 "Good $10 program, not very good for $149" | 2008-02-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2DPP0L81PCCX7 |
As a $9.95 promotional addition to my $49 eXplorist 500LE North America, it was a very good bargain. If I had paid the $200 list price for the eXplorist 500LE and found out I had to pay another $149 for this software and $99 for DirectRoute AND that the software purchase is locked to one GPS only, I would have been furious. As it stands, I seriously doubt that I would buy the DirectRoute software since I have a "real" driving GPS (Garmin C330) and pressing the 500LE into "Street Pilot" service would not be smart.
Now to the software. You must read the Readme.txt's to see that there is a patch that you MUST use to convert the maps before you load it onto the eXplorist units. I found that once I connected the USB cable *properly* to my 500LE, communications were automatic and a breeze. With an internet connection, the registration of the GPS, purchase of the Mapsend software and activation were seamless.
Topo information is great, 3D views are faster than Google Earth, but a little more limited and downloading the converted map sections are very easy.
As others stated, no trail information is on the software which makes this useless as a planning tool for hiking unless you have a real USGS topo map available. Now if you had your own trail information and this software, it would be great. That's what I intend to do for my hikes. It's too bad that I would not be able to make plans for a hike without the addition of a USGS topo map. That's what I thought I was getting when I purchased this. |
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| "Magellan Support" | 2008-02-12 |
| - Reviewed By macka492 |
In general, I find Magellan support extremely bad, after upgrading my GPS from a SportTrak to an Explorist, I was inform that my existing software - MapSend Topo USA would not work, but some of things did work, such as Waypoints did transfer, but not without a battle. Once trying to transfer map regions is when I ran into the problems, only to be inform that I have to spend another 149.00 for the software.
Its too bad, they have a nice GPS, but the support is so bad, I have stopped using Magellan products.
John |
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| "This is an old version" | 2008-01-26 |
| - Reviewed By jb671719 |
Be careful, this is version 1.0. The current version is 1.5.
Amazon did the right thing and refunded my money. |
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 "Unfriendly to explorist users" | 2008-01-20 |
| - Reviewed By barker_djb |
I have mixed feelings on this. It was a huge pain to get this to work at all with my explorist. The software doesn't work with the explorists USB, but prefers old COM ports, figure that out. I finally figured out a way to save to file, then move the file onto the GPS.
Apparently, the software determines the correct image format by the serial number you entered. The problem there is, it tells you to use the serial number inside the unit, which in my case was slightly different than the one in the UI. After darn near sending it back, I tried the UI reg. number and that worked.
I must say, now that I have it working, it does some phenomenal things. I just went on a little trip with my son, loaded up the track, and was able to play back the trip in 3d. The graphics folks on this app did some pretty amazing things. Why not put a little more work into making the software user friendly and actually WORK with that USB port you put in the hardware?
I was VERY close to sending this software AND the GPS back. I can't imagine most consumers would be motivated enough to spend the time figuring this out.
Oh, also don't like the deal with having to have the 3rd CDROM in the drive. I bought the software, I find that downright offensive. And as another reviewer said, CD's scratch. Pretty questionable. |
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| "I should have listened to the other reviews!" | 2008-01-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A17TEJNT15SSO2 |
| Absolutely do not buy this product. And if you are smarter than me, you are looking at this review (the software review) before buying the actual GPS unit. Then keep this in mind - because if the software isn't anywhere as user friendly as it should be, than you shouldn't be buying the GPS unit either. |
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| "Not for hiking" | 2007-10-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3E6PVZ6IUIITW |
I bought eXplorer 210 for hiking.
The bundle comes with Mapsend Topo 3D USA.
The software is hard to use, especially not intuitive on transferring the maps to the GPS unit.
I ended up using file explorer to drag the file over.
The map seems somewhat outdated and there is virtually no hiking trail.
This is just good for urban navigation... not sure what's the point of having topo info for urban use.
I hope Mapsend would come with trail in future version.
Give it 2 stars for the good urban map. |
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 "Easy to use, better than MapSource." | 2007-06-24 |
| - Reviewed By jjk65 |
| I have been using this software for two years without any problems. I find it easy to trasfer waypoints and tracks back and forth from my Magellen Sport to my WinXP PC. Selecting regions in Mapsend to upload in detail to the GPS is a snap. You can pick your waypoints in Mapsend and then upload them to your GPS. I also like that you can export your waypoints and tracks to an Excel spreadsheet. I have used Garmin's Mapsource Topo. I find the Mapsource Topo elevation gradiations too "polygonal"; Mapsend looks more like USGS maps and seems much more detailed. You can search for named landmarks with Mapsend other than just cities (Mapsource Topo). |
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| "Junk Software" | 2007-04-01 |
| - Reviewed By robboman1 |
The software is confusing and doesn't use the USB port on my Magellan GPS!!! I can't believe they let such junk software ruin their reputation. The program insist on using a old serial communications port. Well guess what? Many newer computer don't even bother to include this port since it;s so old and nothing works with it!
Look elsewhere! |
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 "Nice Product for Magellan" | 2007-01-20 |
| - Reviewed By dkimball11 |
| This product has made my Explorist 210 GPSr MUCH more functional and useful, especially for hiking. However, it isn't that intuitive to use -- given that these are all Magellan products you would think you wouldn't have to convert data formats two times, but you do. Oh well, I like the final product a lot. |
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| "3D Mapsend Topo Software" | 2007-01-19 |
| - Reviewed By oceanamami |
| Works great on the Explorist 400. Has most of the new hairline roads so I can navigate myself while driving. Works well to see the elevation of the land while flying. |
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