Incredible Handheld GPS Unit

I am new to the world of GPS so I did a lot of research into the different handheld GPS units. The primary two companies that appear to be at the forefront of the industry are Garmin and Magellan.

I investigated each company and its products and was at first liking Garmin until I looked closer at the Explorist line Magellan offered.

At the time, Magellan only offered the Explorist 100, 200 & 300. These were comparable to the Garmin units with the same types of pros and cons. I was just about ready to pick one up when I heard that Magellan was coming out with a new line of explorist GPS units - the 400, 500 & 600. These units were to be revolutionary to the world of handheld GPS units.

First, they did not require batteries since they came with a rechargeable battery. This was awesome since now you wouldn't have to be constantly changing batteries every 2-3 hours of use. A single charge on these new units will last between 12-17 hours. This is a huge difference and absolutely sets these units apart from the rest of the GPS unit market.

Second, the units come with software that allows you to download geocache information directly into the unit. This saves you the time and headaches of having to type in the coordinates for each and every geocache you want to find. Simply go to a site like Geocaching.com, find the caches you want to track, and just download them into the unit using the download manager software provided. Using the software, you can also create your own points of interest that you wish to track of find with the unit. You just need to type the information on the computer into the manager and then just click the download to GPS unit button.

These units come with built-in memory containing U.S. maps for the North America unit and European maps for those units. You can purchase and install SD memory cards in the unit and expand the internal memory to 1G of memory. This is tremendous.

Magellan has just issued an update to the base software contained in all explorist models. If you do purchase an explorist, it is important to download and install this update in your GPS unit. The update corrects some nagging little issues with a couple of the features in the unit such as being able to more easily switch between street to street travel directions to point to point directions.

There are many other great advantages to the new explorist units, but I leave that to you to see on the Magellan site. I would recommend also checking out the Garmin GPS units so you have a basis for comparison.

As for the differences between the 400, 500 & 600, the 400 display is in black/white/gray, the 500 & 600 are in color, and the 600 has a built-in altimeter, barometer, and a few other bells and whistles that make it a great handheld for pilots.

I didn't want the black & white display of the 400 since I read that the color display is easier to read in daylight and I didn't need all the extras that the 600 offered. So I happily purchased the 500. I am sure glad that I did.

I love this unit. It is so easy to use. I didn't even need to read the directions in the user's manual to get started. The control functions and menu make setting it up and using it very self-explanatory. When I wanted to get a little more involved with the operation like setting certain waypoints, tracking/back-tracking, etc. I then took a look at the very well written user manual.

If you are looking for the cutting edge of GPS handheld units, look no farther than the Magellan explorist units.