Customer Reviews

Magellan eXplorist 500 Water Resistant Hiking GPS

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This GPS does a nice job, but getting to the point where it does that can be trying. It's a 4+, because I sense there's a little more Magellan can do in terms of ergonomics.

I guess the first thing I noticed was the screw-on USB and power adapter could go two ways, up or down. I had to look through the manual to find how to attach it, and even then what I was looking at did not turn out to be right. Oh, well. There's a sheet of paper that shows how to attach it. I guess I was not alone in this. Some say a screw-on USB is dumb or non-standard, but consider the water proof rating and a normal USB port.

Next, I have a large collection of waypoints. Since this is a new model, it didn't appear in any waypoint manager software. Eventually I could convert my old Mapsend waypoints with gpsbabel, a free program. This took time. The color really shows the waypoints.

I decided I like this GPS a lot when I got the Directroute. That's the new Mapsend, and it will route. Alas, to use DR, you have to have one of the CD's in the computer. Again, though, this is mitigated because you can upload almost 'everything' to a 256MB SD card. So, basically, I assume I don't need the CD's very often. To upload the maps is complicated. You can't just cut them and then move the files. You have to 'convert' them, a second time, and then they are easily moved to the card. I have an SD card slot in my Dell. It is very easy. But, if you didn't know to convert, it will slow you down.

On balance, the DirectRoute software is an improvement over the old Mapsend Streets. The maps are 'filtered'. I travel on a lot of backroads. While the DR shows fewer roads, it seems to be very good at showing the ones that matter. Plus, they are labeled better. The main advantage of the DR is routing, but everyone should be buying it with this in mind. I haven't done any tough routing, so check other reviews.

I think the color screen is nice. The problem with a mapping GPS is scale. If you are on a tiny road, the road shows up when the scale is very small, say .2 mile. At .2, you can't see the surrounding area, so you can't tell where you are. The color screen is better, and the scrolling is pretty smooth. A zoom out is quite quick. You can find a road with this unit, scroll up it like you are driving, and figure out where it goes. You can't ever see a minor road at a wide scale, so you end up doing this. You can place waypoints while driving up the road, but this unit routes.

The physical size small, but thick. It holds a bunch of territory with one cheap card. All of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado fit in about 70 megs. It shows a lot of roads, though it might not be up to date. Some commands are not obvious. To change the waypoint file you have to go to Preferences --> Active Setup. This did not seem obvious to me. The manual has a lot of info, but it's not easy to find a specific answer to a question. You can download it at the Magelllan site, and get a headstart.

Magellan uses a very complex file system. Some may not like it. Still, you have the internal GPS memory plus cards, and the file system makes it easy to find something. If I upload a route where the roads don't really show on the detail maps, I can put a lot of them in one file, say 200. Now I just find the waypoint file and tell the GPS to make that the active POI (it calls waypoints 'points of interest'). I really like this, because there is no limit to how many waypoints could be on a card, each neatly filed away. If I don't want waypoints cluttering the screen, I get rid of any active file of POI's.

So, Magellan did a lot with this unit, and I give them credit for it. The micro joystick is a little hard to get used to, but it really speeds entering text. It scrolls pretty well on the diagonal.

The unit is small, and pleasant to hold, at least for me. The buttons are limited in number, but getting to all the commands is easy enough.

The GPS has a learning curve, but it seems like something will be useful for a long time. Plus, with all the maps on a card, you have what you need without needing a PC. The lock is pretty good, even in the house. Magellan uses the Esc button to change pages.

Quirky, but this unit works for me.

I recently decided it was time to retire my trusty (but antiquated) handheld GPS, and I replaced it with a Magellan eXplorist 500. I don't yet have the optional detailed mapping software, so this is a review of just the base unit and the included software. I should also mention that this review is based on firmware 5.1.61, the latest available as of May 2005. Future firmware releases may add more features, but I advise all gadget buyers not to rely on such updates. Buy your toys for what they do today, not what they might do tomorrow!

