Magellan Explorist XL

Mukes

Mukes

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I have been contemplating a handheld chart plotter for some weeks - namely the Garmin 276C, Raymarine RC400 or Geonav 4C (The latter two being the same unit as I understand). I have now noticed deals on the Magellan Explorist XL bundled with a Navonics XL Gold chart for around £430 which tempts me. Has anyone got an opinion based on first hand knowledge as I can't find much information from users on this product - (I have read the boat show review on this unit in PBO).

Cheers.
 
I have just bought the raymarine RC 400. At first I was disappointed as it did not hold its battery charge for very long. I was also concerned about a message WARNING BATTERIES CHARGED, The company I bought it from were not too helpful, but I found Raymarine engineers good they told me it would all be okay after a few charges, and indeed it is, I am glad I stuck with it, I find it a lovelly piece of kit and very user friendly
 
Thanks for the reply Racylady - may I ask how much you paid for your RC400 (and chart if bundled) and from where as there seems to be very large variations in pricing.
 
http://www.adventureelectronics.co.uk/
I did not buy mine from here but the price is the same. I have a navionics gold 25G chart, and the price was £488.00. I have just driven around Portland with it for a bit of practice, my only complaint is I cannot get the alarm for waypoint arrival to work, it gives a visual warning only I'm sure there must be setting to have it audible, I will have to make enquiries.
Keith
 
I had a very bad experience with the Magellan Meridien Marine so was looking to get a Garmin 76 series, but was tempted by the Explorist. Could you tell me, are the charts uploaded from a CD via a laptop onto the unit (wouldn't trust Magellan again with this, and the PBO article refered to the writer having this problem on another Magellan), and even if not, does the Explorist connect in any way to a laptop for any reason, if so is the connector a USB one (the 9 pin convertor to USB which is an extra to the Meridien is flaky to say the least).

IanC
 
Re bad experience with Meridian;
About 3 years ago PBO reviewed the Meridian Marine, so I bought it from a discount chandler. Then bought the "Blue Nav Kit Europe" from a GPS specialist. There is some sort of unlock code you may (or may not) need to upload your chart from CDr in your PC/laptop onto the unit. For some reason the serial number of the unit was not recognised. The unit (ie the Meridian Marine) went back to Pumpkin, who sent it to a service centre. Despite telling them I needed it for a forthcoming holiday - we were upper Thames boaters about to embark on our first trip down river and up the east coast - nothing happened until I chased them up, and it did arrive back in time. However, it had a chart of Emsworth harbour uploaded, but i still couldn't upload the chart from the Blue Nav Kit Europe. Phone call to Magellan in the US were followed by calls to Thales (Magellans owners) in France, and by about October I had to send the unit plus the Blue Nav Kit Europe to Thales in France. When it came back I still couldn't upload charts. For the 2003 season, I used it by uploading waypoints, so with using it much like the first generation of GPS's I could navigate OK. Next season I got a Raymarine colour fixed chartplotter (and radar etc) and it was brilliant, tended to use the Raymarine as a "you are here" moving chart, plus the Meridian for waypoints, along with paper charts. Last season I got a new laptop, which doesn't have a COM port, so go the Magellan COM to USB convering cable, which did work for a few weeks (but then didn't). Lessons learnt; the big lesson is don't buy from two different sources, if I had bought the lot from Pumpkin say, I could have returned the unit & the Blue Nav Kit Europe to them and demaded my money back. Second lesson, I don't trust anything that Magellan sell. I had so much contact with Pumpkin/Globalpositionsystems/Mansprite/Magellan/Thales, but none said return the lot and we'll give you a set up which works. I did try and offer to return, pay the extra, and get a colour version, to no avail. Now based at Bradwell for the summer, and getting a Mirror for the kids, again I'd like a hand held GPS to help explore the creeks close to West Mersea/Tollesbury, so had intended getting to Garmin 76 (Csx? the colour one anyway) but again have been tempted by the big screen of the Explorist.

IanC
 
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