Magellan eXplorist GC Waterproof Geocaching GPS

by Magellan

Product Features

• 2.2-inch LCD display
• Easily connect to the Geocaching.com User Community and perform "Send to GPS," create and sync Pocket Queries, and upload Field Notes. Pre-loaded with the most popular geocaches in the world, found more than any others--get a complete out-of-the-box experience by searching and finding the top 1,000 geocaches worldwide
• Easy to use with an intuitive user interface, simple controls and menus, and vibrant graphics
• Vibrant color transflective screen provides the best readability in direct sunlight
• A high-sensitivity SiRFstarIII GPS with three-meter accuracy puts you on top of the cache and make the find that much easier

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Product Description

Amazon.com

Magellan eXplorist GC is the first GPS device 100% dedicated to geocaching that includes out-of-the-box paperless geocaching, seamless connection to geocaching.com, a brilliant color screen, rich graphics, and a simple user interface all packed into a rugged and waterproof device. The device is powered by two AA batteries for up to 15 hours of outdoor adventure along with a highly-sensitive SiRFstarIII GPS chipset that provides 3-meter accuracy. The device is made for geocaching with an uncomplicated interface and the ability to sort and search thousands of geocaches. Mark your find and quickly add field notes. Push all your logs to geocaching.com once you return from your day's adventure. eXplorist GC has tons of fun and familiar graphics, such as smiley faces for logs and merit-based awards to show off your geocaching expertise. Additionally, the product comes packed with common outdoor GPS features, such as waypoint creation, a worldwide basemap, active tracking, and trip odometer.

Features

Seamless Connection to Geocaching.com User Community

Easily connect to the #1 user community for geocaching and perform "Send to GPS", create and sync Pocket Queries, and upload Field Notes.

Free 30 Day Premium Membership to Geocaching.com

Download GPX files, create your own Pocket Queries, and get tons of other premium membership features.

Pre-Loaded with the Most Popular Geocaches in the World

These caches have been found more than any others. Get a complete out-of-the-box experience by searching and finding the top geocaches worldwide.

Paperless Geocaching

Download and view more than 20 unique characteristics of each cache and view, search, filter on the device. Details include name, location, description, hider, size, difficulty, terrain, hint, spoilers, and last 20 user logs among a number of other details.

Easy to Navigate Menus and Rich Graphics

A dedicated device means there is no nonsense to by-pass to get to your geocaches. A simply main menu, intuitive contextual menus, and vibrant graphics make this device easy to use.

Brilliant, sunlight readable color screen

A vibrant 2.2" color transflective screen provides the best readability in direct sunlight.

Store up to 10,000 geocaches on the device

That is a total of 20 Pocket Queries. Load a new GPX file for each trip or all the locations you love to geocache so you'll have data on board when you need it.

Geocache Awards

Keep track on all your finds and receive special awards based on number of finds, types of finds, and other interesting combinations of actions. The more you find, the more you are rewarded.

Create and Store 500 Waypoints

Whether you mark your car, campsite, starting location, or places to re-visit, waypoints are a common and useful feature in all outdoor GPS devices.

Rugged and waterproof to IPX-7 standards

Focus on the adventure not protecting the device.

High-sensitivity SiRFstarIII GPS with 3-meter accuracy

Most smart phones provide 20-meter GPS accuracy, which will get you close to the geocaching, but will it really help your find it? 3-meter GPS accuracy will put you on top of the cache and make the find that much easier.

Worldwide Basemap

Orient yourself to nearby streets, rivers, lakes, and parks to help in your treasure hunting expedition.

18 Hours of battery life using 2 AA batteries

Go strong for an entire day (or more) of geocaching. No stopping to replace the batteries.

WAAS/EGNOS/MSAS

GPX Compatible

VantagePoint Compatible

Download VantagePoint for free at www.magellangps.com

High-speed USB

Additional Features

Picture Viewer

Whether the log has a pic of the last person to find or the hider attached a spoiler image to help locate a well hidden cache, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Suspend Mode

The goal is to conserve battery life by putting the device into an advanced power saving mode. Suspend mode will turn off everything expect for GPS tracking. Wake up the device with a single click.

On-board user memory

Loads on space to add up to 10,000 geocaches and tons of photos and personalized backgrounds.

Record Active Track and See "Breadcrumbs" on the Map Screen

Keep a log of all the steps you took throughout the day hunting for geocaches. Reference your track to find your way back to keep a record of geocaching adventures.

Trip Odometer

Keep tabs on distance travelled, average speed, and other useful statistics.

