In the UK we have a long history of excellent map making from the OS (Ordnance Survey) who first mapped out the country in the 18th century for military purposes, hence their slightly odd name.

OS 1:25K

Domestic maps used by most UK walkers come in 1:50,000 scale and 1:25,000 scale, but most GPSr manufacturers only sell the less detailed 1:50K version, usually for around £200 for the entire UK. Those that sell 1:25K mapping usually only have national parks available and they tend to cost about £100 for each map covering a single park. To get the whole UK (if possible) would cost thousands of pounds. Add to this that Garmin Discoverer maps are of pretty poor image quality. If you zoom in too much they become become blurred because the image resolution is too low. Another disadvantage is that Garmin and Magellan license these maps to a single device and you can’t backup and restore the maps to another microSD card. If you lose / break the device or the SD card you need to buy new maps. “Rip off”, I hear you say. You are indeed correct.

All you need is free MOBAC (MOBile Atlas Creator) 1.9 beta or earlier. It’s not hard to find. Torrents are a good source if you are familiar with them. It’s perfectly legal. The reason you need an old version is that the developer removed many of the data sources after this version including the Ordnance Survey data source. They can be added manually, but this is the easiest way. That’s it, there’s no other software required.

Install Mobac and run it. If you select Ordnance Survey Explorer Maps (UK), you should see something like this.

Click sample for full image

Play with the zoom (near top of map). Each map source has different zoom levels available to it. The OS maps here are available from 12 to 16. You can only zoom out to 12, so you can’t see a huge area. Note where 1:50K maps turn to 1:25K maps (red paths to green paths etc). Select the Bing Maps map source. Bing Maps has maps for levels 1 to 19 so you can zoom in or out much more. Of course the map detail doesn’t compare to the OS maps.

Raster maps are basically calibrated images (your paper OS map
in digital form), whereas vector maps are just a bunch of numbers
that can be interpreted by your device to display digital maps. 
Vector maps are required by sat nav so that a route can be 
calculated. With a raster map the device will not know what is 
road, sea or field. It's all just pixels to the them.
A secondary advantage of vector maps is that you can hide data
when you zoom out to avoid clutter. Raster maps get round this 
issue by having separate maps for each zoom levels. Raster maps 
are generally much more detail and prettier too. They are what we
walkers need. We generally don't care about routing on roads.

OS 1:50K

RMP maps can consist of one or more zoom levels. The device is clever enough to use the map level that corresponds to how far you are zoomed in regardless of whether the levels are in the same file or in multiple files. I chose to generally use a separate RMP file for each level rather than incorporate all maps for an area into a single file. This means a low level map can cover a huge area and smaller areas are covered by maps with higher zoom levels as they contain more detail.

We will use Bing Maps to manually select the area for our 1:50K map (as it will allow the whole area to display on the screen) before switching to OS maps before we grab the data. If you choose only level 14 like I did you will be able to divide the UK into Wales, England (SW, SE, Central, E, N) and Scotland (Lowlands, Central, NW, NE). See how I divided it here.

To make a level 14 OS map of Wales:

• Select map source Bing Maps and zoom out so you can see the whole of Wales.
• Left click mouse to select a corner of the rectangle enveloping Wales.
• Keep the button pressed and release when the cursor is at the opposite corner of the required rectangle. Your selected area will be pink.
• Once you are happy you have the area you want selected do NOT click on the map again as the coordinates will be lost. You can right click to move the map though.
• Change map source to OS Explorer Maps (UK) and select the tickbox for zoom level 14.
• Click New in Atlas Content and select Magellan (RMP) to specify the output map format
• Click Add selection (underneath Atlas Content) to add the selected levels to the map.
• Click on the Create Atlas button. This small map should typically take about 5 minutes to download and create, but it obviously depends on your data pipe and PC performance.
• When completed rename the file to a standard. i.e OS 1-50K Wales.rmp or similar.
• Finally move it to where you plan to keep your maps.

OS on sat nav. You also need the Magellan vector map (comes with eX710) for this to work

You can test the map out on the device by copying to the Maps folder on either the internal memory or on your SD card. Don’t forget to select the map in the eXplorist map menu. Of course you will have to zoom to an appropriate level to see it too.
To view it in VantagePoint select Maps and click Add (plus sign) and select the file. I found this process susceptible to crashing the application. If it does, just do it again. After loading 3 or 4 maps I close/re-open VP so I don’t lose the changes. You can see an example of my 1:50K map in VantagePoint here. Notice how much of the map is visible, unlike Garmin applications that restrict your viewing area to a tiny window.

 If you’re happy with the map you need to complete the other level 14 maps for the rest of the UK ensuring there is a slight overlap between maps. In my example the Scottish Lowlands are not really required.

