Anyone have experience with the Magellan eXplorist TRX7 GPS?

Tanktitan

Member
This GPS caught my eye in an ad on Red Rock 4 Wheelers EJS magazine that just came out. Supposed to have 82,000 trails and all kind of features for interaction. It looks like they have tons of BLM trails. Says they have all of the EJS trails. I put in a call to Charles Wells to see if their FunTrex SD chips will work in it. Probably hear back tomorrow.

Just wondering if anyone has any real world experience.
 

Rottenbelly

New member
This GPS caught my eye in an ad on Red Rock 4 Wheelers EJS magazine that just came out. Supposed to have 82,000 trails and all kind of features for interaction. It looks like they have tons of BLM trails. Says they have all of the EJS trails. I put in a call to Charles Wells to see if their FunTrex SD chips will work in it. Probably hear back tomorrow.

Just wondering if anyone has any real world experience.
I use the trx app on my phone. It shows alot of trails on it also. Shows all the moab trails I need for next time I go.
 

jeeeep

Hooked
This GPS caught my eye in an ad on Red Rock 4 Wheelers EJS magazine that just came out. Supposed to have 82,000 trails and all kind of features for interaction. It looks like they have tons of BLM trails. Says they have all of the EJS trails. I put in a call to Charles Wells to see if their FunTrex SD chips will work in it. Probably hear back tomorrow.

Just wondering if anyone has any real world experience.

I have it, they keep promising useful updates but it's been about a year and it's still basically a brick.

It does have the a lot of trails and they just added mapping to get you to the trail but you can't do any pre-routing or road trip mapping - it basically shows you where you're headed without actually guiding you to the trail.

the tablet itself is useless, it's android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean but does not run Google services because Magellan does not have a license agreement with Google.

You can side-load some apps but it can be a pain in the ass finding the correct file and anything that relies on Google services will not run properly.

I managed to side-load a few apps like GoPro, Google maps and a couple of others but Google maps only works with Wi-Fi connection (if 'm using my phone as Wi-Fi I may as well just use my phone for directions)

when I'm using the GoPro app it needs to have power a power supply cause the battery life when in actual use sucks.

I should have returned it when I had the chance but I was fooled by their promises of all these great updates...IMO, the price versus actual function is not worth it.

you can get the TRX app and use any tablet with a stand-alone GPS unit (I like the DUAL gps devices) for less money, then you'll have a functional tablet not something that IMO is extremely limited in it use.
 

JK_Dave

Caught the Bug
I downloaded the app yesterday for fun, but it's not very helpful unless you pay for the premium membership. The app store on Apple shows they want $199.99 for a year's membership or $19.99 for a month. However, when you open up the app, you can get a year's membership for $34.99! :crazyeyes:

It looks pretty neat with 3D topography, real-time trail following, no ads, etc as long as you're willing to pay for it.
 

trailraider

Active Member
I love mine. we don't have a lot of mapped trails around here and 0 cellphone service on the trails .

its more a toy for me then anything, but still fun to tinker with.

I use it mainly to plot the trails that we go on. I have not loaded any onto the computer yet.
 

Tanktitan

Member
I started this thread hoping to hear that the Magellan eXplorist is doing GPS Jeep trails right. To me, right means that you can use one GPS to direct you by highway to the trail head, then have a detailed breadcrumb trail to follow. From what I am understanding, the Magellan does not do highway, so you are on your own finding the start of the trail. I suppose many of you know of Charles Well's Funtreks trail guides. They have micro SD cards that have both the trail head waypoints, and trail breadcrumbs. I have tried unsuccessfully to load their SD cards onto my Garmin Drive Smart 60. Turns out, after talking to Garmin for 1.25 hours yesterday, their "automotive" GPS's they make do not accept "tracks" or breadcrumbs from other sources. However, in talking to FunTreks today, they have a hack for making their SD cards work on my Garmin. It basically plots the breadcrumbs as a road to follow in another map layer. They have a video on their web site to show you how. Now, back to the Magellan, according to FunTreks, the issue with the Magellan is kind of the opposite of the Garmin "automotive" GPS, in that while they have trails, they do not have roads, so you cannot navigate to the trailhead on that unit, and Funtreks trails do not plot on this unit. It seems that most GPS's for trails are small screen, hand held units aimed at hikers. Anyone have a better unified solution for jeeps?
 

resqman911

New member
I downloaded the app yesterday for fun, but it's not very helpful unless you pay for the premium membership. The app store on Apple shows they want $199.99 for a year's membership or $19.99 for a month. However, when you open up the app, you can get a year's membership for $34.99! :crazyeyes:

It looks pretty neat with 3D topography, real-time trail following, no ads, etc as long as you're willing to pay for it.

I was going to give it a try for $35 but when I open the app its $19 a month or $200 year. They are crazy if they think its worth $200 a year


Sent from my iPad using WAYALIFE mobile app
 

RRien07

New member
I met the designer/developer of this program. Worked with him for about a month and then gave up on it.
I have the app, yes it is 3D and yes it has a ton of trails. However you have to create an account with Magellan first for anything to work. I used it for the first time in months a few weeks ago, worked great, all the way up to the point that I have always had my issues with it. It won't hold my login data. So I lost my entire trac.
My personal review of it is this
Great idea, love the iPad capabilities of it.
Yes it will guide you, yes it will follow you and shoe bread crumbs.
I hate how much it kills a battery, it took about 30 minutes to kill my iPhone.
I hate the login issues I have had, but I have hopes for them. Just wished they would stop erasing all my app data on their updates. That's part of the login issues. Yeh I have to ask them to reset my pass word.
Love their tech support, they are pretty fast to respond to your needs with regard to resetting your password.

Love the concept.
Praying they make it better.



Sent from my iPhone using WAYALIFE mobile app
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom