and VA (Delmarva) takes up about 20MB total. For my trip to Canada this summer, I’ll likely have to use a laptop several times to change maps during my travels.

The 410 unit is only about $30 more right now. Once you buy the essential accessories, you’ll be spending about $150 more total.

Good basic GPS, not great, June 1, 2006

I bought the Explorist 210 for a recent hiking/birding expedition in Belize. I practiced using the unit at home for a few weeks before the trip and used it continuously on the trip. A few comments on the device:

Pros:

1) The GPS receiver and accuracy is very good. It works almost everywhere except inside buildings and under dense forest canopy. It worked on foot, in car, on boats, and it kind of worked on a small plane traveling from Belize City to Ambergris Caye.

2) There are no road maps available for Belize, so I was basically using the tracking feature and comparing it to a folding map while driving to determing where to take turns and distance to destination.

3) When hiking, the device worked very well when needing to find our way back or determining if we had been on a familiar looking trail before and “did we turn right or left here.”

Cons:

4) The user interface is not great. Some of the menus seem to be “hidden” and only appear at on certain screens and it is not very intiutive. The file structure is also confusing because you can save to folders or files, and from what I can tell, the files are exactly like a folder. This is very confusing. There is also no main menu that takes you to all commands. Some commands/menus only appear when on certain screens and the user interface conventions used are not consistent with computer standards.

5) The USB interface and software only allows you to load geocache points, not Points of Interest. I could not find any way to load Points of Interest. You can access the text files containing the points of interest, but the file layout is not obvious so I did not feel comfortable messing with this file.

6) The user manual provided with the unit is pretty basic, however, there is a 200 page user manual available on the CD provided with the unit (it would have been nice for them to tell you this somewhere).

7) The clock does not automatically set itself. How can a device know my location anywhere on the earth within 30 feet and not know what time it is?

The border between Belize and Guatamala was not very accurate on the GPS base map. We were clearly in Belize and the unit thought we were in Guatamala. It was probably off by about 1 mile (the border on the map, not the GPS coordinates).

Excellent unit and great buy on amazon!, March 16, 2006

I’ll keep it short and simple. It is certainly not a $400 GPSr, but if you are looking for an easy to use geocaching unit with the ability to download cache info from the computer then this is the best you can get for your money.

It gets satellites fast, WAAS in only a minute or two. It displays simple maps without having to buy them (major roads, creeks and lakes). Displaying geocache info: everything from name, difficulty, id#, and hint if you want to see it.

My first day using it, in a harsh overcast sky, it got down to 7ft accuracy. Never seen that before!

I bought it new from amazon, with 2 day shipping and got it in only 1 day. Definitely a great deal, absolutely no buyer’s remorse!!

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Review Update:

Most people reading this are reading it because they are comparing different GPSrs to decide what to buy. Mine was just stolen and I started shopping around again so I thought I would give a personal comparison here.

For waypoint marking and geocaching this is one of the best units you can get. When it came to accuracy and keeping a strong signal under trees this is the best unit I owned.

When mine was stolen I figured, “hey an excuse to upgrade”. So I went and got a fancy $400 GPSr with all the bells and whistles. Auto-nav and color topo maps are great, but I discovered that when it came down to the gritty use of the thing caching, I still mutter “I wish I had my explorist”. Hows that for a comparison?

Great Buy for a Mapping GPS, April 20, 2006

I did a ton of research before I decide to make my purchase. This is my first GPS, but I wanted to get something that I wouldn’t grow out of too fast.
The explorist 210 came with everything I wanted, USB connection, enough memory to load multiple maps, compass, altimeter, and a basemap. It was simple to get going. The software is pretty straight forward. I did run into a small problem loading maps, but it was a simple mistake on my part that was cleared up in 5 min by customer support.
If you look around, some retailers are selling an outdoor bundle. I got mine for the same price Amazon is charging for just the GPS. It includes a car power adapter, carrying case, and the MapSend Topo 3D software that sells for $80 alone.

I would definatly reccomend this GPS.

Great for Geocaching!, February 16, 2006

*** Updated 11/11/2008 – the $387 price quoted as of this update is ridiculous!!! Go elsewhere to purchase this item!!!! ***

I purchased this item over a month ago and have no complaints. When I first started researching which GPS unit to purchase, I was exclusively looking for a great geocaching unit. However as I continued the search I began to contemplate purchasing a more advanced unit that could be used both in the car for navigation and for geocaching. This approach was narrowed down to the Garmin GPSMap series (much more expensive than the eXplorist 210)! However, the more I investigated the more I realized the limitations of these more advanced, higher priced handheld units. Their drawbacks seemed to parallel those of early PocketPCs: limited internal memory, limited use of external additional memory, troublesome operating systems and PC connectivity, expensive additional software and color screens that sucked battery-life at an alarming rate. As a result of these drawbacks I decided to purchase the geocaching geared eXplorist 210… and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s nice to have detailed maps, but when your geocaching and off the main trail anyway the base map works perfectly. The menu’s and Geocache Manager software are both very intuitive and easy to master and the only reception problem I have experienced was in thick forest on a cloudy day with heavy snow fall… even then I still had a signal. So if you’re looking for a great unit for geocaching I definetely recommend the eXplorist 210; however if you’re looking for a combination in-car-navigation and geocaching unit I recommend waiting a few years until the “growing pains” are done… .

Great GPS unit!, December 29, 2005

I have been using this unit for about a week now. In a word, it is awesome. It acts as a flash drive when connected via the included usb cable. You can access all the files stored on the unit in this way. Apparently, most gps units only have serial connections and must use proprietary software to upload files. (I am very happy that I don’t have to deal with that on this unit.) Also, the geocaching points feature is very nice. I simply use the included software to convert my .gpx file to the .gs used by the unit. This lets you carry the coordinates, person who places the cache, last found, hint, etc info with you. I think the only thing missing is the “description” field. However, I don’t know if any gps unit will show that field. In most cases, you don’t need that field anyway. I have used the unit to log about 20 cache finds so far. In any case, I highly recommend this unit.

ok gps, mapsend software incompatible., June 26, 2006

The GPS works fine, but I bought this unit because of the software available that it was supposedly compatible with. Do NOT purchase this unit if you think it will work with any of the mapsend programs. It will NOT work. I have spent 3 days of sending emails and making phone calls, and cannot get any support from this company whatsoever. I still have yet to load topo map one into this gps. With no releif in site. I have resigned myself to the fact that I am going to have to send it back. As for the technical support from Magellan… I would rate it a negative 5 on a scale from one to ten. The very worst I’ve ever experienced.

Explorist 210: Perfect for Geocaching, January 30, 2006

I purchased this unit for Christmas after a lot of research. What the research seemed to tell me is that the Magellans perform better under tree cover than the other leading brand. That said, I can only speak from my experience with the 210 which has been awesome. I primarily use this for Geocaching, and after 60+ finds in a month’s time I can honestly say it has never led me astray and I am still without any DNFs. I am always within 20 feet of the cache, and usually it is much closer. Of course cloud and tree cover can be a factor, but I am yet to see it significantly. The navigation screens are very helpful and customizable, and the controls are very intuitive! The USB connectivity is an added bonus for the price and is also a time saver and easy to use. I would suggest using rechargeable batteries as they seem to last longer. I have been able to perform 8+ hours of caching without the batteries going dead. In my experience you can’t go wrong here.