Global Positioning System (GPS) Classroom Forum

Garmin Dakota 20
Garmin Oregon 450T
Magellan Explorist 515

If you would care to explain why you made your choice it would help my decision. I plan on using it for metal detecting.

Also, can third party maps like National Geo be loaded into the 3 listed units?

Thanks, El

To be honest, I don't keep up any more with all the new receivers so, I don't know all the features of all of them. I could not find any info about the Explorist 515. Only 510 is shown on Magellan's website.
510's upside is a decent size screen and a built in camera which may be nice for recording geotagged finds.
Downside is; it does not seem to have a built in magnetic compass. I'm not sure about adding custom maps to it.
For years now, I've been using mostly Garmin receivers and developed personal preference for them.
Between the Oregon and Dakota, I'd go for Oregon because when using maps, screen size is VERY important.
There is a slew of ready, good maps that can be used on Garmin plus, virtually any map (including any historical scanned paper maps) can be added using Custom Map feature. http://www.garmin.com/us/products/onthetrail/custommaps
It can also double for car navigation so, even that I don't have all the info on Magellan,
my personal choice (from the three) would be Oregon 450T

YMMV
HTH

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Andrew Kalinowski

Thank you Andrew. That's is the direction I was leaning

El

Garmin Dakota 20
Garmin Oregon 450T
Magellan Explorist 515


what are the ballpark costs on these GPS units

Oregon would be my pick.

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Andrew Kalinowski

Garmin Oregon 450T
what are the costs for this, roughly

450T is discontinued so, you should be able to pick it for half (or less) of the list price.
Remember that "discontinued does NOT mean useless. It does today exactly the same things as it did the day they released it.

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Andrew Kalinowski

Hey great thank you