Magellan Crossover 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)One the whole, I like my M. Crossover.Generally speaking, it does everything I need it for in regard to GPS.I do not use mine for the audio or visual playback and do not care about those functions.To date, I have done nothing with the computer software either and cannot vouch for that aspect.

The best features to me were in having a GPS unit that I could use to plot courses in the car and yet have a GPS that would work well for hiking.I have driven all over north Texas with the unit and had it mark my travels in both the road mode and outdoor (hiking/contour map) mode.I have not used it in the Marine mode.With just a few exceptions, it has had all the roads I have been on.The exceptions were a couple of very small roads in the middle of nowhere and roads in a brand new development.No surprise.Strangely, it had some dirt roads that I would not have expected.So that was really handy.

In the outdoor mode, I have plotted various key points and had it track my progress, both while driving and while hiking.It has done this all relatively well.

Before I go further, let me say that if I lost this unit, I would not hesitate in getting another.However, it is not a perfect unit and has some shortcomings that are a bit of a bother, but not fatal at all.It has been my experience that all GPS units seem to have various shortcomings, often varying depending on the type of intended use of the unit.I do think the Crossover, with its shortcomings, does enough of the cross over functions to cover my needs sufficiently well and I do not currently see any other units on the market that match it in such versatility.

I have run the unit on battery (most of the time) and while charging in the car.I have charged it with the 120v outlet charger as well.They promise 8 hours of run time and so far I have run as much as 6 on full screen brightness and not run out of power.The 8 hour estimate seems good.

On my recreational property, I have plotted the locations of the property corners, gates, and other specific locations.Subsequent return trips have the show very good match between my previous plots and locations, to just a few feet, well within the unit's specifications.It performs consistently well in this regard, as it should.

The shortcomings...
In the 150+ hours of use with probably 80 or 90 start-ups, I have had it fail to properly boot 4 times.This necessitated the use of the reset switch on the side and after resetting, the unit booted fine.

The green rubber ring around the unit is to help absorb shock if dropped and it probably does help to some extent (I have dropped it once).However, it is prone to slip off when carried in a pocket or pack during periods of lots of motion and the grippy aspect of the rubber can make it hard to extract the unit from a snug pocket if one wants the rubber ring remaining on the unit.

The on screen controls vary with the mode that it is in and as such, the features I like in one mode are not in the same place in the other mode and that can be a bit annoying if you go between modes on a regular basis.This is especially true of the brightness function that is onscreen on the map page in the outdoor mode but not in the car mode.

You can't plot points in the car mode, but if you are in the car mode, the map does not show the icons for gas/food etc. that it does in the outdoor mode.That seemed a bit counter-intuitive.

I have medium-sized guy fingers and sometimes find that I have not been able to precisely press an onscreen button properly.Maybe I need more practice or smaller fingers.

Even on the brightest setting and while out in the sunlight, it can be hard to see the image on the screen.As long as sun is not shining directly on the screen in the car, it does well enough.

As with all GPS units I have used or experienced in the past, letting the GPS decide your route from point A to B should not mean that the traveler should blindly accept the route as the best option, even with the various choices given (fastest, shortest, most use of freeways, etc.).It will get you from point A to B, but what it asserts is the best route may actually be much less than optimal.

I don't know of any other way to charge the unit other than with the accessories provided.You can't take the unit on a 2 day hike and use it all the time without running down the battery and you can't change out the battery.It would be nice if there was a separate battery pack that could be jacked in or a solar charger.Otherwise, the unit is somewhat limited to either sporadic use on multi-day hikes or day hiking because of the battery limitation.

Lastly, while it can track something like 14 satellites, it can lose track of them as well.While hiking in Big Bend with the mountains, signals came and went a lot.It was a bit annoying.No doubt this will happen with other units as well, but the access to 14 didn't seem to make it keep track any more often or continually than with other GPS units I have used.

