GPS Devices Life

GPS with value and good feature set - Magellan Meridian Gold Handheld GPS Receiver I have tried several different GPS models and this one certainly has the best feature set for the money. Mag...

Bought it at Sam’s Club - Magellan Meridian Gold Handheld GPS Receiver Okay I was influenced strongly by the special on the Magellan Meridian Gold being on sale at Sam's Club for $302 i...

I purchased a Magellan Meridian Gold November 2001, soon after product release. I chose this model after a great deal of comparison between several GPS models, namely those produced by Magellan and Garmin. After weighing features, screen size, base map size, industrial design, price, etc., I chose the Magellan Meridian Gold.

The Magellan Meridian Gold has several features, such as a 16MB “base” map, compass, route profile, elevation, speed, odometer, deviation from route, etc. These features are relatively standard on most GPS models. The difference in most GPS models, however, is the size of the “base” map.

The use of the term “base” map may be confusing if you have ever watched shows on mountain climbing (at least it was to me). The term “base camp” is often used, and you see people looking at maps to get back to “base camp”. Not everyone wants to use a GPS for mountain climbing, so the use of a “base” map term seemed confusing. It is even more confusing when product advertisements refer to base maps and using the units for outdoor activities such as camping. For those that may be confused about this term, the “base” map is the built in map. It contains interstates, state highways, specific points of interest, etc. Not necessarily maps of parts of a mountain.

I was shopping for a GPS to use primarily while driving. I have often wasted a great deal of time being lost on trips by making wrong turns or because I didn’t have a good reference of where I was compared to my position on a map. I figured a GPS would help solve this problem. Since knowing where you are in reference to the world is important, the screen size of these devices is important. As the screen size increases, more information can be displayed to help you see landmarks that may be around your position. After a great deal of comparison, I chose this model due to the size of the screen, case design, basemap, and price. Although I was buying a GPS to use while driving, using one while driving is really discouraged. It would not be difficult to get into an accident while you were trying to look information up while driving. If you purchase a GPS, be sure to pull over before looking up information. Also, do not use this unit in place of a map. You really need to use it in conjunction with a map to get the most usefulness from it.

The Meridian Gold is really a dream to use (the base model). It is extremely easy! I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this is to use. The interface uses a couple of buttons to change screens, and if you wish to set functions, or look information up, a scroll and select type of interface is used. Essentially, when you want to look up information, you press the “Menu” button, press the down arrow to scroll through choices, highlight a choice, and then press “Enter”.

While these units will not give you turn by turn directions, you can setup waypoints to create a route. Unfortunately, the unit just calculates straight like distance between waypoints, so you would have to create a waypoint for every turn in order to navigate somewhere in a city.

Since the Meridian Gold is expandable, and I wanted to use it for driving, I purchased a 32MB expansion card, the external power cord (cigarette lighter adaptor), and the Mapsend Streets Gold software. The DC adaptor is highly recommended because this unit will use batteries very quickly. The Mapsend Streets Gold software allows a user to download detailed street level maps that include information on points of interest, restaurants, hotels, etc., as long as you have a memory expansion card.

Now this is where the GPS begins to fall short. This model is really great when you use the base model. As soon as you load the Streets software, however, it becomes much more difficult to use. Once the Streets software is loaded, all the points of interest icons appear on the screen, which clutters it. If you “zoom out” to see where you are, the clutter increases as the points of interest icons fill the screen. These icons can be turned off, so you really need to experiment with the level of detail you want, icons, and resolution at different zoom levels to determine a combination that works for you.

The Mapsend software allows you to setup routes, waypoints, etc., as well as download points of interest. This is useful if you are on a long trip and want to see what restaurants and hotels are nearby. Unfortunately, the way the database is setup for this software really detracts from the usefulness of the unit. For example, if you want to look up something like “Wrigley Field” using the unit, you can not look in the “Sports Stadiums” point of interest category to find it. You have to look in the “Parks” category, or through other categories to find it (and you are lucky if you do find it). Also, if you are traveling and want to find a tourist attraction, or determine what types of tourist sites are nearby, there is a “Tourist Attractions” point of interest category. When you look in this category, you are given a list of local tourism companies, not the actual tourist sites. Same thing with the “Sight Seeing” category. If I am traveling on Sunday, and I want to see where an amusement park is, I would be extremely lucky if I can find that in any of the categories. I would probably have to call one of the tourism type companies listed to find that out. This unfortunately destroys the usefulness of the software. It takes what could be a really fun unit, and makes the software more of a hindrance than a help.

I would definitely recommend the unit. I would not recommend the software though. I sure hope that Magellan corrects this. This unit has a great deal of potential, but the software really detracts from it. At the time I purchased it, I could get it for $265 through mail order. It can be purchased for much less (~$210) from auction sites such as Ebay. If you decide to purchase accessories, Ebay may be the cheapest route for those as well.

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