Magellan GPS: explorist 210 review and howto
late august 2006 I bought a handheld gps type "Magellan explorist 210". For a short review see here. I payed about 230 euros for it, included accesoires to attach it to my bike or my belt.
Below I describe why you certainly need a gps: it is fun to use while enjoying time outdoors. I sum up the good and the bad about the Magellan explorist 210: in conclusion a gps handheld that does the job nicely, but that could be made a lot better with some firmware updates should Magellan choose to do so.
Why would you want a gps?
For a lot of reasons, all having to do with doing things outdoors:- I use it as a cycling/biking sports-computer. It shows me how fast I go, the mean speed, the time, the distance and so on.
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I use it as an extended biking computer: when I get home I load data from the gps to the computer and can analyse it. I can see how far I have driven, the height of the track and where I went precisely. I can also see how fast I cycled where in the track.
On the picture you can see in yellow a track I cycled. You can see the length, and datas available for every point.
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It can help you find where you are when you have lost your way: the maps in the gps show where you are and what direction you are heading so you can go in the right direction. No fear needed anymore when you go for a walk in a big forest.
As you can see the map will show you where you are. You can zoom in and out and see where you are appoximately. If you buy extended software and load maps on the unit you can see your position to the street level.
- I use the gps unit to go treasure hunting. Via www.geocaching.com and .nl I and my son go treasure hunting and have fun outdoors: we walk and bike and in the meantime see beautiful places we would never find otherwise.
- We also use it to hunt treasure near the home: I hide a treasure somewhere (usually candy in a small container), put a waypoint in the gps, and the children find it using the gps. Also great for childrens parties.
- You can find great walks/bike tracks. On numerous sites you can find walks bringing you to beautifull places you would never find otherwise: for instance http://www.go-gps.nl/, for walking and http://www.fietsen.123.nl/ for cycling for Dutch people.
- To pinpoint some place (or tree): I have a tree-guide internet site and now will be able to pinpoint trees I describe. I plan to make some walking routes where people can find specific different trees and learn to discern types of trees.
- To navigate you from one point to another. I did nor buy my gps for this purpose, but many do of course.
Magellan explorist 210: a good gps?
old review here. I have updated the review since the firmware has been updated begin 2007. The firmware update improved the unit a whole lot.A good gps? This question all depends what you want to do with it and what things you have in addition to the gps itsselve.
Good things about the Magellan explorist 210:
- It is rather cheap for a gps with maps. There are much cheaper gpses, but you cannot load maps into it. The explorist 210 has 22mb space for detailed maps, which is sufficient for cycling. You can load detailed maps of about 1/3 of the Netherlands in it at a time, so on a long car drive you will drive beyond your loaded detailed maps. If you need to have detailed maps with you of a large area, buy the Magellan 300 400 500 or 600, in which you can use sd-cards which gives you unlimited size. But for car navigation a specialized tom-tom-kind-of-device is probably better anyway. An explorist can do a lot more than just car navigation.
- It has a base-map that covers Europe, but that gives you only highways and large streets and so on. For cycling that will not do. But it will keep you from getting lost.
- It has a usb-interface, so you can easily exchange waypoints, tracks, locations and so on with your computer, and thus with other on the internet. USB is a lot easier to work with than serial ports: faster and less complex.
- It runs on common aa batteries. The more expensive models (explorist 300, 400, 500 etc) have accu: a major pain in the ass if you run out of power in the middle of nowhere. You can buy rather inexpensive aa batteries everywhere and easily take spares with you. But loading your accu can be a real problem, especially when you need your gps to get you home. The accu was the main reason for me to avoid explorists >210, not the price (although that was a factor too:-)).
I found out that you can buy an accesoire that allows you to use aa batteries on the 3/4/5/600 models. So the argument for not buying these becomes weaker. - It is solid and pretty waterproof, sure you can break it if you want, but not easily.
- It has plenty of features and thus is usable for all kinds of stuff: sports, hiking, cycling, (rough) navigation, communication with others on the internet about places to go.