As I noted above, I would buy this unit again if I had to replace the current unit.I harped on the shortcomings because if you have read Magellan's promo for the Crossover, then you know what it can do and it has been my experience that it pretty well does what is claimed.I only point out the shortcomings such that other potential buyers can make a better informed decision.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Magellan Crossover 3.5 Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Product Description:
The Magellan 2500T Crossover the world's first full featured, pocket size crossover GPS that you can use both in the car and on outdoor expeditions. Enjoy driving, hiking, geocaching, boating, fishing navigation with this all-in-one GPS. The 2500T is also water resistant to IPX4 standards, and features a sleek, intelligent design with a powerful, integrated antenna, MP3 player and picture viewer.


Easy to use touch screen menus.

Built in maps of the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

3D mapping helps you navigate to your destination.

The 2500T is a complete GPS navigation system with simple touch screen menus, Bluetooth, and turn-by-turn guidance. View more details. Convenient Crossover Navigation
If you've ever wished for a single unit that could guide you on the drive to the park, on the hike in the park, and up the river to the next park, the 2500T is the GPS system for you. The large, easy-to-read, 3.5-inch diagonal touch-screen is ideal for either showing you the best route to a new restaurant or keeping you on-track during your next outdoor excursion. Simple touch-screen menus make it easy to select virtually any destination and get turn-by-turn voice and visual guidance on the road. Or you can take the 2500T on your next hike, mark waypoints along the way and save the route to go again next weekend. Detailed built-in street maps of North America and light topographic maps of North America help ensure that you'll never get lost again, no matter where your travels take you.
Advanced Auto Navigation
The 2500T gives you the tools you need to make sure your next car trip is as enjoyable and hassle-free as possible. Advanced auto navigation features include multi-destination routing, which is ideal for vacations; SmartDetour to route you around slow freeway traffic; and SayWhere text-to-speech, which tells you both where to turn and the name of the street to turn on. If you miss a turn, or suddenly find yourself stuck in traffic, the 2500T will save you time and stress by automatically recalculating your route. Powerful and reliable, this system runs on a high performance battery that offers up to eight hours of use so you can search points of interest and plan your trip with ease. Once you're on the road, you can take advantage of the optional TrafficKit accessory, which makes it easy to avoid traffic with Real-time incident reports. (Note: subscription required for traffic reports).
Easy Outdoor Routing
Its sleek and rugged design makes the 2500T easy to take with you wherever you go. The included SportsGuard provides added armor to enhance this system's endurance during outdoor use. As you take on new adventures, you can even add detailed regional topographic or marine maps via Secure Digital memory cards. And whether you're traveling in the car or on foot, you can enhance your trip by listening to music and viewing pictures whether you're in the car or on a mountain trail.

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Lowrance iFinder Expedition C Waterproof Hiking GPS Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)First I would like to say that this is my first GPS unit and that I have been researching several different GPS brands and models for about a year and a half. I travel quite frequently to South America and I wanted a unit that I could view (and navigate) major cities and roadways in SA. I also wanted a compass, color screen and overall, an easy to use unit. I was first interested in the Magellan eXplorist series 300 thru 600. The 600 had all of the features that I wanted but when I called for some pre-sales support, they told me that the unit will work in SA but there are just no maps available for the unit. So for $349.99 (MSRP) you can get a 600 with the North American base map installed. To get any sort of detailed maps add another 149.99 for Mapsend. And after reading the horrible reviews about eXplorist series on cnet and Amazon, I decided to check out other units. I then looked at the Garmin eTrex Vista Cx. However, the unit has a small screen and again, numerous reviews complaining about battery issues and accuracy. When I called Garmin for some pre-sales support, I was on hold for 43 minutes and when someone finally took my call, I was disconnected. So I decided to keep searching.

Researching Consumer Reports, I came across Lowrance. The name sounded familiar since we used their equipment onboard naval vessels. After a few weeks, I settled on the iFinder Expedition C.

THE UNIT: The color screen measures approx. 1.75 X 2.25 inches and the image is excellent. Good color, street names, roads, and boundaries show up very well. It is a solid unit and fits well in the hand and it's very easy to navigate thru the screens using just your thumb. Buttons are rubber and easy to push. Uses 2 AA batteries (unlike the eXplorist 600 that uses a special battery...you can get AAs all over the world) and so far my Energizer NiMH rechargeable batteries have been working just fine. It also has a slot for a standard SD memory card (1 GB Max). It is waterproof up to 1 meter in water for 30 minutes (IPX7 Standard). It comes with a 12 volt car adapter and a pretty good, easy to understand manual. It can track up to 16 satellites at one time but I have only seen as many as 9 on my unit at one time. The unit can play MP3s (only with a special adapter cable sold separately).

