Explorist 600 any Findings???

[EcoTeam]

It's interesting to use the mobile phone analogy - who HASN'T had the situation where the phone battery is flat when you need to use it.
<P>
On the other hand, who'd like to be continually changing batteries in their mobile phone - much easier to just plug in a charger or stick on a cradle (as long as you remember to).

Yes, I admit it's very convienient. However the real flexability comes when you can exchange batteries between your GPS, torch, PDA, camera, radio etc.
You only have to experience this convienience once to be converted to AA's forever!
Means you can carry less spares for any given trip.

Car charging is a bit of a pain - in my Patrol, the lighter only works with the ignition on, and if you've been away from mains power for a few days, all your rechargeable items (GPS, camera, phone, etc) are getting low and it really isn't covenient to try to charge them all from the car.

Yep, and it takes time too.
Your camera and GPS are both dead?, better be sure you have both mobile chargers available, a dual cigarette ligher adapter, and the time to charge them. Too bad if it's 10minutes to the next cache.

PS A bit off topic, but you can recharge alkalines if you have a <A HREF=http://www.latestbuy.com.au/rezap_charg ... .htm>Rezap Battery Doctor</A>

There are way too many bad stories about recharging alkalines, like they can just instantly die on you when you think you should have 80% capacity left. I would not recommend doing this for anything you might have to rely upon (GPS, radios, torch etc).

EcoDave

[arthurking83]

Actually, having 4 shades of pink available is not that silly when you consider the use of contour topography and the need for more and more terrain information. If you have ever used topographic maps, you will know that there are contour lines used in different shades of pink/red to indictate the graduations. Different shades of green to indicated the varying density of vegetation in parklands etc. Different shades of blue to indicate ocean and river depths and hazards. I think I have just about used up 16 colours just there.......

I get the point!
I still think it's not a real advantage!
If the purpose of the GPS was to display photos, the 256 colors would be great
The DiscoverAus Topo maps look perfectly acceptable on my MeriColor with 16 colors.
I do accept that they would look prettier in 256 colors, but I can read a topo map well enough to understand the terrain, without needing more than 16 colors.
The idea of the darker shades of blue for the depth of the water would be handy! But this could be achieved with the use of better (higher)screen resoultion anyhow! (as some manufacturers do with greyscale!)
Oh! and I'm not a boating person so it doesn't affect me....... until I get into boating
I think good screen contrast, brightness, sunlight readability, and low power consumption would be far more "urgent" issues to attend to.
Although I have read that the GPS60C has one of the best screens, with respect to these requirements

[Grank]

I only started caching earlier this year after I got an explorist 100 late 2004 - no reason, just had to have a GPS. The one drawback I found was that my failing eyes (something to do with the aging process I have been told!) didn't allow me to read it in failing light - backlight actually made it worse. I had bumped into Tangles once and saw their larger scgreen GPS and was impressed so have been agonising over upgrading with a BIG screen being the top of the list - but to what <br><br>
I just wanted to thank those that have contributed to this thread as after considering the advice, screen shots and experience that has been shown here I finally ordered my new GPS today .
<br><br>
I have ordered an Explorist XL with Aus Topo map. It's functionality is based on the Explorist 500. It takes 4 rechargeable AAs, has a larger screen - maybe not many colours (I really liked the Garmin 60C) but size does matter more to me - it's damn hard wandering the scrub in reading glasses! It was only a matter of time till they went missing. <br><br>
Like all things I had to make a compromise, but your experience and discussion assisted greatly in finally making a decision. <br><br>
Cheers.

[GIN51E]

Just an update on the Explorist 400, 500 & 600

You can now purchase AAA Battery Clips for these models instead of using the rechargeable battery.

https://www.nextdestination.com.au/Page ... ductId=141

[whereis]

I bought this unit 3 months ago never having used a GPS before. I love the size of it and find the screen very usable. I like the grouping of the buttons on the bottom of the unit, easy to reach and use. I do have a few issues with it though that really bug me!</P>

It has a geocache manager installed but it truncates clues after the first 50 chars, can only hold 200 caches, yea I know that sounds like a lot but I live in the ACT where there are just over 200 caches and it would be nice to have all of the ones in the ACT and surrounding NSW in the unit at the same time. You can of course have more than one cache file at a time on the SD card though.</P>

The details maps are great but slow to move around when you are using the joystick, depending on the zoom level it can take several seconds to move to the next screen and draw it in. You can only have one detail map active at the same time, hassle as I live on the ACT/NSW border It takes 16 'mouse clicks/movements' to change the map!</P>

16 colours is more than I need to see the map clearly. The screen is easy to read in the sun or at night</P>

Menu navigation can be slow and some options are buried deeper than they should be.</P>

Button presses get ignored quite often, they beep but just don't register and it can take 2 or 3 presses before the Menu works </P>

Can take up to 40 seconds to bring up the track log page depending on what tracks you have in memory/saved.</P>

The 3 axis compass is great, couldn't imaging trying to work without it. The barometer and thermometer are next to useless though </P>

Battery life is OK. Not being to tell what level the backlight is at in the sun is a real pain, you have to guess.</P>

The unit sometime randomly turns itself off!</P>

The software that comes with it is OK. Mapsend 2's geocache management is sufficient. The Geocache manager that came on the disk is rubbish with a capital "R".</P>

I am using Cachmate on an iPaq to manage caches and am happy with it. It does a great job for an $8 piece of software.</P>

You don't want to remove the SD card on a regular basis, the mechanism that holds it in place is extremely fragile. I have already ripped it off once and I was being careful!</P>

I bought the pack which came with a swivel mount, car charger and the topo maps. The swivel mount is good (only using it on the desk and quite frankly can't see how you would use it in the car) but you have to ensure that the unit clicks into place otherwise the battery doesn't get charged. When the unit if off you cannot tell if the battery is being charged.</P>

Overall I am happy with the unit, lots of usability issues that could be very easily addressed. I am a programmer and find these things annoying </P>

If I was starting this process over I think I would look much more closely at PDA GPS solutions and at Garmin (which isn't well supported in Canberra). Hope someone finds this info useful </P>