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Old 30-10-2015, 15:11   #1
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Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

My magellan handheld died recently - hardly used, just conked out. My garmin e-trex on the other hand - 5 years older than the magellan, chugs on reliably as ever. Curious to hear others experiences with handhelds - looking online i found quite a bit of neg. stuff on magellan, not much on garmin.
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Old 30-10-2015, 15:56   #2
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

I've got one of each.....I much prefer the garmin. And it's far more weather resistant than the Magellan.


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Old 30-10-2015, 16:24   #3
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

My Magellan Blazer 10 is still working. Only l/l, no charts. Still useful with the records I kept of waypoint #s on a, get this (!), Lotus spreadsheet. If you remember Magellan you'll also remember Lotus!

Current hh is a Garmin GPSMap76Cx. Love it.
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Old 31-10-2015, 14:16   #4
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

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Originally Posted by Stu Jackson View Post
My Magellan Blazer 10 is still working. Only l/l, no charts. Still useful with the records I kept of waypoint #s on a, get this (!), Lotus spreadsheet. If you remember Magellan you'll also remember Lotus!

Current hh is a Garmin GPSMap76Cx. Love it.
ha, fossils rule, ok.
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Old 31-10-2015, 16:00   #5
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

I have not seen a new Magellan in years. Are they still around?

Garmins 72 here and very happy. One died, one overboard, one left.

b.
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Old 02-11-2015, 10:46   #6
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

guess my new back up will be another garmin
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Old 02-11-2015, 13:48   #7
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

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Originally Posted by barnakiel View Post
I have not seen a new Magellan in years. Are they still around?

Garmins 72 here and very happy. One died, one overboard, one left.

b.
Yes: Magellan GPS - Car, Fitness, Handheld, and Mobile Navigation & Accessories. I haven't seen one in use on a boat in years though.
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Old 02-11-2015, 14:25   #8
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

At this point.. It would take an absolute miracle product to get me to by a Magellan again. Any Magellan product I have owned have been garbage..
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Old 04-11-2015, 13:19   #9
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

I've had a Garmin gpsmap76. When that died i replaced it with a gpsmap76csx. Both died after little more than a year. Neither were dropped or otherwise abused. The first the battery connections completely disintegrated from corrosion (it never went in the water, although it's apparently supposed to be waterproof.....) and the second just started turning itself off repeatedly and now just flashes the welcome screen then goes blank again. I consider both of them to be pieces of junk and will not buy another Garmin product. It seems like the older models (like the GPS 72) were pretty good but since then they've just started making junk like everyone else. If anyone comes across a decent, reliable handheld GPS please let me know!
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Old 17-11-2015, 05:45   #10
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

I use a Magellan eXplorist 710. After much careful consideration, I chose it over a Garmin 78sc. My primary reason for considering these two models is that they are both waterproof and submersible; very important features for kayaking.

I also use a Garmin 78 at work, so I have considerable experience with both.

The Magellan may be at a slightly higher price point, but it has features that the Garmin can't even touch such as inputting a new heading for a set distance (projecting a point) and then following the track directly to that point, among many others. The Magellan has digital camera and video. At first it was more a gimmick than a consideration. In practice I use it much more than I ever thought I would and am grateful for the feature.

I also like that the Magellan is physically smaller with comparable sized screen. Also the Garmin's buttons above the display just drives me nuts.

Magellan seems to have more cost effective map packages, but there seems to be fewer of them. It comes from the factory with a couple of killer map packages already installed. I also like Magellan's City series maps far more than Garmin's City Navigator maps. Most of Magellan's map packages are free, lifetime update able.

Garmin seems to have many more mapping options over all, including the ability to scan in your own maps but again, you pay for it. There is a site called Maps 4 Me that are nearly free downloads for Magellan for almost the entire world. Of course, you can always go with a Navionics package, which I don't think the Garmin is able to use.

At home, Magellan's VantagePoint software is about the easiest thing to use I have ever found and surprisingly powerful.

The downside? Magellan touch screen. Great idea but doesn't work very well with wet sausage fingers or gloved hands. Buttons are better. The solution I have found is to use a low cost stylus like from a video game or iPhone. So far, Magellan's customer service is kind of lacking. Their response time is very fast but their followup sucks.

For what I do, I would chose the Magellan again, hands down. I've had my unit for years and it has lived up to all my expectations. It is truly waterproof and submersible. It has never glitched or failed to operate in any way. It does everything I need it to do and I'm a pretty demanding user (surveyor by day, in my previous life)
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Old 17-11-2015, 20:53   #11
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Re: Garmin vs Magellen - What's Your Experience?

Here on the boat there are five Magellan Meridian handhelds. I like them. They're comfortable to hold. The main thing about them is, they're intuitive to use. You want to do something, you just (push the buttons and) do it.

There's been one Garmin handheld that came with the boat. I hated it. At first I could not figure out how to turn it on. I actually carried it to the west coast of Florida, intending to go to a rendezvous in the town of Anclote Key, and couldn't find the town. I had the lat and longitude for Anclote Key--and couldn't turn the stupid Garmin on, I finally gave up and came home again. Days later I learned that you hold down the upper right button for three seconds to turn it on. The button was labelled something else than on/off. Garmin are light weight, amateurish.

The Magellans, being civilized, have an ON/OFF button, as one would expect.
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