eXplorist 500 LE Handheld GPS Unit
By: Magellan Average Rating: 3.0 Total Reviews: 3
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 On: 2008-01-16
I recd an Explorist 500 LE for Xmas. Right off the bat Ive been pretty thrilled with it. It does its job great! Its fairly intuitive and easy to use. Accuracy is amazing!
BUT...
1) Its a battery hog. 3 Alkaline AAAs last about 6 hours. 8 hours with lights and alarms off. Titanium batteries are 5 hours better Lithium will give you 16.
2) You have to purchase every scrap of software thats "included" at $149.99 a pop. Included is not what it seems.
3) "No access fees" to what exactly I dont know.
4) Product documentation and support is a joke. The USB cable is proprietary instead of a regular mini and the mounting port is ambiguous so that attachment of the cable can help but be wrong. You end up calling support, yes India, and it took six phone calls and 12 hours for them to tell me my cable was upside down.
Tt seems to be a great functioning unit, but I believe I really would have rather had a Garmin eTrex. Watch out for the misleading product packaging and bait and switch accessories offer.
 On: 2007-12-02
Extremely pleased with this GPS. I use it for boating along Florida coast as well as for GeoCaching (www.geocaching.com if you dont know what that is). Li-Ion battery last almost all day when in sunlight when back lighting isnt needed. Consistantly get 10 WAAS accuracy. Topo 3D software and USB connectivity make it easy to manage waypoints, create routes, download geocaches, etc. I added a 2mb SD card to store street detail maps. Like the control buttons, pretty intuitive,, especially like the ability to customize the different screens for different application, for example, I use "Bearing" instead of "time to next" when I am geocaching, though I like "time to next" for traveling. Also the on-board geocaching software seems much easier to use than others that I see my fellow geocachers use.
Had small problem early on with USB cable. I connected the cable that connects to the GPS the way it looks like it was made to connect. Didnt work, quick call to support (yes, India) quickly corrected me and it worked fine.
Color display is a real plus. Have many friends that use other b/w screens and they are hard to read.
I have had mine for almost a year now, and I love it. Strongly suggest getting Li-Ion Battery and SD card and 3D Topo Software.
 On: 2007-04-17
Unreliable pile of you-know-what. Worked fine for about 2 months then refused to power up. Fresh batteries, no go. Called customer "service". Outsourced call center to India; rep followed generic script telling me to: 1) use lithium-ion batteries, and 2) press "power + NAV" simultaneously. As suspected, bogus advice. Fresh batteries metered out to 1.62 volts each / 4.84 volts total. Yes, I tried lithium-ion batteries anyway. Still no-go. Am still waiting for Magellan/Thales to respond. Am still owner of unreliable GPS. Still have about $400 invested in unit plus software and maps. Still kicking myself for buying a Magellan product. Dont do it. Really -- dont do it.
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