Magellan Meridian Gold Handheld GPS Receiver (12 Channel, WAAS, Map Compatible)
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Manufacturer: Magellan
Price at amazon.com: Too Low To DisplayUsually ships in 24 hours
Used & new from $220.17
List price $299.99
- 12-channel GPS unit with 16 MB base map
- Built-in detail on U.S. cities, interstate highways, major roads, parks, waterways, and airports
- Secure Digital memory-card slot for expanded storage
- Waterproof; rugged, ergonomic design
- Oversize gray-scale screen with backlight; backlit keypad
Product Description:
With 16 MB of built-in map data and a Secure Digital Memory Card slot, the Magellan Meridian Gold Global Positioning System receiver gives you almost unlimited ability to access and store location information. This rugged handheld GPS unit coordinates data from up to 12 satellites to pinpoint your location anywhere on the globe. The Meridian Gold's 16 MB base map gives you detailed information on U.S. cities, interstates, and waterways. Slide in a data card to get even more detail, or use a memory card to store waypoints and routes. The Meridian Gold is PC compatible and stores up to 500 waypoints and 20 reversible routes with up to 30 legs. It also comes with a quadrifilar helix antenna for optimal satellite signal reception and fast position fixes. WAAS and EGNOS capability adds to the versatility of this receiver, which can be operated in English, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or Swedish. See your exact position on the Meridian Gold's seven navigation screens and vertical-profile graphs that show elevations of the route traveled. The oversized grayscale display allows you to easily see location information and comes with a backlight and backlit keypad for use even in dim light. Waterproof rubber armoring and an ergonomic, compact design add to the Meridian Gold's functionality. The Meridian Gold is compatible with Magellan's MapSend software, including MapSend Streets Europe and the recently released MapSend Topo for the United States. Vehicle, bike, and swivel mounts are sold separately.
Description from Manufacturer:With 16 MB of built-in map data and a Secure Digital Memory Card slot, the Magellan Meridian Gold Global Positioning System receiver gives you almost unlimited ability to access and store location information. This rugged handheld GPS unit coordinates data from up to 12 satellites to pinpoint your location anywhere on the globe. The Meridian Gold's 16 MB base map gives you detailed information on U.S. cities, interstates, and waterways. Slide in a data card to get even more detail, or use a memory card to store waypoints and routes.The Meridian Gold is PC compatible and stores up to 500 waypoints and 20 reversible routes with up to 30 legs. It also comes with a quadrifilar helix antenna for optimal satellite signal reception and fast position fixes. WAAS and EGNOS capability adds to the versatility of this receiver, which can be operated in English, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or Swedish.
See your exact position on the Meridian Gold's seven navigation screens and vertical-profile graphs that show elevations of the route traveled. The oversized grayscale display allows you to easily see location information and comes with a backlight and backlit keypad for use even in dim light. Waterproof rubber armoring and an ergonomic, compact design add to the Meridian Gold's functionality.
The Meridian Gold is compatible with Magellan's MapSend software, including MapSend Streets Europe and the recently released MapSend Topo for the United States. Vehicle, bike, and swivel mounts are sold separately.Average Customer Rating: 
Comment: Meridian Gold Rating:
After much deliberation and comparison between various Magellan and Garmin GPS units, I chose to go with the Meridian Gold.
The larger screen size and resolution, the relatively large 16MB base map, and the ability to add more detail using secure disk modules helped to make my final decision.
I purchased MapSend Topo software and a SanDisk secure digital card. The only downside has been that I got a 64MB card and the Topo software will only load a total 32MB or 4 8MB region size maps, which renders half of my storage useless. As others have wrote, when zooming in all the way you may be off the road a bit, otherwise the unit and map interface seem to be real accurate. The specifications say 7 to 3 meter accuracy which seems hold up. The MapSend Topo software seems to have a lot of detail for the money, probalbly more than I'll ever need.
Iv'e used the unit mainly in my truck so far with no lost signals and Iv'e even been able to get a position in my house. When the weather gets warmer I'll use it with my biking. Neat Unit.
Comment: Magellan Meridian Gold - The Good, Bad und Ugly Rating:
After much comparison of Magellan and Garmin GPS, I plunked my $$ down on Magellen.
Purchase decision - My impression from OTHER reviews and info for Magellan was great hardware, weak software but considering all pluses, minuses and price points and my usage: hiking, biking, back-country skiing, driving, boating, I chose a Magellan Meridian Gold, 32meg memory, and Mapsend Topo Sofware. Keep in mind there's a lot to choose from and yet none seemed PERFECT.
I've now had it for 2 weeks of vacation time biking, hiking, driving and land surveying in S. Utah. I monkeyed with this unit everyday, becoming completely familiar with it's usage.