- Nonwithstanding the bad, featured below, the unit has an intuitive operation. Without reading too much documentation you learn pretty fast. I like handling it and will probably keep using it.
- With the new firmware things have gotten better. The Dutch grid is now in the configuration panels, as well as projection of waypoints. The unit is faster online and sees more satellites. It now starts up fast when no satellites are available (in doors).
- There are a number of screens added for sporting. See here. Better and more readable.
The bad. As stated, the explorist 210 is a good unit and does what it should. However, everything can be improved:
- Documentation is in some parts not very thorough. There is not enough explanation on the terms they use: what is bearing and heading and the difference exactly? Why would you want to simulate a route?
Especially problematic is the documentation on navigation with routes. There is quite some information in the pdf on the explorist 210. But nowhere can I find howto navigate in practice with routes. I get a number of screens on my explorist that say when to turn left or right, but nowhere can I find what to do when I miss a turn or take a shortcut (I use an uploaded detailed street-map). - The buttons are hard to operate. The joystick is very good, but the other buttons are hard to press correctly. When you are running or cycling this is a pain.
- There is a warning mode, but without a beep or something. To see the warning you have to look at the gps all the time. If you are in traffic, that is dangerous, so you will miss warnings and alarms.
- There are no topographical maps available for many european countries. For hiking these are a must. The competition Garmin does have these maps ready.
- When using it as a sports cycling/bike computer, you usually will not use tracks or routes. You just log your route, see where you are on a map and want to see how fast and far you are going. Thus using the gps unit as a sports-computer.
The exploris 210 has all features needed for a useful sport-computer. However, some details could be improved:- When you cycle (or run for that matter), you want to see a specific list of information on one screen. You can make such a screen in a number of ways. However what is lacking is:
* distance since starting (current trip distance)
* stopwatch time (time since begin track)
The trip distance is available, but not in the adjustable screens. - When cycling/running the current speed shown by the explorist 210 is extremely jerky. While I cycle steadily at roughly the same speed, my cyling computer shows 29 to 30 to 31 to 29 km/h for instance. The explorist 210 however, jumps form 24 to 34 to 30 and to 18 km/h. Thus to get a feeling for how fast you are going you have to look for a second or 10 and then estimate what your real speed might be. Engineers should come up with a different way to compute speed: perhaps different modes useful for different usages.
The firmware update has not resolved this. - When the gps looses all satellites the log shows speed jumps upto 20 times the real speed. Some error exists here.
- When you cycle (or run for that matter), you want to see a specific list of information on one screen. You can make such a screen in a number of ways. However what is lacking is:
- The explorist 210 looses its location when under foliage rather quickly when cycling. I will try a walk too in the near future to see if the speed makes a difference.
- The usb interface on windows 2000 somehow operated the third time, but not the first two times. I see the same kinds of remarks in different places on the net, so this seems to be structural.
Perhaps the firmware update changes this.
Extending your gps to the internet
As said above you can use your gps to exchange information on places and tracks/routes. I use a number of programs together with my gps unit:-
Oziexplorer. I use this program (bought it to support the maker) with topographical maps of the netherlands. In these maps I can load tracks exported from the Magellan explorist 210. Oziexplorer can show the speed, lenght, and height of the track or points in the track.
In short I go out cycling with my gps logging the route/track I take. Later on I load the track to my computer in oziexplorer. Then I can see how long I trained, how fast I went where and so on.
You can export an ozieplorer track to google earth format.
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Google earth. You can view your track directly on satelite maps. Just open the kml file form oziexplorer and google earth will take you there. Very nice. Sometimes pictures work better than maps: it gives a better overview and is just pretty to look at. In this way however you can also share a good route with others: you can publish the file for others to use.
- Treasure hunting is a good sport with the kids. www.geocaching.nl is a Dutch site where you can find treasures to hunt, giving you a good excuse to go hiking/outside. I use Magellan geocachemanager to covert locations to explorist format.
- Magellan mapsend directroute europe. Using this program you can load street-level maps into the explorist 210.