NMEA Message Output

For hardcore outdoor GPS enthusiasts who want to connect their device to laptop running VantagePoint software and see your position on computer screen.

Multiple Coordinates and Map Datums

Geocache around the world and do it accurately. See your geographic location in UTM coordinates or reference the OS Grid while hunting for caches in Great Britain.

What's in the Box

Magellan eXplorist GC GPS receiver, USB Data Cable, Two (2) AA Batteries, User Handbook

System Requirements

PC Requirements

Microsoft Windows XP or higher, minimum of 256 MB of RAM, minimum of 1.5 GHz processor or higher, CD-ROM drive, minimum of 100 MB of free hard drive space, USB Port, Internet connection, and either Internet Explorer or Firefox web browser

	eXplorist GC	eXplorist 110	eXplorist 310	eXplorist 510	eXplorist 610	eXplorist 710
Memory	2GB	-	2GB	2GB+MicroSD	4GB+MicroSD	8GB+MicroSD
Best in Class Base Map	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Updateable / Loadable Maps	-	-	✔	✔	✔	✔
Camera and Microphone	-	-	-	✔	✔	✔
Compass and Barometer	-	-	-	-	✔	✔
Summit Series Maps	-	-	-	-	✔	✔
City Series Maps	-	-	-	-	-	✔
Features	Dedicated geocaching device that comes with features beginner or advance geocachers will appreciate.	A solid device with all the basic navigation you’ll need to get to your campsite and back.	Customize your device with your own map content from Nat Geo, Navionics, Fishing Hot Spots and more.	Capture and share your adventures with the built in camera and microphone. Shoot stills and video, with geotagging and voice annotations.	Increase safety and precision with additional sensors, elevation and barometric altimeter to predict weather conditions.	The ultimate navigation tool with the ability to get you from your doorstep to summit and back again.

Product Description

Magellan eXplorist GC is the first GPS device 100% dedicated to geocaching that includes out-of-the-box paperless geocaching, seamless connection to geocaching.com, a brilliant color screen, rich graphics, and a simple user interface all packed into a rugged and waterproof device. The device is powered by two AA batteries for up to 15 hours of outdoor adventure along with a highly-sensitive SiRFstarIII GPS chipset that provides 3-meter accuracy. The device is made for geocaching with an uncomplicated interface and the ability to sort and search thousands of geocaches. Mark your find and quickly add field notes. Push all your logs to geocaching.com once you return from your day's adventure. eXplorist GC has tons of fun and familiar graphics, such as smiley faces for logs and merit-based awards to show off your geocaching expertise. Additionally, the product comes packed with common outdoor GPS features, such as waypoint creation, a worldwide basemap, active tracking, and trip odometer.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

122 of 126 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Magellan ExploristGC July 23, 2010

By Fritz

A decent GPS for geocaching. It comes with street maps for the entire United States and Canada and base maps (major highways) for the rest of the world. In the US and Canada you can navigate (it does NOT auto-navigate) yourself to a geocache by watching the mapping screen and choosing a route.

Included is a 30 day premium membership to Geocaching.com. In order to fully utilize the features of this unit you MUST be a premium member. Paperless caching, pocket queries and bookmarks, uploading field notes all require maintaining a premium membership ($30 per year).

I have been geocaching more than 7 years and have experience with Magellan, Garmin and DeLorme GPS units. I attended a C.I.T.O. event in San Francisco earlier this year and won an ExploristGC in a drawing at that event. My thanks to Magellan.

The unit comes with an (abbreviated) User Handbook packaged in the box. For the complete User Handbook you will need to access MagellanGPS.com and either read it online or download the Adobe acrobat file to your computer. It is one of the better user handbooks that I have seen for GPS units. Learning to use the unit (for me) was relatively easy and quick.

Cons:

Small text. Hard to read while bouncing in a car.
Transflective screen. Hard to see even in bright sunlight. I needed to use the backlight most of the time.
Battery life. About 10 hours for rechargeables (because I needed to use the backlight most of the time.)
Position Update. Most of the time pretty good. Occasionally VERY slow (up to 2 minutes).
Switching between screens. The Map screen and the Dashboard screen are used extensively for geocaching. It is not possible to rapidly switch between these two screens.
Awards. The unit is preprogrammed to "award" you for 10 miles traveled, your 1st, 10th, etc. cache found. No way to turn this off.

Pros: (with Geocaching premium membership)

Making field notes and uploading those notes to Geocaching.com
Paperless caching (including viewing any photographs and graphics from the cache pages.)
Memory capacity. The unit will hold the information for thousands of caches.

