Magellan Triton 2000

While the promise of the feature set on this product had me ready to switch from my Garmin, the implementation is horrible. I have been testing it for about a week now. Do not buy this unit until Magellan re-releases it correctly.

Areas of problem so far:
* Random crashes. Reminds me of WIN 98. It crashes often.
* SLOW!!! It is especially slow when you switch to the map screen, the main one you use.
* No street maps
* "Nearest cache/waypoint" feature does not work. For some reason, it consistently points me to waypoints/caches at a park about 5 miles away as the closest even if I move around to different locations within the range. Can see waypoints nearby (across the street in one test), but it ignores them.
* Interface with PC is slow. Loaded my Garmin side by side with the Magellan. Garmin took about 10-15 seconds to load 900+ waypoints. Same load on the Magellan took ~2 minutes.
* Magellan on-line help SUCKS! There support page does not even list the Tritons yet in many of the drop down lists. FAQ's are more marketing material then help.

I got a reply back on my post to their support email. It took them three days to respond.

* Issue: Triton is not listed on their support drop downs. Response: It is a new unit and they have not updated the web page. "Wait for some time until this unit gets updated" (Last I checked, that would be a one day job for a competent programmer.)

* Issue: "nearest" function not working on geocaches. Response: please call tech support regarding this issue. (Call to tech support number refers you back to the web page.)

* Message from tech support was obviously from someone who struggles with writing English. Grammar errors and typos.

I upgraded from my Triton 500 to this unit.

This is an amazing unit. Very fast acquisition time. The built-in digital camera was my main reason for upgrading to this unit. I found that having a waterproof camera while out quadding in the mountains was very desirable. I did not want to use my delicate camera phone or digital camera out in this terrain and have them covered all in mud and water.

I soon realized how nice the touch screen with the stylus was to have when you are entering waypoints and geocache information. It makes it extremely simple and fast.

The detail of this unit is incredible. I just hooked it up to the Vantage Point program that I have always used with my Triton 500 and transferred all my trails, waypoints and geocaches to this unit. It was a piece of cake.

The kids that I teach in Scouts love it and my Triton 500 for how user friendly they are. They prefer these over the Garmins that we use. I highly recommend this unit to anyone. I love it.

Pros: Very user friendly. Simple and easy to use for geocaching with the Magellan Vantage Point program and the Magellan Communicator program. Allows for paperless geocaching and transfer of GPX files simple with the click of the mouse.

Cons: Like any new piece of technology in anyone's life, it can be intimidating to a new user due to the amount of features that it has. Play with it and get to know it and the more you do you will find that It really is simple to use.