THE MANUAL: I skimmed the PDF manual before I purchased my unit to be sure of certain features and ease of use (you can learn a lot about a product by reading the manual first!). It seemed fairly easy and basically self explanatory. Reading PDF page 28 gives you a quick and easy reference to get you on the road or trail fast. However, anything other than the basic features, it will take some time to memorize menu locations and options. So if you really want to utilize the full potential of the unit, you will need to read the manual with the unit on hand (If you don't want to utilize the units full potential, don't buy the Expedition). The manual is quite lengthy but well written and highly detailed. At this time, I have not found any typos or wrong information in the manual. It will just require patience reading page after page.

THE SOFTWARE: The unit comes pre-loaded with a basic map of the entire world. What this means is that you can only see US state boundaries, major US freeways and roads, cities, major bodies of water, and country boundaries. Since I wanted some detailed maps of South America, I wanted to purchase the Freedom Map of the world but the service technician who I spoke with over the phone told me that it is not worth the $99.99 investment since the extra details are not quite there yet. I purchased the USA Topo Map Create Series 6 accessory package (includes an SD card, Card Reader, and 6 CD ROMs) for $95.00 from LEI. The SD card is 64MB (58.5 MB after formatting) and the CD ROMs are series 6.3. To my surprise, the USA Topo Map Create 6.3 does come with the entire world. However, only the 48 US states and Hawaii have the detail down to the street level (Alaska only shows major roads and cities). So for the rest of the world, cities, major lakes, major roadways and waterways are present...far better detail than what comes preloaded with the unit. So I am thinking that the Freedom map of the world would have been a waste of money because I am completely satisfied with the detail of South America. The Map Create is extremely easy to work with. I have yet to read the manual about the software and I have loaded quite a bit of maps to my GPS unit. I purchased 2 512 MB and a 1 Gig card and on one 512 MB card I loaded the entire South American continent, Central America, Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Washington, and Florida. Europe takes up only 4 MB of space (But remember, it's the details that take up the space). As far as the mapping software is concerned, you are able to select what details you want to load onto your GPS unit. For example, if you like railroading, you can choose to have all the railroads displayed. You can have all the restaurants or lodging facilities to show. It's up to you. But the more you want the more space it takes up. There are 21 categories (and numerous subcategories) you can select from (Highways, landmarks, elevation, structures, and hunting and marine navaids just to name a few). The state of Colorado takes up 125 MB with all 21 items selected. With 16 items selected it takes up 27 MB. South America takes up 3.86 MB (again, you're not loading all the roads and restaurants either). Map Create 6.3 comes with 6 CDs and you need to install all 6. After the installation, you will need to keep the first CD in the drive each time you open up the program. The LEI card reader was somewhat difficult to install (yes you need the special LEI card reader if you are going to download maps onto SD cards for your unit). My first two attempts trying to get the mapping software to recognize the reader failed. The third time I used the drivers off Lowrance web site and that didn't work either. I then extracted the drivers off of the CD ROM and finally I got it to work. You cannot save any maps from Map Create 6.3 without the card reader and SD card installed. But once the files are on the SD card you can transfer them to a folder on your PC for backup. Once you have downloaded your specialized maps from Map Create to an SD card, all you have to do is install the SD card into your unit, turn the unit on and it loads the maps, with all its details, automatically on boot up. You are only allowed to have a maximum of 5 SD cards. I don't know what you can do if an SD card gets stolen, lost, or destroyed since I have not had that happen to me yet.

Before installing MapCreate, any running anti-virus programs need to be disabled. Even at that, when I installed Map Create, it totally corrupted Norton Anti-Virus. I had to re-install Norton and all its definitions.

