Customer Reviews

Magellan SporTrak Color Water Resistant Hiking GPS

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Good:

As far as handheld GPS units I have used the Garmin GPSMAP 76, the eTrex Vista, eTrex Legend, and this Magellan unit. The first thing I noticed when I started the unit up in my house was that it was extremely good at finding satellites. None of the Garmin units could consistently get a fix inside the house, and when they could, they had to be next to a window. This unit can get a decent fix just about anywhere in the house and I am on the lower floor of a two-story duplex. This ability to get a signal is also true in a car and on the trail.

The feel of the unit is solid. It has a rubber rim, which feels good in the hand, and the smaller lighter form makes it a better fit in the hand than the GPSMAP 76. The buttons have nice backlighting and the placement at the bottom makes it easier to operate without obscuring the screen with your fingers.

The color screen makes topo maps and highway maps much easier to read than on the grayscale units. This is especially so with topo maps where water is blue, trails are black and topo lines are green as opposed to Garmin units where you have to put the cursor over some lines to check if they are topo lines or roads. The only downside to this is that the Magellan maps are not quite as good as the Garmin ones. Though they are decent.

The Bad:

First off, the unit has a Barometer, thermometer and compass like the 76S and the vista, but there is NO barometric altimeter, which adds to the GPS elevation accuracy. This came as a real surprise to me. I could not understand why that would be left out when it seemed like all it would take was software once the sensors were there. I talked to Magellan and they said there were no plans to update the software to include a barometric altimeter.

While the sportrak color has the best resolution of any of the Magellan handheld units, the screen is not nearly as sharp as the Garmin units. Colors are also a bit washed out even after adjusting the contrast. And the screen harder to read in daylight due to the background of the LCD simply being darker.

The interface is miles behind the Garmin units. It is hard to navigate through the menus. Thing are present under some screens but not others and there is little that is intuitive. I found I would figure out how to do something then could not repeat the process. Turning on and off the magnetic compass for instance takes digging into nested menus as opposed to the one button push it takes on the Garmin units. The vista comes with a little manual while the Sportrak comes with a large one. The reason is obvious.

One of my biggest bones to pick with the unit is the lack of field options. On garmin units you can display vertical speed, Stopped time/moving time, coordinates (Magellan only displays these on the coordinates screen), and many other nice fields. On the Magellan units the options are limited to the basics while Garmin offers fields I didn't know I wanted but I love.

Conclusions:

The strongest points for this unit are the color screen and its ability to acquire satellites. These points are sometimes overshadowed by the interface and the sharpness of the screen. Though, every time you are in a deep canyon or on a tree covered trail and all the other units are struggling you'll be happy. The alarms are something that no eTrex units have, while the smaller size is definitely something to think about when comparing it to a GPSMAP 76 or 76S.

I like the unit overall, but I wish the software would be updated to be more flexible and user friendly. You just can't have it all.

I purchased the Sportrak Color from Amazon for $229. My local retail stores listed it at $349-$499. The reviewer that stated that the this unit is hard to use and is non-intuitive gave me great pause before purchasing it. With such a great price vs. all other listings, I went for it anyway. I'm very pleased with the system. As a complete GPS novice and as a test of the systems ease of use, I did not read the instruction manual. I only turned to the page that identified the functionality of each button. Anyone who has ever used a computer or played a video game can operate this unit intuitively.

I also purchased the MapSend Direct route software. I uploaded most of Michigan on it and started browsing streets in my general area that would require several turns to reach. I put the cursor on a street and pushed the GOTO button. It instantly asked me if I would like to go there. Neat, huh? I used the unit in my vehicle, laying it down in the center console. It guided me to the street with audible prompts, visual direction arrows, and street names to turn at.

I don't claim to know anything about GPS, but I love it.

I intend to use it for street directions and fishing spots.

It has a compass, barometer, altimeter, Color disply, and is VERY easy to use.

I have a Magellan Sportrak Pro and I like it a lot for its practical design and accuracy. Naturally I was keen to move up to the Sportrak Color and improve performance. Instead I have found the Sportrak Color has what appears to be a design flaw so serious the unit is almost unuseable.

The problem is that the screen is so dim it can't be seen in normal daylight. I'm used to my Sportrak Pro's screen and I've never had problems in any environment, day or night. This unit is very nice at night only, I mean ONLY. In the daylight, you can't see any detail on the screen at all - Period. The screen is so dark, you just can't make out any details.

I tried contacting Magellan and they were unresponisve, saying only that the contrast control would adjust brightness - It Doesn't - and nothing else.

It appears to me that Magellan did not do its homework on this one and I am disappointed, both with the unit and with Magellan's response, which is basically zero.

I am now back to looking at Garmin.

This was my third GPS. I've been using a Garmin EMap for several years and love it. Most of my use has been while driving in the boondocks of New England, to get me back to a highway. I also use it while hiking. But I've been getting into geocaching lately and I wanted a WAAS equipped unit. Since I only kept this unit for a week before returning it, I'll concentrate on what led me to take it back.
Display: It's smaller than on the EMap. Sure the resolution is better, but while driving I had a lot of trouble watching the screen. The color display is also a lot darker than the EMap's. I needed to use the backlight a lot.
Menus: After seeing comments about how intuitive, or not, the menus are I spent a bit of time with them. After 5 hours spent sitting and walking with the GPS, I still had problems.