Before we do the more complicated 1:25K maps lets quickly cover off the lower scale maps.

UK divided roughly into 0.8° “squares”

Level 12 was covered by two OS maps, one of England and Wales and the other covered Scotland. None of my maps cover Northern Ireland as a) I don’t want these maps and b) the OS don’t cover N. Ireland. I also made an overview map (mostly for VP). This covers the whole of the UK using Bing Maps levels 4, 6, 8 and 10.

If you want to get maps for a large area, like the whole of the UK, you need to plan how you will divide your maps up. Each map can not be larger than 2GB. Most of mine were 500-600MB and they perform perfectly on the device with no slow downs at all. I got a map of the UK and drew a grid over it spacing the lines 0.8° on the horizontal and vertical (they don’t appear square because we are a fair distance from the equator) and then juggled some boundaries along the coastline where it made sense. I then numbered each square sequentially. This was the basis for my 1:25K maps. I would then build the map using just level 16 OS maps. Using the Selection Coordinates (top left in Mobac) you can precisely select the desired map square. Use Bing map source to view it

Garmin Discoverer gets blurred when zoomed in and it’s only 1:50K

first before changing to the OS map source. Name the files to a standard again, like OS 1-25K 01 Penzance.rmp and OS 1-25K 59 Loch Ness.rmp. If you have a large enough microSD card you could carry around all of your maps on the eX710, though I would tend to just carry the ones I am likely to use and copy others over on rare visits to Scotland and the like.

Note that all Magellan screen shots are oversized, so images will appear even clearer on the device. All Magellan shots have map orientation configured with track up (as opposed to north up), so the map is automatically rotated so you are always heading towards the top of the screen. This is silky smooth and is more demanding on the graphical capabilities, but is also handled well.

Google Earth is good for spotting tracks in forests

I have also made simple Bing maps of France and have selected level 18 Google Earth satellite imagery maps which works beautifully in conjunction with the OS maps. Level 18 comes in when you have a zoom scale of 100′ or less on the unit. I wouldn’t want to make these for the whole of the UK though as the data volumes would be huge. My test map was about 12 miles square as was 1GB in size.

All of these maps can also be theoretically made for Garmin devices too (not RMP format though), the big difference is that Magellan allow a free reign while Garmin impose tight restrictions and provide poor rendering performance. Garmin only allow 100 jpegs (Montana allows 500) and each jpeg can be (wait for it..) a maximum of 3K. This makes Garmin pretty much useless in the custom map department. Read here about how Garmin users report map rendering of tiny image files to be very slow and jerky. I made some KMZ custom maps before I returned my Garmin Oregon. They were very disappointing. It’s all good news if you are an eXplorist owner though, so have fun!

After sending the 610 back due to map issues two weeks later I found a brand new eX710 on eBay for £150. I think it has been sitting around for a while though, so no warranty, but I can’t complain at that price. My thoughts so far are that my main requirements are serviced incredibly well, but some of the simple things I took as red are not so good. This device could be ten times better than anything else out there with just a little effort from Magellan.

The Good.

• The custom maps are awesome. I will cover this is a separate post. It makes Garmin Discoverer look very poor, and custom maps are free.
• The device is super accurate. It is at least on a par with the CSx (slightly better in wooded areas) and way, way more accurate than the Oregon and similar models.
• VantagePoint allows you full screen and printable access to all of your maps, including the custom maps. This is awesome.
• Geocaching Live functionality in VantagePoint means that the area shown on the screen is immediately populated with active caches. You need premium membership at Geocaching.com to make this happen.
• The electronic compass is very reliable, but I have chosen to turn it off for hiking. I don’t like the fact that there is no quick way to turn it off. Despite having it set to only come on when travelling less than 1.5mph if I stop for lunch it will drain then.
• The 710 has true sat nav with voice and turn-by-turn instructions. This is supported by the City Streets map that comes with the device. It could be added to the 610, but cost is probably prohibitive.
• Pocket Queries can be loaded directly into VP from GC.com.
• All tracks, routes, waypoints, media and maps are managed through VP.
• Media is geo-tagged and can appear on the map where it was created.
• Tracks can display different colours for different walking speeds. This is called Legend for some reason.
• Did I mention the maps? This is huge!

