Magellan eXplorist GC

Summary

With easy operation, the Magellan eXplorist is a great GPSr for causal or regular geocaching.

The Magellan eXplorist GC is a great addition for any geocacher. It is a great starter GPS for beginners, but I would not rely solely on this GPS. It has great integration from the geocaching website, although it is a pain to load the GPX files. You are required to load them through the proprietary Magellan desktop application. No quick loading.  I find when using it on the trail that it tends to be very accurate up until you get near the cache.

One feature that I am missing is the ability to track a trip. Yes, it does track your distance traveled, but only by the birds flight, meaning from point A to B straight shot. I would like to be able to see how far I have traveled after hiking to find a cache.

One of the features that sets it out from the rest is the dedicated geocaching "app." It is great that I can scroll over to geocaches and have it display the nearest ones. The specs say that it has a three to five meter accuracy and I think that this would be a reasonable judgement.

I have tested the coordinates with ones from an actual map to compare and it got me within five feet of the location out in the open and about ten with a few trees overhead. Another things that I sometimes miss is the altimeter. It would be great to see the altitude, it is one feature that would not have swung my decision on my purchase however. 

I would say that it lives up to its promise of being waterproof. I have taken it through mud and rain and it seems to still be going strong. I have also dropped it many times in the dirt. I thought it was done when I accidentally dropped down a hill onto concrete, but it still survives.

I have had the eXplorist GC for about a year now and have been happy with what it has given me. I would definitely recommend this GPSr first to anyone who asks my opinion. I also hope that this review has been helpful in your thoughts about purchasing the eXplorist GC. Thank you.

Summary

Perfect for geocaching.

First GPS and no bad word to say. Kids use it without difficulty and do the job. 10/10

 i bought this gps for geocaching, just like the name says. it is pretty straight forward and simple to use and does a good job. it is rated @ 18 hours of battery life with the energizers that came with it. i wasn't timing it but i would bet it doubled that with ease.

my only complaint is that there is no owners manual that comes with it. it has info loaded onto it and there is a breif tutorial on the phone but no owners manual. there is on the magellan web site. but its a gps and you may be nowhere near a computer when you need to find info .

i would buy it again with no hesitation. i bought it on ebay for $150 new. and it was retailing for $200 everywhere i looked.