Magellan eXplorist 200 is junk - buy a Garmin!

I received this eXplorist 200 as a gift. I had all sorts of problems with it. On a run around an oval track, the track log showed me running 15 miles away from where I was in several directions. The track on the screen looked like a cartoon explosion! I couldn't imagine geocaching with this. I tried it, though. The long/lat was going nuts with no rhyme or reason - a geocaching failure of monumental magnitude. As a GPS newbie, I thought maybe I wasn't understanding something... so I showed it to a geocaching veteran who was also puzzled by the eXplorist's behavior. I borrowed an old, beat-up SporTrak Map and took it on a run along with my eXplorist 200 (a GPS in each hand). The difference was night and day! The old SporTrak worked great! It was awesome! It picked up satellites quickly and accurately tracked my route. Meanwhile, the eXplorist made that familiar explosion-lookin' diagram that had no relationship to anything other than maybe an acid-trip flashback of a middle-aged hippie. When I turned on the units, the eXplorist 200 was still thinking about finding satellite signals, while the old SporTrak had found several satellites, locked onto a WAAS signal, and was tracking my route with 10 foot accuracy! I called Magellan's customer service and (after I aged several years and a few Presidents came and went) a human eventually answered the phone. He didn't speak English very well and he was very difficult to understand. He was no help whatsoever, and his grasp of the English language was about as good as that of a clever gerbil. After a lengthy discussion where was I finally able to relate the problem, he told me I must have set the zoom level improperly and it was my fault rather than a defective unit. Silly me! I should have known that lemons never come off the assembly line! After more frustrating experiences with the eXplorist 200 (while also carrying the SporTrak that always functioned flawlessly) I became frustrated enough to call customer support again. This time only 2 major wars came and went and the continents only drifted a few feet before a human answered the phone (this time I clocked it... I had only a very brief 40 minute wait to speak to a human - much faster than the first time!). I talked to a different helpful support person (who, incidentally, had the same name as the first guy) - and his grasp of the English language was worse than the first fellow's! I explained that Amazon (where I bought it) told me I needed an authorization number from the mfr before I could return it to them for an exchange - hopefully, for one that worked. (In a perfect world, they'd have offered a credit that I could use on a GPS rather than another eXplorist 200 paperweight, but if all I could get is an exchange, I guess it'd have to do.) After an incredibly frustrating conversation, he ultimately decided to consult with some other customer service folks and get the return authorization number I needed for Amazon. After a few more dinosaurs died off and the polar ice caps melted, he finally came back without the number he was supposedly getting from the other customer service folks; always helpful, he said he'd send an email out with all of the necessary info. The next day I received the email from customer support, and it was nothing but a customer service survey! This whole Magellan experience was so pathetic it started to be funny! I ultimately sent the crappy eXplorist back for an exchange without the Magellan number - I hope they'll exchange it; too bad they won't give me credit so I could buy a Garmin instead. The eXplorist 200 was a worthless piece of junk and Magellan has the absolute worst customer service I've ever experienced. I can't honestly envision any use whatsoever for the eXplorist 200, except perhaps as a projectile when your frustration level peaks. Buy a Garmin instead. This eXplorist 200 was purchased for $99.99 on Amazon. The Garmin eTrex Legend runs for only $20 more and it's got a bigger screen, map download capability, and is a huge step up for only 20 bucks more... best of all, the Garmin eTrex Legend is NOT a Magellan! I've never dealt with Garmin's customer support, of course, but I can't imagine they can be worse than the unhelpful, incomprehensible, frustrating support offered by Magellan. The scale doesn't go low enough to accurately rate the eXplorist 200, nor does a scale exist that goes low enough to rate Magellan's support. It looks like Magellan products and support provide the best advertising and marketing that Garmin could ask for.