The bad

• There is just no information available and Magellan don’t seem interested in their devices. The user base is also tiny.
• You can’t add custom POI.
• I’m not convinced by simple stats like average speed, time at rest, total ascent etc.
• The barometer is useless and GPS calculated altitude is no better. You can use map elevation (the 710 includes a topo map with this data) which works well. Why put in hardware without ensuring it is of some use?
• Distance to End is rubbish. It seems that the device can’t pick up where you are on a route unless you pass the start point of the route.
• The POI on the Magellan maps are useless unless you want to know where golf courses are etc. Why there are not trigpoints and hill peaks on there is anybody’s guess. I wouldn’t even mention this if I could add custom POI.
• There is no Mac version of VantagePoint. As a PC user I couldn’t care less about this, but you may.
• Can’t import waypoints into a folder in VP even though folders are allowed.
• Can’t customize icons and they are very small on the device. This is good in some respects, but bad when you miss a Geocache.
• VP crashes now and again when importing maps. About every forth one, but not that predictable. Seems Ok with other use though.
• While you can create routes in VP, the functionality is poor. You can’t move a point on a route for instance. This make it almost useless for creating routes for me.
• Audio files are amr format, so you need to install QuickTime. VP runs QuickTime outside of the app. This is just a bit messy, but not a show stopper.
• While video uses the more standard mp4 format, it calls your default mp4 app and more importantly it has no audio. Possibly a codec issue, but I don’t intend to use video on the device anyway.
• Track and route lines are very thick and not configurable.
• Track legend has to be painstakingly configured separately for each track.

After using on about 8 trips I have found many more annoyances, mostly with VantagePoint, but on the whole the important stuff is done very well.

Tips

• Always use the Alkaline battery profile regardless of the battery type you are using. Apparently the rechargeable and  lithium profiles are not set up correctly.
• I’m not sure that the photos are as good on this device as they were on the 610. I believe that there was a hardware upgrade to the camera and this device may pre-date it.
• I’m finding it hard to get to grips with saving tracks. On the Garmin devices no manual process was required. The eXplorist have a save and a start track. It’s not totally clear exactly what they do apart from the obvious.
• I set the GPSr to write a track point every second. The main track on the internal memory was missing half the trip as it maxed out at 10,000 points. There was a full gpx file on the microSD card, though VantagePoint can’t sync this. It can be imported easily enough, but it’s messy.

I finally decided to get a used eX610 from eBay, which cost £162 including 1:50K OS maps. The unit was 15 months old and had never been out of the box. Here’s my thought’s comparing it to the Garmin GPSMAP60 CSx and the Oregon.

The screen is well recessed into the body of the unit, which provides some protection. I found the screen to be much more legible and bright than the OR. I also found it much more responsive to touch. I had been concerned about this from other reviews, but this unit scrolled and responded to taps with ease. The menu system is a triumph on the whole. Touch the map and an icon appears in each corner of the screen while the map remain visible. The dashboard shows data or compasses, one touch menu is a screen of your favourite shortcuts (application of location), the main menu is self explanatory and the option menu gives access to functionality related to the screen you are on. The whole thing is very customizable. In addition there are two physical buttons that are again fully customizable. I have camera on one and trip stats on the other. Some may prefer add waypoint for example.

Playing around with it at home I had been horrified at how it had drained a fully charged pair of 2500mAh batteries in two hours, but in practise it lasted all day without any problem on a less than charged pair of batteries. One reason was most likely that I had set the 3-axis compass to activate at less than 2mph. Sitting at a desk meant it was on continuously. I also turned the barometer off and set the battery type to alkaline (even though I was using rechargeable batteries) as I understand that the other battery profiles are faulty. As the device was new I spent much more time playing with it than I normally would too, taking photographs and doing a few geocaches too.

The touch screen eXplorist ranges comprises the 510, 610 and 710. They are all very similar with the main differences being the maps installed and the internal memory capacity. The 510 doesn’t have the 3-axis compass or the barometer (I think). As the pre-installed UK maps are nigh on useless this means that there is little difference between all three device, although the compass is important to me, hence I could not entertain the 510. All three have a built-in 3.2mp camera, voice recorder, video recorder, take microSD cards and have the all important SiRFstar III chip set. All three are waterproof to the IPX-7 standard.

OS maps on the Garmin (Discoverer series) are really poor in image quality. They clearly are not saved with a high enough resolution. There’s no such problem here, but it gets even better. I messed with the custom maps on the Garmin, but the restrictions were so great that it was totally impractical. You don’t get any of that with the eX, so you can make excellent maps (rmp) via various methods. Mobac seems to be the easier and versions prior to 19.2 give access to 1:25K OS mapping as well as a host of other popular maps from around the world. If you have a routable map the device will also provide proper audio instruction, again unlike Garmin handheld devices. The only thing I didn’t like is that if you buy Ordnance Survey maps (on a microSD card) you can’t move them to a different card as they are linked to the card and device. This is the same as Garmin do. I don’t like because a) if the card becomes faulty you are stuffed and b) the card has little available space on it, so I would want to move it to a larger card.

