robbyjones's Full Review: Magellan Sportrak Color Handheld GPS Receiver
This is my second stint as a GPS user. I owned a map 330 (also by magellan) about 5 years ago and I enjoyed it. Recently I have been getting into hiking and wanted a good GPS unit to help me in the back 40! I knew I wasnt going to be hiking all thetime and so I also wanted a unit that would be good for driving and easy on the eyes. I pretty much had my heart set on a color screen and with added compass and barometer and thermometer the sportrak color seemed the way to go. So I ordered it.
When the Unit arrived the first thing I noticed was how wonderfull the screen looked until I got it outside where it became barely visible. Backlight had to be on all the time
So I figured I would upgrade the Unit to the latest firmware version and low and behold the unit became CONSIDERABLY slower at aquiring and locking on satelites.
Ok no big deal so I call Magellan and they inform me that this is quite common when upgrading the firmware on this unit and can I live with the longer aquisition times (10 minutes cold start!)
I took the unit into the woods to try it out on foot and it was nice. The screen was readable when held in certain positions which made it a bit arkward. It was very accurate in getting me to my destination though and had some nice features.
Then I took it driving and found the screen to be unacceptable small for any serious kind of navigation. (especially true during the day due to difficulties with screen contrast and lcd darkness) In addition the mapsend software that I was using would not allow me to display the street detail at the zoom level that I wanted. It is kind of difficult navigating in a car when good street detail only allows you about 4 tenths of a mile what is in front of you! (not to mention having to squint at the screen and avoid hitting the pedestrians LOL)
Oh yeah,, barometer and thermometer are almost useless!
Large 240 x 160 pixel, high contrast, backlit, full-color display Uses WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) and the European Geostationary Navigation ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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