Like most good GPS's these days, the eXplorist 500 includes basic street map data for the US and Canada. It probably won't include the street you live on, but it should have your freeways, highways, major surface streets, and points of interest such as airports. This basic map data takes up about half of the eXplorist's 16MB of built-in memory. The remaining memory can be used for your waypoints, routes, and tracks. If you happen to have Magellan's MapSend software, you can also download detailed street-level or topo maps. (But as I mentioned, I don't have this yet, so I can't review what it adds to the eXplorist 500.)

The approximately 8MB of free memory in the eXplorist 500 will hold a huge amount of waypoints, routes, and tracks. If all you care about is simple waypoint storage and navigation, you won't need anything else. However, the available memory is pretty meager for adding detailed map data. Don't panic, though: you can add a standard, inexpensive Secure Digital card to your eXplorist 500. No proprietary memory cards to worry about!

You can even attach the eXplorist to your computer's USB port and browse the built-in memory and SD card just like a USB storage device. This is very nice, though I should mention that you need to install a driver to connect to the unit, and you must use the included charge/USB cable. This strange cable actually screws on to the GPS--the eXplorist is water-resistant, so they could not put standard mini USB or power ports on it.

On to the physical features... The first thing you notice is the size. The eXplorist 500 is small, though thicker than you might expect. That's OK though, it fits your hand well, and it holds a battery with a claimed 17 hour life. My own informal test got me about 15 hours with the backlight on minimum, which I'd call close enough.

The next thing you notice is the screen. I haven't found the actual pixel dimensions listed in any of the specs; I would estimate it at 240x320. Whatever the value is, it is adequate. The screen is very bright and sharp, though limited to 16 colors. Compare that figure to a PDA and it sounds bad, but in practice I have found that it's enough to present a clear and readable map, which is what counts. You aren't looking at photos on this thing.

The controls are a joystick with built-in button, a surrounding array of 7 smaller buttons, and power and lighting controls on the sides. The buttons feel sturdy and work fine--they are all you could ask for.

The GPS receiver is definitely a cut above the one I bought a few years ago. It can pick up a signal in my house, where my older GPS could not. Thick trees can still confuse it though, but I'd expect that from any GPS.

As for the software: the first thing I'll comment on is the speed of map scrolling and redraw. I'll call it adequate, but not impressive. The map display itself is pretty standard, though highly legible. As you'd expect, you can move the cursor around to select points of interest or create waypoints.

The map can be full screen, or you can display two data fields with it: choose from bearing, distance to next waypoint, speed, heading, ETA, time to next waypoint, time to end of route, off course warning, direction, elevation, time, date, accuracy, average speed, and maximum speed. (The off course and destination events have an optional audible alarm.)

Besides the map, you have a fairly ordinary GPS status screen, trip computer (no customizable data fields), and bearing display (with 2 customizable fields, same as the map).

The included software provides for only the most basic data management. You can move waypoints, tracks, and routes in or out of the GPS. If you have some detailed map data, perhaps from a web purchase, you can add that to the unit too. (I presume that if you purchase Magellan MapSend software, it will have its own interface for adding a chunk of map data to the unit, or creating waypoints and routes.)

Magellan has also included GPS features and desktop software specifically for those interested in geocaching. The bottom line is that these features are useful, but could use improvement.

(...)

On the eXplorist, geocaches are filed in their own points of interest category, so you can choose not to display them. There is a special info screen for caches, showing data from the .LOC file: cache ID, owner, type, location, date placed, date last found, difficulty, hint, and terrain. (Note that the free .LOC downloads from geocaching.com do not contain all of this information. You need to be a paid member there to get more than just the basic data on a cache.) This information is nice to have, but long text runs off the right side of the screen, an unfortunate bug.

Hopefully future software updates will improve the geocaching features, but this is a good start. Overall the eXplorist 500 is a very nice unit, with the battery life and bright screen continuing to be impressive.

Ok i am going to start off by saying that i was looking at this unit and also the garmin etrex legend cx unit. I found both to be close how ever the magellan out performed it greatly. But first i would just like to say people who are having troubles with shipping and stuff like that is not important to put in a review and take stars off.

