Magellan Meridian Sportrak Gold

[Gris]

Looking at picking this up as my first GPS. Reviews seem to indicate it holds signal better in tree cover than Garmin, a feature important to me. Plus it's less expensive to boot. Anyone have an opinion on this product (or similar Platinum model) vs. others. I apologize if this Q. has been asked before. Thanks.

 

[arghman]

what's your application?
specs look decent to me, the external memory card support is a nice feature if you are going to be doing a lot of mapping (wish I had that cables to PCs suck).

 

[SherpaKroto]

Looks to be a nice unit. It does not have an altimeter and barometer, which I really like. You might want to look at the Magellan Explorist 300 (but it does not have the quad helix antenna that you are looking for). That is the only Magellan model that I am aware of that has an altimeter (it's almost identical to my Garmin Summit).

 

[Gris]

Just discovered the new Sportrak "Topo." Seems to have all necessary bells and whistles, including elevation and quad helix. Thinking i may go ahead and drop the big $$$ (275) for it...

 

[TenPeaks]

I have an old Magellan 315 and have been very happy with it. I'd like to upgrade someday, but don't see any reason to while my current GPS is working fine.

I would suggest getting the computer cable. It's a big help saving your waypoints to disk and is a lot easier adding waypoint from the computer. Easy GPS is a nice (free) little program to keep your waypoints in order. Also, an altimiter feature is not necessary with a GPS. With a good signal the unit will give you a relatively accurate altitude. Mine is typically within 1 to 20 feet of actual altitude based on what's on my map.

 

[Remix]

I never had a problem with tree cover issues and my Magellan Meridian Platinum.

If the price is that high, check www.shopharmony.com for the price on the Meridian Platinum. I have purchased from them without any problems.

The Meridian does have a compass and barometer, but the reason I bought it is for unlimited memory you can add to it...something like 512 MB.

 

[Gris]

Yup, and the fact that you can use SD cards, which i already have a few of for camera...

and ... i'm right back where i started w/ Meridian Gold in lieu of Topo. It's $175 instead of $275 and you can use SD cards and upload customized maps instead of using built-in. Doesn't have compass & barometer like Platinum, but that's not what i want it for.

Yeah, i'm going for the Gold... It's exactly what I want - strongest antenna & expandable SD card memory.