HANDHELD GPS
Submitted: Friday, Aug 19, 2005 at 19:35
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I'm no Guru
Hi all, I have read some threads on PDA's vs handheld GPS units but I am in the market for a new handheld ( Magellan Sportrak Pro died - and Magellan not being too helpful !) I need one to cover both inland travel and boating and I hoped someone might have some good experinecs with a handheld unit that would suit my purpose. Thanks in advance
Adrian
Reply By: arthurking83 - Friday, Aug 19, 2005 at 20:31
Friday, Aug 19, 2005 at 20:31
I'd love to recommend another Magellan (Meridian??), but even thought the units are great, performance wise, I can't recommend Magellan(Thales) as an accomodating manufacturer :(
There are a few reasons why, but the blind eye that Garmin turns to the "elite hacker" community that develop software enhancements, give Garmin a very large lead in terms of available resources for their products!
I have no idea what Garmin does what, but as you develop a sense of "I want to do more with this", as I do, you will easily find alternative methods of achieving some software goals.
Magellans "crush the hacker" attitude is very disheartening.
Years back when, affordable, mapping capable GPS recievers started to surface, I found the Lowrance/Eagle were better than the others. Problem was as the years rolled by and Lowrance has less interest in the consumer market there are very little user enhancements available :(
I think Magellans mentality will create a future where they have an extremely capable product, but your next door neighbor can do more with his older, cheaper Garmin.
just my take on the scene at the moment, it doesn't mean that will pan out that way.
But these big companies must realise, for the sake of a tiny portion of their profits, customer loyalty is, especially from the geek sector, must be worth double.
I'll be looking at other brands in the future.
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