The unit has a wonderful screen with a much clearer and brighter display. When i stand out side i usually get atleast 4 gps satalites within the first 10 or 15 seconds. Also it works better in the car and such then most units. you can zoom in like crazy on this thing if only you could see houses and such i might be able to see my self walking to the car.

Know for the people who are complaining about lets say the mapping software you have to purchase or the rechargable battery. If they actually paid attention to things instead of the complained they would relize, 1) the rechargable battery is great but it also comes with a black battery peice designed to hold 3 AAA batterys inacase of the loss of the rechargable one 2) the mapping software which is 149.99 retail is given to buyers for 9 dollars after the coupon code that is located on the front of the box in a orange sticker.

The geocaching software is cool. You dont have to convert anything it sets everything up for you and uploads it instantly. I do how ever recomend you get a memory card because the maps that you can download can be quite big depending on how much you want to see. I hav enot had a problem with accuracy at all infact it usually will be accurate up to about 10-20 feet or so. Plus the big one that helped me is that the garmin etrex units are designed for only left handers which is so annoying. I do not feel comfortable doing this which is why i love the magellan.

and the usb connector/charger is a screw in on the back which people complain about but you konw what i enjoy the complete waterproofing that gives instead of a dinky rubber plug like the garmins!!!

If you are looking for a good unit with great reception and easy to read display then this is it and belive me you will love it!!!

First of all this is my first GPS so everything I say is based on my expectations rather than actual experience. Secondly, there are several excellent reviews here and elsewhere (just google for them), so I won't get into great detail here. I think this is a great overall unit and there aren't many units that can offer the same features, especially at this price, but if you're looking for 1 do-it-all unit expect to make compromises.

I wanted one GPS to fit all my needs: car, motorcycle, hiking. I don't need very precise position or compass info, I also don't care for a good geocache tool. I need it to tell me what street I'm on, show me the surroundings, and live on batteries for 8+ hours. I also wanted it to keep track of the trails I've hiked. Surprisingly there aren't many GPS units to fit this bill...most are made for cars (bulky and no battery), others (Garmin) don't offer the same level of expandability for extra maps and are more expensive.

Happy with:
- small, light, and rugged. fits perfectly in your hand.
- good screen. Good size, color, and brightness.
- great battery life. Although I haven't tested it myself, others' tests seem pretty accurate -- 4-17 hours depending backlight usage.
- Very expandable. I got a 1gb SD card and it can fit more than enough maps on it. 60 mile radius around NYC fit on one map of 120 mb (mapsend has a limit of 128 mb per map). I was also able to fit NYC, Phili, Washington DC, and Richmond, VA and everything in between on one map.

Many minor gripes:
- slow scrolling and zoom. This is particularly true in urban areas. Scrolling around the NYC area is a chore...it take a good 10-15 seconds for it to redraw the screen. Address entry is also slow.
- unintuitive interface. I'm a techie guy and I was puzzled for several days. Don't expect you passengers to be able to easily use it as you drive.
- maps are expensive...and you can't just download them (wink, wink) since Thales (magellan) knows how to protect their products.
- Map routing with MapSend North America v. 3 is pretty bad. It seems to plot a direct path with little regard for speeds. Apparently it thinks that 10 miles in heavy NYC traffic is better than 20 miles of highway driving. My friends' built-in car GPS's have no trouble with this. Always double-check its directions, there's probably a better way!
- annoying beeps alert you of route changes. These are usually not needed. It sometimes beeps to tell you to NOT take an exit.
- in-car reception is often weak, especially on local streets surrounded by trees/buildings. I usually get 3-5 satellites which is good enough to put you on the right street. Open highway or hiking usage gives you much better reception.
- car charger requires USB cable. They're just too lazy to create a dedicated charger with the correct plug. Oh yeah, and the plug is really funky.
- Address entry on Mapsend is bad. It uses townships instead of town names in NJ (maybe other states too). This is a royal pain since I can never find the right place.
- data transfer from PC may be slow if you do it through the unit (vs. plugging the SD card in a reader). No big deal though since you won't be transferring large maps often.

