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"Great at what is is designed for..."
onPros Ease of use - my 8 year old learned how to use it in 15 minutes.
Accurate - next to my much more expensive GPS the coordinates are spot on in sync.
Durable - did I mention I bought this for an 8 year old, and a 10 and an 11 year old.
Price is good.Cons Lack of road routing capability.
Summary This is an amazing product for the price and for what it was built for, Geocaching. If you want a full feature GPS this shouldn't even make your list to compare. It could be updated via firmware to do those things but why should Magellan make this unit compete with its own more expensive models? They have built an excellent GPS and given it a very accessible price point. The ease at which even my 8 year old daughter learned to use it shows the effort Magellan put into its design. And durable. This thing is built well, that is all there is to that. Magellan even gives you free software from their website that you can use to hook this GPS up to a laptop or netbook and turn it into a full function GPS. The four star rating from me is because it is not the Swiss Army knife of GPS devices out of the box. The software and tools to make it great should be on a disc in the box or a file on the internal storage that can be installed and used without searching the web to learn about what else the device can do.
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"Great for entry level geocachers or as a backup GPS."
on by kpauldPros Built specifically for Geocaching so it has all the geocache info like description, cache size, attributes, cache hint, and recent logs. It also can download any pictures for each cache directly from geocaching.com
Cons The joystick can prove to be cumbersome.
The cache description and other info can be hard to read.
You cannot manually update your cache "finds" number on the device.
Once a cache is logged as found, it stays listed on your main list.Summary Not a bad device for entry level geocachers but the system could use some improvements. Unlike other GPS units, the eXplorist GC built for one use and is limited in terms of customization. It is a bit small as well and could really use a touch screen display and more customizable options.
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"This is a very good GPS. It does exactly what it says."
on by JMarsh11Pros very accurate, easy to use, rugged, gets the job done
Cons Some may say it doesn't have navigation and it doesn't have a ton of features, but it doesn't claim to. No cons here!
Summary I got this GPS in the mail today. Ordered it online for $170, no tax or shipping. I took it out and couldn't stop geocaching. I found 13 before the day was over. It took me right to every cache and I was successful every time. This unit does exactly what it claims to do and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good geocaching GPS.
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"Good, but but could be better"
on by amadensorPros Great integration with Geocaching. Great to have all of the info on the device. Paperless is the only way to go!
Cons The on screen keyboard is terrible.
Summary The device is great overall. It is nice to be able to download all of the data directly from the website, and not enter it on the device. The best part is that it uses the GPX files created by Geocaching.com, and it looks to the computer like a thumb drive. This means that you can use it without their special software. That is a great feature if you are borrowing a friend's computer to load more info, or if you don't use Windows.
It really could use two things:
There was a glitch uploading the logs back to the website, but that has been corrected in the newest version of the firmware. Accuracy has been very good, and signal pickup in difficult areas is better than average.
The on screen keyboard is worthless, but what do you expect, typing stuff out with a joystick. We rarely put anything in there, and if we do, it is only a word or two to remind us of something we wanted to enter when logging it later.
A great device for Geocaching, but definitely load it with a pocket query. The few loaded by default are not enough to do anything more than figure out how it works, and having up to date info is invaluable when searching for something.
Updated on Jul 2, 2010
1) Add on maps. I would love to be able to get topo maps.
2) Street navigation. It would be nice to know which roads to use in order to get close. In some areas, knowing which road actually goes through to get there can be a challenge.
Magellan eXplorist GC user reviews
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Quick Specifications
- Destination Hiking
- Maps included Worldwide
- Mfr estimated battery life 18 hour(s)
- Weight 5.2 oz
