I have only just bought a new Garmin Oregon 450 GPS, when I got an email from the Australian Magellan agent whether I would like to try out a Magellan Explorist 610 on a long term loan. I told them – why not ….
The box was the same size as the Oregon 450 box but once I opened it up, there was a unit that was slightly bigger than the Oregon 450. It felt a little heavier and in fact was about 20 grams heavier.
The big difference on the outside between the two was the addition of a camera and a loop body extrusion on the Explorist 610, otherwise they looked very similar. This is where the similarities ended.
After turning the unit on, there were what seemed to be icons everywhere – this is going to take some getting used to. Maybe time to read the instructions (in 3 languages :-)).
One thing I have found is that my fingers seem to be too big for the virtual buttons and find myself touching them several times to get an action.
It took a little time to get the unit to find the satellites but this is expected on a first run out of the box.
Now to add some geocaches. I tried dragging in a GPX file with 3000 caches in it but it would only recognise around 700 of them – this was frustrating.
Onto Google to see if I could find some answers. I eventually found a method from within Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) that would export to the Explorist 610. Even then it would not show all of them – about 80 missing out a 4300. Not sure why it has not shown them all.
I do like the camera and it takes reasonable photos as well as screen captures. I have tried a small video as well.
So first impressions is that it looks like a good unit with a few hiccups. Time to find some geocaches. 🙂