While Garmin have Basecamp as their PC based management tool Magellan have Vantage Point. I have never got on with Basecamp and have stuck mostly with Mapsource and Memory Map. While Vantage Point does a lot, it does it with a lot of crashes. Copy your maps to the PC and you never need to buy Memory Map. Make your own maps (see previous paragraph) and view them using VP. There are no restrictions on the map window size or on printing unlike the Garmin products I have used. Even if you’re not a Magellan user that’s got to be worth a go. VP manages your maps, media, routes, tracks, waypoints and geocaches. It even has an interface to Geocaching Live. Media is geotagged of course, so it appears in it’s geographical location too.

After breakfast I dropped a gpx route file onto the device and off we went. The first thing I noticed was how the blue flag issue from the Garmin didn’t exist. This is where every point along the route is represented by a large blue flag that obscures the map. The flags on the Magellan were tiny and didn’t get in the way. You need to reset the trip time and trip odometer separately. Magellan could learn from Garmin here where a reset lists several options with a tick-box next to each. These options are remembered so you can easily reset several counters in one go. The eXplorists have a standby mode which continues to log your track whilst turning everything else off. I tried it a few times, but found the wake up time to be too long, so gave up on this. It would be useful if you didn’t need to look at the device much though, say walking up Ben Nevis where you just follow a the path.

Passing through Piercefield Park I took the opportunity to hide in the grotto. It’s not dissimilar to a lime kiln. I held the receiver right against the back wall, but reception was not an issue at all. Back at home I compared the track log to my CSx which was in my pocket, and it was almost identical to the CSx, something that the ORcame nowhere close to. As well as the tracks being spot on the OS marched tracks there was less spidering on the eX when we were stationary.

We reached Chepstow and decided to do a couple of geocaches. The one feature that I miss from the Oregon is the compass that displays on the map page showing the nearest cache. The eX has other useful features like the proximity alarm which you can set to go off when you are within a set distance of a cache. One of the many details I liked on this device was the vibrate feature, so that even in a blizzard you would know when you were being notified. The cache icons were very small. This was also an issue on the Garmin, but replacing the icons was child’s play. I will have to see if the same can be done here. Touch the cache icon and a header comes up with the main cache details. Touch the header and you are into the cache details. One more press to navigate to the cache. The listing are much clearer than on the OR. Cache page photos can also be displayed, although I didn’t use this feature. I really didn’t like scrolling through logs on the OR, but it’s much easier on the Magellan.

We found the caches, registered them as found and moved on. Some people like to record their logs on the device (probably because most people do 20+ a day these days), but we don’t. This is probably just as well, as the alphabetic keyboard is spread over two pages. Yuck! You can download your logs to geocaching.com also. What we found more useful was the ability to record a message, photo or video and attach it to the cache (or a waypoint, track, route or POI). You know the sort of thing. “Another lame nano in a car park when there’s a stunning castle in a park on the other side of the wall”. The compass is excellent. Not only do you not need to keep turning it on and off (see above), but it was very steady, quick and accurate. Again far superior to the Garmins. There is also a Smart Compass, which changes gradually from green when you are pointing it towards your destination, to red as you go off route. Yet another great feature was the off-route alarm, which you set to activate when you stray by more than a certain distance from your route. It did appear that this only alarmed when you were more than the said distance from a waypoint along the route, which isn’t so good, but I need to investigate more. A quick workaround would be to add frequent waypoints.

The device can hold 2,000 waypoints, 200 routes and a whopping 10,000 geocaches. If that’s not enough caches (for example) you could copy several gpx files to a holding folder on the internal memory or microSD card. You can move these files around on the standalone device, swapping out one set of 10,000 caches for another one. Fantastic. Boot up time didn’t seem to be too affected by the amount of data on the device either, unlike the OR.

Everything was going swimmingly then I found a bug. You can see the details here. It was getting pretty dark by the time we finished our walk and the camera couldn’t cope with this at all, but to be fair I didn’t expect it to. You can see some snaps I took along the way at the bottom.

In summary I loved this device. It was so much better than any current Garmin for accuracy, functionality and usability. I keep discovering little things like there is an in-built magnifier when you hold you finger on the map. Despite all the good news the eX is certainly not perfect. The first concern is that there are so few users that there is little information available, though there are a couple of excellent user forums. Secondly Magellan support is notoriously woeful. They’re owned by MiTac (remember the Mio PDAs?) and they seem to think that a device costing several hundred pounds is not worthy of support. There are also a lot of small bugs that should have long since been resolved and even more small improvements that would have taken little effort. It is a mystery to me why so many users, particularly geocachers, stay loyal to Garmin when their products are so inferior.

After this test I had to return the device as the OS maps had not been created properly and were missing large areas of detail all over the country. I’m now playing a waiting game for a newish device, either with or without OS maps. I just wish I had had a chance to test custom maps on the device before I sent it back rather than just in Vantage Point.

This was the best photographic result I had on the eX610. I certainly took better photos than my HTC Evo 3D, even if it can’t do 3D.