The Good: Solid, durable hardware. The Gold has a great feel, is a good size and fits into any of my outdoor shirt pockets. It holds satellite signal extremely well in trees, 2nd story house, Utah canyons. Solid feeling buttons and rubber armoring are all great. Seems to do very well on batteries using roughly a pair or less a day. (I already have a charger and extra batteries from my digital camera and headlamps).
The Bad: Mapsend topo software at 1:100,000 is not really precise at closest level. However, the amount of built in software and downloaded maps are sufficient for my usage and I can imagine the memory and processor speed needed for 1:24,000 topos. Also on the positive side Mapsend and Magellan built-in software has a ton of info! It's great having altitude, moon/sun info, vertical trip projections, and much more.
The Ugly: Magellan's method of setting routes and backtracking is absolutely terrible for my usage. I am so annoyed with this, I would return it if I hadn't already used it 2 weeks. Here's the deal -
If you go out for the day and retrace your route exacty, or just set it for the car in general it works very well. But so does a few cents worth of flagging, popcorn, or the cheapest GPS available.
In reality, I usually go on a hike, bike, or ski in some type of semi circle and at some point want to return to my nearest backtrack point and THEN start backtracking. I want the unit to beep when I get near the next point and keep counting them down. In the canyonlands of Utah and backcountry skiing here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this could really be useful.
However, this ONLY works easily if you exacty retrace your trail.
So... in everyday usage where you aren't going exactly back down your same trail (why have a GPS?) you have to build a route with the GPS and/or go through the user database and select the nearest backtrack points. And then if you don't keep manually going through the database and selecting the next point, it will just keep pointing back at the last one. This is ridiculously time consuming on a day hike and makes operating the GPS the whole excecise instead of enjoying the outdoors. THIS SEEMS LIKE IT COULD BE EASILY CHANGED BY MAGELLAN BY SOFWARE PROGRAMMING.
More ugly: Really ugly.
Okay, so you set waypoints along your way using the GPS. Great, it does this well with 2 clicks. But THEN what??? It's back to the problem above.
It takes SEVEN screen operations and even more arrowing buttons to get a single one of these into a route. This completely insenses me. I could walk around circles for a day and eventually catch up to my wife and find the car in the time it takes to make a route! WHY CAN'T MAGELLAN MAKE IT SO I SELECT ALL THE POINTS FOR A ROUTE AT ONCE!!!???? How about storing waypoints in separate databases to start with? Or using two buttons in a computer-like fashion to highlight and select?
THEN: after I've got a route made HOW ABOUT if the GPS allows me to select manual or automatic retracing???? In other words, I want to go on a trip and set waypoints along the way. (Remember this is easy) Then, no matter where I am when I want to return to camp, I dump all my waypoints into memory in a few clicks, point the way to the nearest, and as I approach each new one, (automatic mode) the GPS beeps and rolls over to the next (lower number) waypoint.
If Magellan would make route setting and retracing easy, this would be a real must-have piece of gear for all my trips. At present, it's an electronic toy to play with while walking on flat ground or while my wife is driving the car. To give it the benefit of the doubt is also perhaps a good last resort safety measure so that if I get really lost I know where the nearest town is.
The annoying part is it is so close to being great, but Magellan's software programmers apparently never leave the office!
One last word - I find the Gold a great decision over the Platinum for using less batteries, having less to break, not needing re-calibrated everytime you change the batteries (daily) and knowing I haven't paid even more for some hardware that is mostly a toy because of the software behind it. Plus, I wouldn't go somewhere I could really get lost without a basic topo map and compass!
Three Stars overall for amazing toy that gives you info from satellites in outer space!
Comment: Excellent value Rating:
After comparing all the various Garmin and Magellan models, I went with the Meridian Gold because of the large basemap and the sale price ($199 when I got it). The included map was quite accurate in the US, but when we went over to Canada the map had us 100 feet out into Lake Ontario while parked on the beach.
Where this receiver really shines is with the new (optional) MapSend DirectRoute software. The Navtech maps are high-quality and quite recent, too. I live in a new subdivision and all the streets are correctly listed. With a 128MB SD card as storage, I can get about a quarter of the entire US down to the street level loaded. With DirectRoute loaded, the Meridian Gold is pretty good at street address routing. It's only suggested one bizarre route, but once I passed the unusual turn, I pressed Reroute and it correctly recomputed the remainder of the trip to my house. (Of course, had I followed it, I may have had a shorter trip, but it was a state highway with traffic lights instead of the usual Interstate.)
When used with the freeware QuakeMap, the unit correctly locked my home waypoint right in the middle of my driveway on the aerial photos. (Good, of course, because that's where I was standing when I took the fix!)
For the money, this is a nice unit to have, and with the extra DirectRoute software, a much cheaper alternative to the standalone vehicle GPS nav systems.
Posted at November 11, 2003 07:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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