Finding my first GPS was tough! I have never found such a wide range of +/- reviews on any other gadget. I knew I wanted 5 things. 1. It had to be small enough to pack around. 2. It had to have enough memory that it wasn't obsolete in 5 minutes. 3. It had to be well built. 4. It had to have available software to upgrade the maps. 5. It had to look decent and be easily readable. In my opinion this unit does all this very well.

It scared me that so many people were having trouble with the software. This almost ran me off, but I honestly couldn't pass up the $50 rebate on this. Before it arrived I read the manual that was available at magellangps.com. It explained how to fix all the problems that people seemed to be having. The fact of the matter is that GPS units are complicated. These have tons of features and you will have to read how to work them.

I was also worried that the display was too small but I was shocked how big it was when I took it out of the box. If you have poor eyesight any smallish LCD screen is going to give you problems. If you can't see very well do not go the cheap rout and get one of these.

For people with good vision, and the optional DirectRoute software these work just like the 600 dash models, and it saved my skin last week driving through Seattle this week. The Topo3D software is very good too and the screen has great resolution.

I am very happy with the 500. I think it is the best looking portable GPS and has the great features too, just remember to study up before you get it.

I have a Garmin eTrex and I just received this explorist 500 as a gift. I loved the geocaching support in the explorist but it lacks the ability to view the description of the cache rather it shows up to 50 characters of the hint... Hello? most people would rather read the description use the hint as a last resort!

The eXplorist was significantly more accurate than the eTrex and got a fix much faster (explorist: 10-15 seconds eTrex: 45s to 2 mins).

The base maps are useful for general use but you MUST buy the detailed maps in order to really get use out of the maps. I would have expected Magellan to include slightly more detailed maps or at least provide regional maps at a lower rate ($199 List is just silly for mapping software.)

The only 3 major complaints I have are:

1) Geocaching software should allow you to view the description -or- the unit should allow you to navigate to a text file on the SD card and view it. (I mean come on the latter is a 20 seconds development job.)

2) If the unit does not have a SAT fix and you press the NAV button the GPS just shuts down.. very remnicient of the Windows Blue Screen of Death! Magellan REALLY needs to fix this bug it is ANNOYING!

3) The unit does not recharge when plugged in to the USB port unless you provide supplemental power. That is weak because if I am on a trip I would like to be able to use my laptop to juice up the GPS. I do not want to have to buy and carry ANOTHER cord just to recharge the unit. USB provides 5v of power that could trickle charge the Lithium ION battery.

Good points:

1) Rockin' Lithium Ion battery that charges quickly and powers the unit for about 15 hours. Lithium Ion batters have no 'memory' so they can be recharged at any point.

2) Screen has a great resoultion and is VERY bright.

3) Geocaching support!

4) Rechargable batter is a standard size so you can buy ANY LiIon batter to supplement your power or replace the original battery.

The other reviews here are very good and detailed. I purchased this unit based on them. No need to rehash what they have said. I got the unit on a Friday. Loaded the programs onto my Intel dual Mac running Windows XP PRO. Learning curve delayed me until Tuesday. I now have 600mb of data stored on the removable sd card. The maps-both street and topo are great. This unit works great! It is as advertised. It is small and rugged. Just what you need for off roading of any kind.

The 500 is my first GPS. I found it very easy to set up and use. The color display is top notch and the buttons and menus are straight forward to use. Needed very little manual time to start setting POI's, down loading maps and setting up routes. The kids (age 8 and 10) love using it to find things I "hide" around the neighborhood. The accuracy is really the claimed 3 meters and very repeatable. No complaints, it does the basic GPS stuff really well and that's what I was looking for.

I bought the Explorist 500 a week and a half ago and it seems to be working almost perfectly. I say almost because when I mark a POI with the cursor the altitude gets set to the current altitude rather than the altitude on the topo map. Other than that I have no issues with it and am quite impressed by its accuracy. In the last month I've purchased a Garmin Legend, a Lowrance iFinder Pro and an Explorist 500. I returned both the Legend and the iFinder Pro because I was not satified by their spotty accuracy and difficulty in getting WAAS locks. I wasn't happy with not being able to return to within 30 feet of the rosebush in my front yard with either the Legend or the iFinder Pro and having them point in the wrong direction half of the time. In my mind, all the features in the world don't make up for lack of accuracy in a GPS.

