User Review: Brunton Multi-Navigator System

The Brunton MNS was one of the early multi-use (GPS, compass, barometer, altimeter etc.) navigational units. It was sold outside North America under the Silva brand.

I find the MNS to work well in getting coordinates. It gets lock fairly quickly and has a nice readable display (no map, of course). By the standards of the time, however, it was (is) an energy hog, and its AA batts will not last long in continuous use. You just about have to have the AC adapter plug for use in a vehicle.

While it does have a compass, I don't use it much, since a regular magnetic compass weighs only 1.5 ounces and doesn't burn battery power. Afoot, you're better off using the MNS only occasionally to verify position, then following your paper map, rather than burn juice following a trackback. The interface is not user-friendly at all and much time is wasted when changing batteries, due to a very fiddly lanyard knob that must be painstakingly unscrewed, then screwed back once the new batts are installed. With a little better engineering and a lot better power usage this could have been a great GPS unit.