MAGELLAN TRITION 500 OR GARMIN OREGON 200

Hi

Claimed battery life for Triton 500 is 8-10hrs, Garmin Oregon 200 is 16 hours. Both take AA's (Alkaline, Lithium or rechargables - NiMH or Lithium recommended).

Not sure of the defintion of "heavy" battery use. I suppose any classification is relative and dependant on mode of use. Bottom line is that the Garmin is likely to be better on batteries than the Magellan. New Garmins (78 and 62 series) claim 20 hrs and the new Magellan Explorist series 15 hours....so the Garmin Oregon is still pretty good, relatively speaking, compared to other handhelds and maybe not "heavy" at all.

Cheers
Greg

G'day Greg,

I've been using the E-trex Vista for a couple of years now and have found its battery life to be excellent. We compared it this year to an Oregon 200 that was running in the vehicle as well and found the 200 to be hungry on the batteries. Probably only two thirds the time that the E-trex had and even less if you were doing a lot of playing with the various functions. Even so you have to preface that with the fact that even two thirds equates to a good couple of days in the bush with full time use during daylight hours or greater if using sporadically to check position only. Good units though.

Cheers Mick

...so was that the Vista Vista HCx or the Vista H. Vista Hcx has a quoted battery life of 25 hrs!! Probably best handheld battery life on market (along with the Legend HCx)...though my TwoNav Aventura has ~30+hrs (but it uses 3000mAh rechargable and is a tad more expensive..so different market slot).

Always difficult to compare battery life on different units as a range of variables such as type of battery being used (make, mAh, age, degree of initial charge, ambient temp) and then GPS set up (screen brightness, screen saver settings, digital compass on/off etc etc). Some people will have a bad day and blame it on the type of unit when in reality some other issue.

One of the first units I used way back in the ealry 90's (Magellan 5000 Nav) took 6 AA's and only lasted about 3 hrs!! So current range of GPS units are all pretty good by comparison...plus you can use rechargables so not really an issue unless youre backpacking for days on end and cant carry many spares. Obviously when using it in the car external power is the go.

Cheers
Greg

Vista HcX. Mick

From here

http://stores.ebay.com.au/HOTSPOT-DEALS-STORE?_rdc=1

Last one went at auction for $275, the previous went for $256

Thanks

Hi

The Garmin Oregon 200 has simply been discontinued - I dont think its been superceded. The 450 has superceded the 400 (released at the same time as the 200). Main documented difference between the new *50 series and the old *00 series is an increase in the number of waypoints (1000 up to 2000), Routes (50 to 200) and tracks (20 saved tracks to 200)...though not sure if this has been the result of software updates or hardware changes.

Cheers
Greg