I liked some of the the ergonomics. This GPS feels good in the hand. But the buttons are awkward to push. if you aren't spot on, you can easily miss your button.
The receiver is also very good. It picked up more satellites indoors than my EMap.

I recently revieved this GPS for a gift and I love it. It's very sturdy and it has a nice color display. The reception is outstanding, I can even recieve strong signals in my basement. The only down side to this device would be the roadways. They are not very detailed, but interstates, state roads, and county roads still show up. I find the ammount of roads in the US plentyful, but there are very few roads in Canada displayed. Although this may seem as a downside it is not that bad, because software can be purchased giving the roadways full detail. Another Pro to this device is that it is much smaller than it looks in the pictures. This makes it nice and easy to fit in your pocket or put in a cup holder in a car. I especially like the GO TO features on this device. You can search airports, parks, lakes, cities, roadways, etc. You just type in the name of the place you want to go to on the GO TO display and it will draw out a route from your current position. The routes that are displayed are shown as a crow flies, which is a downside, but it's quite simple to find the quickest roadway, allong the line drawn. This device also has many points of interest to mark including, highway exits, hotels, gas stations, airports, campsites, and a whole lot more. In other reviews it has been said that this device is "hard to use with too many displays" I disagree. This divice is very easy to use once you get the hang of it. It has many features and the screens are customizable to your preference. It has many helpful features like a barometer, fish and game calculator, and sunrise/sunset. I also enjoy how it gives me an exact speed (more acurate than the actual speedometer in the car) It tells you estamated time of arival, how many more miles to arival etc. So far I have only gotten to use this device on one trip, but it was extremely useful. Instead of searching through a huge map I just scrolled around on the display making it allot easier. The best advantage of this device is the price. For a device of such high calibar it is extremely cheap, although only on AMAZON. There are better color devices, but you are going to be expected to pay a couple hundred dollars more. This is a great item, and if you are looking for not-so- complex GPS, or you want a more economic device, and want a beutiful color display, this is definately the GPS for you.

I needed to find an address to a birthday party in a city that I wasn't familiar with. I typed in the street name via "gaming genre" A-Z list. The 1st street on the list of many streets in many different cities was the one I was looking for. Listed by closest destination, I guess. Anyway I pushed enter & it drew a route for me. I also entered the address. I decided to take a different (freeway) route which is longer than the suggested route. Since I disregarded the 1st turn, the turn instruction display stayed there throughout the entire trip until I reached the target street. At which point it guided me to the right address on the street with the highlighted route line. Anyhoo, I did not need directions to get to the general area of this city. I just needed details, which the unit provided perfectly.

The cursor moves diagonally too, though not marked.

I have no experience with any other GPS systems. I can only say, as a novice, that I love Sportrak Color!

$229 is a steal. Get one!

The display on the SporTrak Color is very poor. I'd take a sharp B/W display over this any day. It is unreadable on the dash of your car unless it is dark and the backlight is on. The battery door is really flimsy too. There is only a small plastic tab to keep it closed instead of a screw or something more trustworthy (like on the SporTrak Pro). Waterproof? Maybe. The unit works great, [...].

After reviewing different gps devices for months I finally came down to the sportrak color. The only experience I had with them was the garmin rino we use at work. When I opened the box for some reason the gps unit was in there upside down. Shortly after opening it I noticed that the control pad was stuck off to one side. That upset me but I wasn't going to return it over just that. Me and a few of my friends went down to the lake later that day to do some geocaching. I felt pretty secure climbing the rocks next to the shore, its water resistant right? WRONG. I dropped it in 3 inches of water and in the 5 seconds it took me to get it out of the lake water had leaked inside of the screen and the gps itself. Needless to say it didn't work after that. BAD design flaw. In conclusion.. the sportrak color is very fragile and has many flaws that magellan needs to work out.

The user interface is non-intuitive and borderline frustrating. There are way too many menus, upon sub-menus, upon sub-menus. Button presses must be firm and precise - especially within the enter and direction key area. Accidental key presses are common. The keypad layout in general - is cumbersome. The color screen and its resolution are disappointing (even after playing with the contrast option). You need to constantly tilt (angle) the unit for a decent view. The sample graphics seen online and on the box are not a true representation of the kind of bland washed out color you actually see. Side streets do not show up (not labeled with text) and are depicted only as a ultra-thin line(s) against a white background. The User Manual is poor and skimpy for a unit with so many features and capabilities.

I bought this and Magellans Mapsend software back in 2002 and I moved after that and my street was not in MapSend so I kept after Magellan to update the MapSend software (exclusively for this now Legacy Device) but they kept putting me off until one day they told me they had no plans on updating the MapSend software which is the only way you can use it for finding streets. The mapsend software is $80-$100 on top of the cost of the GPS.

I will NEVER purchase a Magellan device again. Your best bet is to go with Garmin or Tom Tom, but make sure they will support map updates or you will not be able to find the newer streets.

This device is no longer even shown as a new product but as a legacy device (as of 2008).