I would give the ExploristGC another star if the position update was faster and more reliable. It is VERY irritating to be 10 or 15 feet away from a cache and not know which way to go. On numerous occasions I have walked past a cache by 30 to 40 feet before the unit updates my distance from the cache and the arrow swings on the compass to point toward the cache. (I see this problem listed on some other reviews but not all, so this problem could be limited to some but not all units.)

120 of 127 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A well-priced, well-made geocaching device for neophytes and those on a budget April 23, 2010

By Hugo D. Hackenbush

Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

What is Geocaching? It's an outdoor activity akin to treasure hunting, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world.

Sound interesting? Then you might want to give the Magellan eXplorist GC Handheld Geocaching GPS Navigator a whirl. It's an entry-level GPS geocaching device that is perfectly suited for neophytes, yet has enough capabilities to suit the basic needs of geocaching veterans.

The good:

- No-frills geocaching device is perfect for newbies as it covers all the basics expected from a geocaching device;

- The eXplorist has a nice, colorful screen;

- The eXplorist's interface is intuitive and easy to use, with an effective button layout;

- The eXplorist has very good GPS tracking capabilities, on par with more expensive geocaching devices, while also including a useful compass feature;

-The eXplorist is small (but not too much so), ruggedly-built, waterproof and feels very comfortable in the hands;

- Battery life is stated by Magellan to be a very good 15 hours, but my experience with the eXplorist GC using standard Duracell batteries has averaged battery life at around 17-18 hours;

- The eXplorist has a "suspend mode" that preserves battery life;

- The eXplorist comes preloaded with 1,000 of the most popular worldwide geocache locations; it includes a highly detailed worldwide basemap;

- The eXplorist can accommodate up to 500 waypoints and 5,000 point tracklogs; USB interface is non-proprietary;

- Various plug-ins and firmware updates (as well as the device's user manual) is (or will be) available through Magellan's website, promising increased device functionality and software improvements;

- Optional 30-day trial for premium geocaching membership services, which allow for great features such as paperless caching, pocket queries and bookmarks (after the 30 day trial, there is a $30 annual fee or a $10 three-month fee for the optional membership service);

- The price is right for a GPS geocaching device of this caliber.

The bad:

- No other GPS capabilities besides geocaching included in package;

- No option to add external memory;

- The screen is somewhat dimly lit and the text is fairly small, potentially making reading a chore for those with strained eyesight;

- Software response is somewhat sluggish;

- Very basic features means this is a no-frills geocaching device which, while perfect for newbies, may not be satisfactory for more experienced (or wealthier) geocachers who are looking for more "bells and whistles" in their geocaching device;

- As mentioned earlier, after the 30-day trial expires, in order to get the maximum benefit of this device, you will have to fork over either a $30 annual fee or a $10 three-month fee for Magellan's premium geocaching membership services (IMO, totally worth the extra cost for the premium features).

For those who have had issues with the eXplorist's lack of "pinpoint" accuracy, please keep in mind that this is an issue with most, if not all, of GPS geocaching devices, regardless of make or cost, due to various types of cover and terrain, which will interfere with GPS tracking. In all, considering its terrific price point and what you get right out of the box, the Magellan eXplorist GC Handheld is strongly recommended for newbies or those on a tight budget.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Upgraded to the Magellan eXplorist GC June 30, 2010

By 4PalmTrees

Amazon Verified Purchase

I upgraded from a very basic GPS to the eXplorist GC because I only use my GPS for geocaching. After looking at the reviews of other products I chose this one because it kept billing itself as the GPS solely for geocaching and it was paperless. I really enjoy the whole paperless feature. I have found a dozen or so caches in different terrain. Here is what I've noticed so far.

PRO:
I love the fact the hints, descriptions, and a couple logs are all in the unit. (I guess that would be true with any paperless geocaching unit.
I love that I didn't have to pay for a unit that provides the sunrise/sunset times, tides, or detailed topographical information.
I love having the roads and rivers/lakes show up on the display.
I like the USB connection.

CON:
The unit takes a bit to get a signal.
It doesn't come with a real manual. You have to go online to get the PDF file.
There is a little bit of a learning curve, especially when it doing multi-caches and puzzles.
I haven't been able to upload my field notes.

All that being said I am glad I bought this unit. I'm still getting used to the unit, but I love the paperless aspect. I'm able to find plenty of help online, so the lack of an actual manual hasn't really been a problem.