User manual

I’ve set the Dashboard to the Compass screen. You can set it to what you want and from the

screen itself, tap the compass icon at the bottom and change it from there. From the main

menu are various options including an obvious settings menu icon – a spanner and

screwdriver. Tapping this brought up a quite easy to navigate settings menu where I found the

‘button sounds’ option and turned it off. All menus have a ‘back’ arrow to get you back a level.

The menus are nicely laid out and it was easy to find what you wanted. The long menus scroll

nicely up and down the page either by sliding your finger on the screen or using the up and

down arrows.

The settings menu also lets you calibrate the compass (requires a flexible wrist and strange

waving of the hand) as well as the altimeter. You can set the altimeter to work as a barometric

altimeter or use the GPS signal.

Unlike the Garmin if you want to go into settings for a particular feature, for example maps then

you can access it quickly from the map screen.

Connecting to a PC

Plugging the unit into the PC pops up a message asking if you want to connect to the PC or

just use the USB power which is for use in a car as a ‘sat nav’. If you select USB power only

the PC won’t detect it but if you do want to connect to a PC then just go into Settings –

Connectivity menu and tell it to connect there. The unit appears as a ‘Magellan’ drive and the

microSD card as a second drive. Although there is a Magellan software application available,

Vantage Point, to load Pocket Queries you can ‘drag and drop’ the GPX files into the 710.

All the eXplorist range hold 10,000 caches and 2000 waypoints (except the 310 and GC which

hold 1000 and 500 waypoints respectively). With the Vantage Point software installed

(download from Magellan) it also popped up a message telling me there was new firmware

available. The upgrade was very straightforward.

Satellite Accuracy

I set both the 710 and the Oregon 550 up in my garden with a clear view of the sky including to

the South for the WAAS/EGNOS satellites. I left them for 30 minutes. These are the results,

the 710 on the left, the Oregon on the right. The Oregon has an option to switch on the

augmentation system to pick up the WAAS/EGNOS satellites. The eXplorist has this enabled

by default and can’t be turned off. I see no reason to turn it off. There is a belief it shortens

battery life but this isn’t the case.

I know that GPS accuracy is a complex subject

but both show almost the same coordinates so

seem very similar. Both are picking up satellite 37

(Artemis – European Space Agency) the

augmented EGNOS signal. The Oregon displays

the letter D in each satellite bar that is being

corrected. The 710 gives no indications.

Click here for more information about WAAS and

EGNOS.