Magellan GPS ??

[davo]

How good are Magellan. I'm looking at upgrading my old Garmin and with the offer of the complete Australian Navionics charts for about $450 they are tempting.

My only reservation is that Magellan are in Perth and I'm in Brisbane so if I have problems it could be a drama.

[deb]

Don't know about the fixed models, but our handheld Magellan is the most reliable bit of electronics ever used. Whenever on the bay or out bushwalking, it picks 6 satellites really quick and really you need to be in a cave to lose the signal.
Cheers

[SeaHunt]

Davo,
I have the Magellan Meridian Marine, a hand held I use for everything, has not missed a beat and I am very impressed with it , I am pretty sure the Australian Navionics charts are available on a chip for it also.
There is a very good company with knowledgable staff and good support called OLBIS at Ipswich Road Rocklea who deal in Magellan, bought mine there. Go see em..You wont have to deal with people in Perth even if things do go wrong.. ;)

[GBC]

If you've lived with a garmin, you'll love a magellan. Build quality/reliability just totally different. I'm up to my third hand held garmin under warranty! (Rather like Rover Australia - great after sales service, and ya know why that is) To put it into perspective I've still got a '1992 model magellan gps2000 that lives in the glovebox of my ute and still goes like a charm...

[Reefmaster]

I think all companys will have the odd unit which can be lemons and there is a guy i know who has been through plenty of magellans under warranty and the first unit went back for repairs for minor problems which come back with no memory and all marks gone. I have never heard any bad news about Garmin but everyone has bad experiences just like GBC but I reckon garmin has one big plus with there units and that would be that they use Blue Charts which are alot more detailed then other mapping systems. I guess this is why all rescue choppers/planes and other life saving vessels use blue map.

Cheers Greg

[trout3030]

Greg,
Are the blue charts more detailed than the navionics gold charts? Am thinking of getting a plotter but have heard the c map are not very detailed when zoomed in so was thinking of going for a Raymarine unit if the navionics charts are good.

[SeaHunt]

Are the navionics charts the ones used by the Aus Navy?
When I bought my GPS the salesman said the full charts showing depth contours as used by the Australian Navy would be available in about 3 months.
That was over 2 years ago.

[Y-Not]

Love them Magellan
I have the magellan gold handheld and it works a treat. Locks on quickly and holds on tight.
easy to download and upload maps waypoints etc
would even recomend it to my best mate :D

[Kerry]

.... I guess this is why all rescue choppers/planes and other life saving vessels use blue map.

Do they ;)

Cheers, Kerry.

[Reefmaster]

Kerry i should have wrote i have been told they do from what i consider as a reliable source but you seem to know otherwise so please explain what you know so i don't pass on second hand info in the future. I was pretty certain rescue choppers use garmin?



Cheers Greg

[Kerry]

Greg, Some possibly use Garmin some probably don't, I wouldn't know what they all use anyway but I'm sure they ALL don't use the same.

But one thing I do know is that rescue shoppers/planes certainly don't use Blue maps, not much use to a chopper at all as that's the last thing a chopper needs is a hydrographical chart, now a Jeppesen database in conjunction with overall mapping now that's a different thing.

Cheers, Kerry.