In contrast, the Explorist is very accurate ( I can often return to a marked POI a day later and have the reading be only 3 or 4 feet off instead of 20 to 40 feet with the Legend or the iFinder Pro). The directional arrow on the Legend and iFinder Pro would start randomly wandering when I got within 20 feet of a waypoint (or POI in Magellan-speak), not so with the Explorist until you are within a few feet.

Furthermore, instead of occasionally showing me that I'm driving a half of a mile off the highway (and from where I was when driving the other direction on the same highway) like the Legend or iFinder Pro, the Explorist is dead on or nearly so. Instead of my tracks having occasional large random jags in them while hiking under tree cover like the Legend or iFinder Pro, the Explorist shows me not only where I've actually been, but is accurate enough to tell me which side of a street I'm walking on (when using the Topo USA 3D map).

The iFinder Pro got a WAAS lock twice for about one minute during an entire week of use and often both the Legend and the iFinder Pro could not get reported accuracy better than 80 or 100 feet when walking whereas the explorist is usually between 10 and 30 feet and has a WAAS lock most of the time when I'm out of doors (I'm in Utah so the WAAS satellites aren't always visible).
When driving the Explorist usually reports 30 to 70 feet accuracy, the Legend was a bit worse but occasionally lost signal altogether and the iFinder Pro usually reported between 80 to 800 feet. I know, I know the reported accuracy doesn't mean a whole lot, but losing a signal is bad, and reporting 800 foot accuracy doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

I haven't had any of the reported problems with maps or POI files becoming unusable or locking up the gps unit. I do have two large (about 240 megabyte each) topo maps loaded on a 1gb SD card. However, since I've only had the unit a week and a half I might be changing my tune on that any day now.

Battery life seems so, so -- not as good as the Legend and nowhere near as good as the iFinder Pro, but passable. With the other two I could use two 2500 mah AA-batteries whereas I'm stuck with the 1300 mah li-ion battery in the Explorist. Extra batteries for the other two are cheap, but will cost me about $20 for a 1100 mah cell phone battery that reportedly works decently for the Explorist.

Featurewise the Legend was hands down the best, with an extremely usable interface and tons of features and options on the screens, the iFinder Pro was not as good but still very good. I would say the Explorist is just passable with just what you need, but no more. However, one nifty feature that it has that the other two don't is the ability to show an altitude plot of a track or route.

Searching for POI's on the Explorist is a real pain unless I'm just totally missing something. How am I supposed to know if something I'm looking for on the topo map is an "area" or a "locale"? Its just plain weird that I can't search for a place name without knowing what random category Magellan has put it in. The iFinder Pro was clunky but I was able to figure out how to use it in about 3 tries. The Legend search just worked the first time I tried it.

Returning on a track took about 4 hikes to figure out on the iFinder Pro, talk about a weird interface. Every time you backtrack it makes a route (but doesn't tell you about that) reverses it and puts you on it. The upshot is that eventually you have dozens of routes in your route file, some of them having the same name. Finally the iFinder Pro doesn't store altitude data in its track files. Both the Legend and Explorist are much much better at backtracking a track. The Legend is more flexible in that it asks whether you want the whole track or some portion of it (like since you've turned it on the last time, or the last day's worth of track). I think the Explorist is more straightforward to use when backtracking, but this takes several more key presses to accomplish than with the Legend. However, as noted above, my tracks are much much more accurate with the Explorist that either of the other two. When I rehike a trail, my tracks are either on top of each other or nearly so with the Explorist, whereas they wandered quite a bit with the iFinder Pro and Legend.

All three screens are very good in their own ways: the Legend has really great resolution, the iFinder Pro is very big and the Explorist is color, and easier to read in the daylight. I would pick the Explorist first, then the iFinder Pro with the Legend last since the text, while clear, is just too small to read when you are hiking or driving. The color screen of the Explorist makes all the difference when all you can spare is a quick glance at the screen.

