Magellan SporTrak Topo Handheld GPS Receiver

Pros: Very Rugged, Good Features, Fairly Easy To Use
Cons: Expensive

If you're out hiking in the wilderness, trailblazing through rarely traveled wilderness, it's always nice to know where you are and where you're going. For the longest time I just used my military compass and a topographic map. Now I use my Magellan ...

Pros: Light, compact, full of features, strong reception, complete package.
Cons: Not much to complain about!! PC cable is serial (not USB).

After much research, I decided to purchase the Magellan Sportrak TOPO version because I wanted to have the detailed TOPO capabilities and information available. Overall, I have been very impressed with the capabilities of this GPS. I will go into ...

Pros: Pro's Excellent display and battery life, easy to program, and 128meg memory.
Cons: Con's Slow start-up, confusing controls and documentation, no additional memory.

This unit competes with a similar Garmin unit, but is far superior in ease of use and dependability. The SportTrak Topo was put to use in the Adirondak Mountains of New York. My son and I were on a 4 day hiking trip, involving many untrailed summits, ...

Pros: Good antenna
Cons: Non-existant physical Mapsend manual.

I concur with the previous reviews but would like to add that Thales/Magellan now ships the Topo with the new 3D Mapsend software which has considerably updated road and POI info. It is probably worth the premium you will pay for the newer edition since the CD will cost you about $80-90 by itself.
I don't think the topo data has seen as much improvement, so trekers won't notice the difference except for the 3D effect available on their computers, which is nice but not really anything more than geeky.