magellan colour gps

I have a Merri color and am quite happy with it, although I have not asked a great deal of it as yet.

It is accurate and easy to use. It has been around for a while now and I wonder if there is something a bit newer that might fit your needs jsut as well.

One caution with the color is that the accessories are quite dear. If you can get a mounting bracket and or a power and data cable in the deal it could save a few bucks.

I have not as yet used a sd card in mine, just hook it ot the laptop and put everything on Ozie Explorer.

I have the Gold with an SD card and the DiscoverAus maps.

Detail is terrific, showing roads and tracks all over the place. Even shows driveways into farm houses.

It seems that the cheapest way to get what you need is in the 'pack'. Colour seems advantageous but it is another few hundred dollars. Nothing wrong with the mono though, it's easy to see.

Banjo (WA)

I'vd had mine for 12 months or so. Very happy with it. Get the whole of DiscoverAus onto one 256 insert, it just makes life a whole lot easier.

Its no substitute for a paper map in my view. But its really helpful when say you come to the proverbial fork in the road. The minor track is often the one you want, the more used track often just leads to an aboriginal settlement, a farmhouse, a roadworks depot or something. Just follow whichever is on the GPS. And you see creek crossings on the screen before you see the signs, or even the creek. Its very easy to hit a creek bed way too fast if its not signposted.

A couple of things -
- the Queensland maps seem to be the most inaccurate, or out of date. Quite amusing crossing the border into the NT, and watching the pointer redraw itself back onto the roadway.
- National Parks are just too green. Very hard to see the detail. To get around this I run the "marine" setting all the time. On land the colour is Kodak yellow, much easier on the eye that white. Water in now a light blue instead of a bright but dark blue, again easier to see. National Parks aren't shown, so you can see the tracks again.
- the DiscoverAus I think sources its data from the respective State & territory mapping authorities. So you're stuck with any inaccuracies they have. E.g. crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on the F3 just noth of Sydney, the bridge ends halfway on the map! Both ways!

And theres supposed to be an update coming to use it as a turn-by-turn navigation system. Europe & the US have theirs, who knows when we'll get ours.

But as is its a good bit of gear.

Regards
Max P

Hello - beware the Meridian color - the screen is terrible in bright light - Maybe not so bad in the car but if you get out and about screen can be hard to see (except at night when it is great...also chews batteries as backlight (to make colours look better) is on by default - turn it off if using internal batteries and get power cord if using in car.

If you wish to stay with Magellan - have a look at eXplorist 500 - colour screen is much better than Meridian color and very good in bright light.

Cheers
Greg

Jeremy, you should buy the Color model and the vehicle suction mount and the cigarette lighter adapter/serial connector for PC. SD cards - you can get by with a 32Mb which will fit most of Victoria but you can go up to 64, 128, or 256Mb cards if you like.

Go to Jaycar and get some (at least 4) 2400Mah rechargeable AA cells and a suitable charger. While you're there get enough of these batteries for your digital camera as well.

When used as a handheld, the unit will consume batteries at an alarming rate due to the colour screen. As mentioned above you can turn off the backlighting but the unit still chews batteries when locating satellites. A hiking GPS it is not, in my opinion. The spec says up to 12 hours per 2 AA cells.

The Australian Magellan agent suggests using the Marine version of the Firmware even for land based use as it is apparently more stable. That's what they told me in an E-mail anyway.

I really like my Color - mine is the US model - I bought it on E-bay 2 or 3 years ago with Mapsend Worldwide Basemap Software, car mount, soft pouch, 64mb SD Card. I paid $US450 including shipping at the time when the $AU price was around $1700. So mine does not have the Australian Basemap which turns out to be a total non-issue despite some scaremongering about the US model being unsuitable for Australia. All you need is DiscoverAus which I bought on E-Bay here for $180 and load the maps onto the SD card and presto - you have what you want.

It may well be very cheap to buy a Color kit from the US. I didn't even pay any customs when it was $US450 as the seller put the value at $US100 on the slip.

Jeremy
they are excellent.
I have one for sale in the trader section :-)
I could loan you one for a week to test it out against your requirements.

G'day Jeremy,
We have the explorist 500, and everything everyone is saying above is correct, including the easier to read higher resolution screen on the 500. If you are serious in buying one, I doubt if you will find a better offer than the one Bob is offering.

Avagoodn
Pezza