|
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. For Iraq I used an E-Trex by Garmin. It is huge, slow, and no good. 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. but not the Magellan 300. This GPS works fine if you are just out geocaching and can use two hands and so forth and can take your time.
We were switching to the DAGGER, another horrible and unfriendly to use military GPS. When I got home I bought a new 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. I am in the infantry and we use what is called a Plugger. 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.
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. I often wear either tactical gloves or gloves for weather and to operate the buttons on this unit with gloves on is nearly impossible. The face plate cracked, but it still works. No dice.
This model worked fine when I used the demo version in the store, yet I should have worn gloves when I did so. My gloves are a skin tight tactical glove and I have good dexterity with them. 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. I reccomend you pass on this model.
Not only has Magellan not stood behind its product, its customer service people are obviously trained to give customers the run around. He was told the warranty would not be honored as it had expired. He calls back, again a series of holds. 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. We paid to ship and repair the unit. 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 several months the NAV button wasn't working properly. 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. When we got the unit back, it was not the one we sent in as it had a different serial number. 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. He was first told no supervisor was available and with further pressing was put on hold for 10-15 minutes before a supervisor responded.
It was to replace a 10 year old Magellan that was much larger and heavier. I'm assuming all with the intent that the customer will eventually just give up. When he asked them to provide the tracking number he was told to call back in a couple of days for it. 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. After the week, the call was a series of holds (always 10-15 minutes each time) before a supervisor came to the phone. By the time he got around to call "customer service" it was a couple of weeks after the 1 year warranty. You guessed it.no tracking number. 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.
Megellans "customer service" is by far the worst we have experienced. 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. 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 was then told he would just have to buy another model. My husband calls every week and is "promised" that it will be sent (this time) and he will receive it in 3-5 days. What a NASTY way to treat people. This has been going on for over two months now and still no replacement model.
The NAV button of this replaced unit did not work. He indicated that this was not acceptable and pressed to speak with a supervisor. 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. 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".
Each time I had to send unit to Magellan repair center, but the problem was never fixed. 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. I bought this unit maybe a year and half ago, and since then it had numerous problems. 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). 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. 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
Fast pick-up of location and readily tracks even in moderately heavy cover. screen seems slow to respond to temp. Even use in my vehicle and no problems. Only comp;aints are the 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.
Finally, I can't register the unit because IT HAS NO SERIAL NUMBER. 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. What is up with that. Too bad I have to rate any stars.
|
