
Magellan Meridian v's Garmin eTrex
Hi Tony,
I'll admit that I'm an eTrex fan, and haven't really used a Magellan before (even though I work for the company that designs and manufactures them!), but after playing with a friends new Magellan Meridian ($350 brand new on eBay (imported from the US)) the other night I can offer this comparison:
There were a few negative factors to the Magellan Meridian I picked up straight away.
The first is that it's HUGE compared to the Garmin eTrex, around twice the size. This in my opinion is a big negative. A larger size is heavier, more akward to use, and will look a bit suspect when you are doing extreme urban caching. The eTrex has the advantage of looking like a mobile phone and it fits almost completely in your hand, and many a cacher has pretended to make a phone call when people walk past!
The second negative point is that the Magellan does not have a hook for a carry strap. The eTrex has a hook on the bottom for a strap, and I use a thick shoe lace in a loop so that I can hang it around my neck when climbing over obstacles etc. This is just SO handy, I don't think I could live without it.
The third negative is that the buttons on the Magellan are not designed for true one hand operation like the eTrex with it's buttons on the side. Sure you can use the Magellan with one hand, but you have to kind of shuffle it around a bit to get your thumb in the right position - really annoying. Could be easy to drop when shuffling around like this too. It's certainly not designed for small hands.
The fourth negative was that when turned on it came up with a disclaimer, and you have to press "enter" to accept the disclaimer before a set time or it switches itself off! Geeze!
Did I find anything on the Magellan that was better than the eTrex?:
I did like the larger display which seemed to have a bit better contrast than the eTrex.
Being a more expensive unit it did have a few more fancy features. I liked being able to display both UTM and DDD.MMM.MM co-ords, very handy.
I didn't actually use it under geocaching conditions, so it wasn't a really fair comparison, but I found the Magellan had too many negatives already to recommend it over the eTrex for geocaching.
That's my initial thoughts anyway.
Sorry to all you Magellan fans out there, corrections invited!
Regards
EcoDave
