GPS reviews, news, tips, tricks and deals
UPDATE: The Magellan RoadMate series has been officially discontinued. For a more current model, check out our Magellan auto GPS comparison chart or our list of current Magellan receivers.
The Magellan RoadMate 360
Customer reviews of the RoadMate 360
Compare prices on the Magellan RoadMate 360
Here’s what other early reviewers have to say:
UPDATE: The Magellan RoadMate series has been officially discontinued. For a more current model, check out our Magellan auto GPS comparison chart or our list of current Magellan receivers.
The Magellan RoadMate 300
46 readers at Amazon gave an average 3.5 out of 5 star rating in their RoadMate 300 reviews
Here’s what others have to say:
UPDATE: The Magellan eXplorist line has been officially discontinued. For an overview of our current recommendations, check out our handheld GPS buyers guide.
The Magellan eXplorist 210
The 210 comes with a cable to transfer maps, waypoints and other data to and from a PC, a capability the eXplorist 200 lacks. The 210 is very similar to the eXplorist 400
Listed below are links to all the GPS reviews I've written on GPS Tracklog. The list is kept up to date and there is a link to it on the sidebar labeled "Our GPS Reviews." If this long list is overwhelming, be sure to check out our Auto GPS buyers guide and Handheld GPS buyers guide.
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A note about discontinued Garmin auto units:
Most Garmin auto units without the flat form factor have been discontinued, as have older nuvis. In most cases, a newer Garmin nuvi is the best choice rather than one of these older units.
UPDATE: The Magellan eXplorist line has been officially discontinued. For an overview of our current recommendations, check out our handheld GPS buyers guide.
The Magellan eXplorist 200
A number of readers have posted Magellan eXplorist 200 reviews
Compare prices on the Magellan eXplorist 200
Here’s what others have to say about the eXplorist 200:
UPDATE: This model has been discontinued. For current recommendations, please refer to our auto GPS buyers guide or check out our other Magellan auto GPS reviews.
The Magellan RoadMate 700
A popular unit, the RoadMate 700
Here’s what other reviewers are saying:
UPDATE: We’ve created a number of comparison charts to assist you:
There are so many GPS receivers on the market with similar features; the minute differences between models in a single product line can make buying decisions a real challenge. I’d like to call your attention to some tools that can help make these critical choices a little easier. Garmin and Magellan both have product comparison tools on their sites, which you can use to generate side-by-side comparisons. It won’t help with the Garmin vs.Magellan decision though! Here are the links:
You’ll find most of these in the upper-right corner of your screen under the heading Buying a GPS?, along with our GPS Buyers Guide and other useful links.
A special note here to all the new readers coming to us from Engadget and GPS Information.org. You may have missed my recent About Our Reviews post where I explained that, due to the holiday season, readers of GPS Tracklog will be seeing a temporary increase in the frequency of reviews (and posts in general). I will however, continue to intersperse other original posts filled with news, tips and other cool GPS stuff as we go. Poke around the site; I hope you enjoy what you find here.
NEW: Check out our updated Automotive GPS Buyers Guide and Handheld GPS Buyers Guide.
Choosing a GPS to purchase can be a challenge, especially if it’s your first (yes, people do upgrade). So here for your reading pleasure is our new GPS buyers guide. Let’s get a couple of things out of the way immediately:
Garmin, Magellan or Lowrance
At the risk of alienating fans of a couple of brands, I’m going to stick my neck out and say…Garmin is generally considered to be the best brand going, at least in the handheld market. They have intuitive menus and a reputation for strong customer service. Magellan is in the middle with a quality product, and a strong share of the automotive market. Lowrance can be a great choice for those on a budget, and they certainly have their proponents. Those are very broad strokes, so please don’t flame me, but it is a question I am often asked. And apparently a lot of people agree…at the time I’m writing this Garmin has a lock on the Top 10 GPS
Basic, Mapping or Autorouting
A basic GPS is just that. It will guide you to a waypoint, along a route and record a track. A good example is the Garmin eTrex Venture. (By the way, just so you know what you are clicking on, the remaining links on this post go to my reviews unless they say (Amazon) beside them. You can guess where those go, and yes, if you make a purchase through them, you help pay my hosting bills. End of disclaimer.) These basic units will only show the most rudimentary map — primarily your waypoints and tracks.
The next step up is a mapping unit like the Garmin eTrex Legend. This receiver has enough memory to accommodate topo maps or city maps, but it will not provide turn-by-turn highway directions.
For that, you’ll need to step up to a unit like the Magellan RoadMate 760 or the Garmin GPSMap 60CS. With these receivers you can enter an address (or select a restaurant or…) and have it guide you there, turn-by-turn. These units are often referred to as autorouting receivers, short for automatic routing.
What Do You Want To Do With Your GPS?
I just returned from vacation, during which time I tested a Garmin GPSMap 60CS
The test was conducted in Sheep Canyon (picture at right), in Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Sheep Canyon is not a tight slot canyon, but it is a canyon nonetheless. I must have had good satellite coverage, because I never lost the signal lock the entire day.
To see visual evidence of the difference between reception in the two units, check out the tracks on the aerial photo to the left. The Garmin track is in red, the Magellan in blue. I have one caveat here…It appears that the Garmin collected much more detail, but the Magellan is my wife’s GPSr, and I’m not as familiar with it. Once I saw this image, I checked and discovered that the Magellan was not set to acquire as detailed of a tracklog as possible. Apart from that, the most interesting thing I see is that both units recorded at least one stray track point, far away from our position. On the basis of this, I’d rate their performance as comparable.
This canyon wasn’t tight enough to reduce reception much, but the topography did contribute to the stray track points. You can visit my other website to see the entire tracklog and geocoded photos, and this page on GPS Tracklog provides more information on geocoding photos with TopoFusion. Finally, stay tuned; over the next week or so I’ll have some more posts related to our GPS vacation.
UPDATE: This model has been discontinued. For current recommendations, please refer to our auto GPS buyers guide or check out our other Magellan auto GPS reviews.
The North American version of the Magellan RoadMate 760
An update of the RoadMate 700, the 760 adds a text-to-speech feature that announces upcoming street names, and a SmartDetour feature that makes it easy to navigate around construction zones and stopped traffic.
Dozens of consumers have posted reviews of the RoadMate 760