ACCURACY:

The unit itself is very accurate. When I'm driving on a freeway, the MPH on my screen is dead on (probably a little more accurate than the cars speedometer). Also, with the zoom at 0.05 miles (the width of the freeway is around ¾") the unit detects when I am changing lanes. When I am walking in the street with the unit, it detects when I walk around parked cars. I am very impressed. However, the maps are not always that accurate. There is a park behind my house and the map shows it over and down two blocks. According to the map on my GPS, I live one street to the west of my actual location. The GPS signal is probably dead on but the map isn't. Sometimes when I am driving down side roads, it shows that I am about 2 or 3 blocks off (but other side roads it is very accurate). But on major highways and even major roads, it lines up well. Now realistically, being a few blocks off probably isn't that bad. It will get you where you need to go and back again.

WHAT I LIKE:

The unit finds satellites very quickly and the unit is very accurate.

Hardware and software are easy to use

Search feature allows you to search an address, a street, or a restaurant.

Battery life is more than acceptable to me

Screen is very crisp

Unit is very sturdy and durable

Lowrance customer service (and pre-sales support) is excellent

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

I don't like the fact that I have to extract the batteries in order to remove the SD card. It is very annoying, especially during the experimental stage.

The unit does not have a standard headphone jack

There is a rubber flap on the back of the unit that covers the external antenna port. The rubber flap does not seat very well and keeps popping off (I'm sure the carrying case that you can buy separately will solve that problem but the case looks cheap).

I wish that the manual came with a laminated card (or a PDF that you can download) with a brief description of the menu options. Sort of like a quick reference page that you can carry with you instead of bringing the entire manual along. I am in the process of making one but it is taking some time.

You now have my ten cents worth. As far as I can tell, Lowrance is the way to go. Good Luck!

Five Months Later:

Now that I have had my unit for awhile, I would like to add and subtract a few things that I mentioned in my last review.

The unit is still awesome and learning how to use it is fairly simple and I have no regrets about my purchase. There are just a few things I would like to mention that will hopefully help you determine if this is the unit for you.

LEI

LEI is a Lowrance subsidiary that provides software and accessories for products that Lowrance makes. Their web site can be accessed via the Lowrance home page or http://www.lei-extras.com/store/default.asp. Be careful...Read more›

Click Here to see more reviews about: Lowrance iFinder Expedition C Waterproof Hiking GPS

Product Description:
Find your way to your destination in lavish color with the iFinder Expedition C 16-channel handheld mapping GPS. This compact and portable GPS system offers everything you could want or need when either planning or taking a trip, including the unique "Scout Mode" option to mark area perimeters and create borders, an electronic compass, barometric altimeter with weather predictions, built-in microphone, MP3 player capabilities through the MMC/SD digital media memory card slot, and more. There's even a built-in microphone for recording voice notes to waypoints. Watertight with a sure-grip rubber welt seal, the Expedition C comes with a classic black and silver case.
Reliable, accurate, and user-friendly, the Expedition C features a bright, 2.83-inch diagonal color TFT display with 320V x 240H pixel resolution and a white LED backlit screen for excellent direct sunlight and low-light or night viewing. But it's the built-in continental United States and Hawaii background map (with interstate exit services) that makes this model the ideal travel companion. And because the Expedition C is compatible with optional plug and play Lowrance FreedomMaps, Fishing Hot Spots Elite, LakeMaster ProMaps, NauticPath, and Navionics electronic charts, it can easily accommodate any additional navigation tools you need.
Full of helpful and time-saving features, like dual processors for high speed screen updates and dual Easy and Advanced operation modes, the Expedition C makes trip planning a breeze. In addition, this system gives you access to 1,000 waypoints, 1,000 event markers, and 100 routes, as well as up to 100 savable and retraceable plot trails, with up to 10,000 points in any trail. You can also take advantage of the 40 map zoom ranges (from 0.02 to 4,000 miles) and 63 graphic icons for noting special spots or points.
For added convenience, the Expedition C includes an antenna port for connecting an optional external GPS and WAAS antenna, as well as a 12 volt plug power adapter for in-vehicle or ATV use. It also operates up to 14 hours or longer on two "AA" batteries (not included) and comes with a full, one-year warranty.

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