The iFinder Pro is really too big to be considered "pocketable" and isn't set up to be used with one hand. Both the Legend and the Explorist are pocket sized and are easy to use with one hand. The Legend might be a bit hard for a lefty to use one-handed, the Explorist is pretty symmetric.

Both the Explorist and iFinder Pro have a SD slot. Both are a pain to get to. The only way to access the iFinder Pro SD card with a computer is to take it out. The Explorist has a USB interface that plugs in to a computer and allows you to see both the internal and SD memory as external flash drives (but not simultaneously). The Legend has only a clunky serial interface, bleah.

The file system on the Explorist is very flexible allowing one to be able to categorize maps, tracks , POIs etc. Furthermore, unlike the iFinder Pro, one can choose which POIs are shown. With the iFinder Pro after you pull in a file of waypoints from the SD card I see no way to "unload them".

I was able to use both the Explorist software with my Mac. In fact, I can run the Mapsend Topo USA 3D using Virutal PC with no problems (except I don't get the 3D view on the Mac since VPC doesn't support Direct3D). I can create maps, send them to the Explorist, transfer POI's, routes and tracks with ease using my Mac. However I've heard the NMEA works on the Mac with the Legend and the iFinder Pro, but I haven't had any luck with the Explorist. On the other hand, I could just buy a $60 dedicated gps reciever for my laptop so I'm not too concerned about that.

I didn't try the addon maps of either the Legend or iFinder Pro, but I will say that the Mapsend Topo USA 3D map I bought for the Explorist is fantastic. It's accurate and has every place that I can think of listed on the map. Summer chlldrens camps, ravines, springs, trail heads (though not marked as such) are all there as are flats, ponds and just about any describable physical land feature or named place is on there, exactly where it is supposed to be. Topo lines are plentiful and accurate. Roads and addresses seem to all be there and are accurate. However things like restaurants are hilariously out of date. Some of the info is at least five years old. It only has about 2/3 of the gas stations. Cloverleafs, over/underpasses and other complicated intersections are reproduced in exquisite detail on the map. Believe you me, there are some doozies in Salt Lake (where they used the "plan it while you build it" scheme to finish the freeway before the 2002 Winter Olympics) and the ones I tried were all exact -- my position was shown accurately on the cloverleaf while moving. New subdivisions with roads but no houses seem to be reproduced faithfully also. Its funny that some parts of this map are so much more up-to-date than others. There is a routable street map available for the Explorist, but not for the Legend or the iFinder.

My family took the Explorist geocaching and it worked very well -- we found the first 3 we looked for. It's dedicated geocaching features are nice but leave lots of room for improvement. No editing geocaches, no descriptions, hints limited to 50 characters, no place for cache size are a few of its shortcomings.


Here are some features/fixes that would improve the Explorist:

0) Fix the altitude bug with cursor marked POI's.

1) The ability to turn the backlight completely off (it doesn't need to be on when I'm not looking at it). Heck I would mind even turning the screen itself off just so long as the unit keeps recording my track data.

2) Make the search feature more intuitive and get rid of all of the stupid categories on the topo map ( how often will I be looking for an "arroyo" for goodness sake?)

3) One more user screen with user selectable fields.

4) Make it possible to measure the distance between two points neither of which are the current position.

5) Change the interface so that hitting "mark" twice marks a POI (waypoint). Right now its mark, enter, enter.

6) Show the upcoming part of a route or track on the compass screen.

7) Be able to turn portions of a track in to a route instead of the entire track.

8) Be able to edit the color/pattern of a route or a track.

9) Improve the geocaching features. Allow geocache editing. Include the full description field (...)

I purchased the Explorist 500 on July 9th after returning my second Garmin Etrex Vista color screen. I use the Explorist for geocaching and am really impressed with this unit. The color screen and map is very good and I like the smaller size. The accuracy is great, even in heavy tree cover and aquires a signal very fast. I admit to being leery about the rechargeable battery, but it seems to hold up to a days caching just fine. At the price being sold, a very good deal for a color screen.