princessangry's Full Review: Magellan eXplorist 210 Handheld GPS Receiver
First off I will tell you this unit is for more advanced GPS users. The Magellan GPS world centers around Mapsend software, Topo3D for topography maps, and DirectRoute for streets. You need this software to take advantage and use the eXplorist to it to its full potential! Maps are not pre loaded, if you want a GPS with pre loaded stuff and want to have one like the tom-tom ones you need to pay upwards of 400+ and those units are centered around streets and they aren't as portable and they aren't as good for camping and they have fewer geographical features such as mountains, creeks, lakes, valleys, etc and have POIs (points of interest)centerd around streets and stuff.
now onto the eXplorist 210! First of all the cold start was very quick when I first booted it up! Everyone else has stated 5-10 minutes but the very first start (this is in a large company van and moving and the fact that the city waspretty dense with tree cover and I was moving and alot of other stuff!) ours was about 3 minutes! and... had 10 satellites!
when I got home I got a present I got DirectRoute and Topo3D free from a freind that sold thier magellan to switch to tom tom :( bad for them good for me!
I was happy to get it free that saved me 150 bucks! Anyways I installed the software and windows recognized it, and whats cool is it mounts like a drive! witch is awesome since you can drag and drop map files into it like any other windows folder or pen drive! You can even store other files on it if you want to!
Also the mapping software has alot of POIs in it and even tells you the phone numbers to places like places to eat, hotels, car repair shops, etc! I also like the fact it breaks it down into types of cusine as well like chinese, itallian, fast food, etc! It breaks every single type of POI down into nice categories! The software is also useful as standalone too if you cannot get internet connectivity where you are at like a laptop on the road or you just moved to a place and havent gotten your net setup yet! You really get around like a local too! He he! The mapping software also can create routes, waypoints (POIs), etc, the upload them to the GPS. The software is pretty nice but has a bug when you look for a bank and the list keeps scrolling and won't stop! and the scroll bar is large but wont scroll right. I don't know if this is widespred or not I have had some visual C++ errors but it might be my computer since I had to cheat a lil bit to get VC++ runtime to work right since my windows is screwy. but that's the only problem I have with the software!
now onto the GPS itself! It is very easy to pick up on if you cna use a cell phone you can use this GPS! The buttons are self explainitory and don't have confusing icons like some other GPSs do. and the navagation is easy and is on the front unlike a couple other units I have seen from other brands that have it on the side as thumb controls, I like a front layout better. Next onto the display it is very clear and does what it's supposed to... display maps and routes! If that's all you need go for it if you want pretty colors step up to a better unit or spring for a RoadMate! the maps are compressed data using ASCII format so you can fit alot more on such small space. Speaking of space you can fit 22MB's of maps on here I have most of eastern ohio on there and I still have 8MB of space left! I can probably fit most of ohio and I fit half or arkansas on there and it took up only 8MB! I will tell you that you have to go to preferences>active setup to display any maps you did upload to it and it's very easy to do so!
now to the actual experience!......
I have logged over 3000 miles on my GPS in one month! It had been very good to me and only crashed twice and once is becuase I over did a few things and another was becuase a list was ungodly long and I got impatient with it. But so far it has been very stable so far as software is. It's OS is pretty easy to navagate around and it is laid out like windows but without a bloat of windows and is very clean and concise and not trying to be too flashy or gawdy, it does the job.
I also Love the GOTO route feature it is very easy to use all you have to do it define a POI and then click GOTO and it will give you turn by turn directions! (complete step: search for it in address, or any other field> provide info where field requests>save>then use GOTO to do it!) The manual is very good and it is very easy to follow I suggest you read it before you use it! Please!
and so far is reliability goes, The eXplorist has been very accurate and picks very aggressive routes, it picks the quickest instead of easiest, but don't you want to get there as quick as possible anyways!? I like the routes it chooses and for a trip from little rock arkansas to 30 miles west of marietta oh it had us going (start from louisville KY where I had detailed map start)took me through cincinatti and east on 32 instead of having me go through TN,VA,and WV and I am glad becuase it would have added 2 hours more driving time and it was very late at night! It picks very good routes! I will note that the software I got is 3 years old and it don't show alot of the newer roads but it tries!
also a neat feature on the compass screen is two fields, you can click menu and customize and you can select the field, and then you can scroll down and add the ETA and it will tell you the time you will get to your final destination but you must first define a GOTO route!
I also will add a few more shorties to sum up this review- it has sun and moon rise and fall, verticle profiling (must have track logging activated) and fishing and hunting times!
there are also track logging features that leave digital breadcrumbs where you were to you can backtrack to go to a favorite camping spot or if you want to go on a preferred route again. (this is a way to have a route set that isnt a multi-leg and isnt a GOTO (which can't be saved))
I would love to get into more detial but alot of it has allready been explained elsewhere and I just got back from a 6.5 hour trip and it went excellent thanks to the eXplorist!
I put 3000 miles on it and I celebrated it today! also I am due for an oil change too!
did I mention it is very easy to use! and It also has really helped me get around and all the miles I have put on this month I really got good use of it and it's good to take it on long trips that are complicated.
it has 22MB for the price of 8MB!
overall I love it and it's the best starter GPS to go with!
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