Something New From Magellan

Optimistic Paranoid

Optimistic Paranoid

Adventurist
I was browsing the Garmin and Magellan sites today, looking to do a little Christmas shopping. Magellan is announcing a new unit called the Explorist TRX7 Off-road GPS Navigator. It's not available yet, but will be here Real Soon Now.

They are touting it as the "Ultimate" off-road navigator. Among the claims are that it comes preloaded with over 44,000 off road routes on forest and public land, and they are talking about an Off-Road Community Database.

Anyway, if you are interested, the preliminary information is here:
http://www.magellangps.com/Vehicle-Navigation/Magellan-eXplorist-TRX7-Off-road-GPS-Navigation
 
Interesting...looks like it might be stupid proof enough for me to use it. As I get older, I appreciate larger screen size, did I miss it or did they not indicate available the screen size? Unfortunately for me, that one doesn't come with Baja/Mexico preloaded.

I've been real happy with my current Garmin. It's a newer one, 7" +/- screen, has all of North America preloaded. It's met my needs for SoCal/Baja travel, including off road.

Now city folks will get lost even deeper in the backcountry when taking the "shortcut" they saw on their GPS!:cool:
 
In 2006 IIRC I bought a Magellan "Crossover". It was pretty damn good for its day so I imagine this will be good too.

That said, I think Garmin and Magellan's days are numbered when it comes to these GPS units. My current nav setup is an iPad mini, and my iPhone. It does it all and so much more, I can't imagine ever going back to a dedicated unit that only does one thing.

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I don't know. For me, it comes down to ease of use. If a dedicated unit is running software that does everything I need it to do, and seems to be more intuitive and easier for me to use than any of the apps available for Android or Apple, I wouldn't let the minor inconvenience of having two devices deter me from using the better program. Especially for a vehicle - it's not like I have to carry the separate phone and gps around in my pockets everywhere.
 
That is pretty neat... I could go for that too. Now I use my Nuvi and my Android device for navigating and both have mounts they call home on the dash. Mandatory for solo travel IMHO.

See, I travel mostly by myself and I enjoy the company of two nagging women's voices telling me what to do. It's kind of like having my wife and Kate giving me directions at the same time... "turn around" - "calculating"... "merge left" - "turn left!" If they would just say, "you're driving too fast," and "this seat isn't comfortable enough," it would be just about perfect.
 
I currently use an iPad set up as well. What intrigues me is the ability to plan my travels on a website. I'd want to know more about how I access my planned routes, and if my planned routes are automatically shared on the database based on the terms of service of the website.
 
Like Dave, I too had the Crossover when first out. Loved it until I started having lockup issues in offroad mode. It became to unreliable for this use. Never had any issues in the street view. Magellan never really did any supporting of this product outside of one update that did not correct the issues. For the money spent at the time I was disappointed by their service and likely would never buy one of their products again. Moved to a Garmin and haven't had a single incedent in 5+ years.
 
I've been very happy with my Nexus tablet running back country navigator, but I will say when I leave the vehicle my Garmin 60CSX is what comes with me. Garmin's route planning software is very usable and importing tracks from others off the internet is intuitive. Don't think that I've ever used any software from Magellan. Not sure that I'll ever buy another unit that is solely for use in a vehicle but if they make a weather proof handheld version of this it might make a good upgrade from the 60CSX.

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Dave said:
In 2006 IIRC I bought a Magellan "Crossover". It was pretty damn good for its day so I imagine this will be good too.

That said, I think Garmin and Magellan's days are numbered when it comes to these GPS units. My current nav setup is an iPad mini, and my iPhone. It does it all and so much more, I can't imagine ever going back to a dedicated unit that only does one thing.

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I run an iPad mini with a BadElf GPS puck, garmin USA app and Topo app. I'm playing with the idea of mounting a laptop and running Delorme's big software and using the iPad to run a Bluetooth obd-II device with monitoring/gauges software
 
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