Magellan eXplorist 300 Handheld GPS

User Review: - hard to handle and broken faceplate
I am in the infantry and we use what is called a Plugger. It is huge, slow, and no good. For Iraq I used an E-Trex by Garmin. The face plate cracked, but it still works.

When I got home I bought a new GPS. We were switching to the DAGGER, another horrible and unfriendly to use military GPS. I don't have time in the field to use twelve steps to work a product. Hence, our reliance on civilian model GPS units.

This model worked fine when I used the demo version in the store, yet I should have worn gloves when I did so. I often wear either tactical gloves or gloves for weather and to operate the buttons on this unit with gloves on is nearly impossible. My gloves are a skin tight tactical glove and I have good dexterity with them. Still no dice.

The e-trex model is better because it is large buttons on the side that you just have to squeeze. You can do it one handed and keep the other hand holding a map, light, rifle, binos... but not the Magellan 300. It is cumbersome to operate in any high tempo environment.

Due to the nature of things I do I have to stow the device away and drag it out often. A friend had a GPS wristwatch and it worked great. To compensate for my high rate of putting it up and taking it out I opted to keep it in a small pouch on the outside of my body armor. No dice. When I took it out yesterday to go Geocaching with I saw that the liquid crystal display had been squeezed or something and had a large black spot on it.

This GPS works fine if you are just out geocaching and can use two hands and so forth and can take your time. If you find yourselves moving in a high tempo environment, at night, with gloves, multiple items to keep your hands on, and several things demanding your attention at once... I reccomend you pass on this model.

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User Review: - Magellan GPS - Buyer Beware
Megellans "customer service" is by far the worst we have experienced. Based on our experience, it appears that Magellan's customer service tactic is to put the customer on hold for long periods hoping that they will hang up, always making the customer call back, never agreeing to follow up with a return phone call or e-mail and making false promises. I'm assuming all with the intent that the customer will eventually just give up. Not only has Magellan not stood behind its product, its customer service people are obviously trained to give customers the run around. What a NASTY way to treat people. Read on if you want details of what we have been through.

In April of 2006 I bought my husband a Magellan Explorist 300 for his birthday. It was to replace a 10 year old Magellan that was much larger and heavier. After several months the NAV button wasn't working properly. By the time he got around to call "customer service" it was a couple of weeks after the 1 year warranty. He was told the warranty would not be honored as it had expired. We paid to ship and repair the unit. When we got the unit back, it was not the one we sent in as it had a different serial number. The NAV button of this replaced unit did not work. My husband called within a week, of receiving this "repaired" model and was told by "customer service" that the Explorist 300 was discontinued, they would not honor the "repaired" model and that they were no longer servicing the model. He was then told he would just have to buy another model. He indicated that this was not acceptable and pressed to speak with a supervisor. He was first told no supervisor was available and with further pressing was put on hold for 10-15 minutes before a supervisor responded. She indicated that they would provide him with an Explorist 400 at no charge, but that they were out of stock and he would need to call back in a week. After the week, the call was a series of holds (always 10-15 minutes each time) before a supervisor came to the phone. This supervisor said the Explorist 400 was out of stock as well as the Explorist 500 and that they would ship him an Explorist 600. After two weeks went by, my husband called to find out if the Explorist 600 had been shipped. They said it would be shipped within 1 week and when my husband asked by what mode of transport, they indicated UPS. When he asked them to provide the tracking number he was told to call back in a couple of days for it. He calls back a couple of days later and again after a series of holds was told the Explorist 600 was being shipped out and that he should have it in a few days.....again he's instructed to call back for the tracking number. He calls back days later, again a series of holds, and is told the computer system is down and he will have to call back the next day. He calls back, again a series of holds. The "customer service" rep promises that this time it will be shipped and that he will even send an e-mail providing the tracking number within 24-48 hours. You guessed it....no tracking number. My husband calls every week and is "promised" that it will be sent (this time) and he will receive it in 3-5 days. This has been going on for over two months now and still no replacement model. My husband is determined to get Magellan to stand behind their product, but I think it is an exercise in futility and that he will never get the replacement model he was "promised".

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User Review: - Plagued with problems
I bought this unit maybe a year and half ago, and since then it had numerous problems. The worst is "freeze" state which would happen if device is outside of the map coverage area ( in one particular case I was about 1 mile off the Atlantic shore) or during map redrawing. After entering frozen state, unit would be unresponsive, no buttons worked. From time to time it would go into "debug mode" for no apparent reason. Each time I had to send unit to Magellan repair center, but the problem was never fixed. The unit is not under warranty any more and is unusable (Magellan would not fix it although the problem is as old as the unit itself). Recently I purchased Garmin GPSMap 60CX and I like it much better. It can track satellites even inside a house (explorist 300 had tracking problems through light foliage).
Pros: sleek design, detailed base map

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User Review: - Good Basic GPS
Fast pick-up of location and readily tracks even in moderately heavy cover. Even use in my vehicle and no problems. Only comp;aints are the temp. screen seems slow to respond to temp. changes and the map which is basic is not current to roads and doesn't track exactly to the route. Otherwise definately a good basic GPS for the cost.

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User Review: - Out of date
I got my "New" unit for christmas this year, it as a software date of 8/2004; not what i would call new. Secondly, the box offers a software package for PCs, not included in the box. Finally, I can't register the unit because IT HAS NO SERIAL NUMBER! What is up with that? Too bad I have to rate any stars!

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