Magellan eXplorist 710 US GPS

I had owned a Magellan SportTrak Pro for many years, when it finally died, I went with Magellan as I was very happy with the my previous Magellan. On receiving the unit and working through its features, the most glaring and un-fixable defect was immediately apparent: The basic touch-screen does not work very well at all, which is compounded by a UI that is trying too hard to be good and ending up just mediocre. Even the basic action of panning around in the map is very difficult - too short or long a touch will not pan or will magnify rather than panning, and when it does pan, it is herky-jerky, and stops panning or tries to do other things, and won't pan far even if you get it just right. I suspect much of the problem is that the unit is based on Windows CE, and it just can't handle basic tasks responsively. The second flaw is that the levels of detail displayed are not sufficiently customizable - you end up having to zoom in too far before you see the detail you need. My old B&W SportTrak had 5 levels of map detail! Third flaw: I found that the built in maps did not include some trails I cared about, and set about finding out how to get a better map. Unfortunately, this unit already has the best Magellan sells - and software / free maps are not available to the level that Garmins have (Caveat: There are utilities to convert formats if you are willing to fight your way through it). The next flaw is that the fancy 4-corners menu system is not well thought out - it takes many many steps, for example, to get to map settings, and that can't be put on the shortcuts. Minor flaw: The big loop of plastic on the bottom makes the unit bigger for no good reason - like an inch longer just to secure a lanyard... Most frustrated, I ordered the Garmin Oregon 450t (for which I'll write a separate review) (the Montana series was too big for me). This unit has a pedestrian menu system instead of the "4-corners" menus that the 710 has - but they are predictable and work well. I was immediately able to do basic panning an zooming with MUCH less frustration than the Magellan. The unit is just MUCH more responsive. And, side by side, the GPS function is as good or better, and the compass was consistently better. Of course, the built in maps are no where near as good, nor the routing... but I just can't live with a GPS that I can't use the touchscreen, I'd rather have old-school buttons like the SportTrak if they can't make a UI work - which, in this unit, sadly, they completely failed with. Explorist 710 Pros: - Great maps built in. Detailed Topo maps, fine routable road maps, all built in out of the box. WAY better than Garmin. - Sane software experience with Vantage Point. WAY better than with Garmin's hassle hassle. - Spoken routing, camera, voice and video recording, features features features, and all works. Explorist 710 Cons: - Terrible terrible touch screen / UI. Unresponsive, jerky, unusable, frustrating, bad. Feels like Windows 7 on a 386. - 4-corners menu thing is just much more of a hassle than it is a good thing. - Basic things like getting the right level of detail are not possible. - Not enough maps available for money or love - Magellan has few, and there aren't free ones easily available. (Conversion might work...?) - Gigantic plastic hoop on bottom makes it way larger than it has to be. Summary: I found the UI / Touchscreen software behavior to be so bad that I don't think the product should have been released like this. Not recommended. I can't comment on the battery life because I wasn't able to tolerate it through the first set of batteries.