Review by Dave Burrows

The SporTrak Pro is one of Magellan's newer range of handheld GPS Receivers.   The SporTrak range are small, rugged, built to last and are for the serious map navigators in mind. 

The SporTrak Pro comes standard with 23mb ram which includes a base map of 9mb.  The North America base map includes US Cities, Interstate highways, political boundaries, major waterways and airports. 

The European version contains the same information except the UK edition base map has UK Towns/Cities and major roads and motorways.  

Like with Garmin, Magellan also offer an extra installable map CD called MapSend.  This allows you to upload and store these maps to the Meridian with greater map detail than provided in the base maps. 

Magellan have chosen not to fit the SporTrak Pro with any additional storage solutions, which is a shame, and makes the Meridian range more usable for mapping.

The SporTrak Pro looks and feels rugged, and is considerably smaller than the Meridian range of GPS Recievers.  Magellan say the SporTrak Pro is waterproof, and complies with IEC-529 IPX7 specifications.  The sides of the SporTrak Pro are rubberised and easy to grip, it has a backlit keypad, albeit smaller than the Meridian GPS and a backlit display which caters for large fonts.

The Technology

Like many other handheld GPS receivers, the SporTrak Pro can track up to 12 satellites at any one time out of the current constellation, and fully supports WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) in the US and EGNOS in Europe.  With current GPS accuracy, the SporTrak Pro will be accurate within 3 meters or better depending on line of sight to the satellites and the amount of strong satellite signals the receiver has. 

The SporTrak Pro comes with 9 customisable screens which show

satellite constellation, maps, compass, Bearing/Heading screen, GPS Co-ordinate screen, Track screen, Track details screen, speedometer

The Bearing/Heading screens and Track Screens give information like Bearing, speed, direction and ETA options.  The Meridian comes standard with support for up to 20 routes, 500 waypoints and up to 2000 track points which should be enough for the average walker and supports 12 built-in co-ordinate systems and 76 datums. 

Screenshots from the Magellan GPS

If you're looking to use the SporTrak Pro for walks and hikes, you will certainly like the Track back feature which is more accurate than Garmin's equivalent system allowing you to accurately track back to each waypoint, which makes it easy if you get lost and need to re-trace your steps.

Like many other GPS Receivers, the Meridian also has compass support with Northfinder technology showing you which direction is north no matter where you stand on the earth, it also contains sun rise and sun set times and moon phase for any date/location in the world.

Back Cover

The back cover is different compared to the Meridian range as the back cover doesn't actually come apart. 

The battery compartment is now accessed from the bottom of the receiver and has a twist screw loop which you can fix a hand strap to, and to access the battery compartment you need to make around 18 turns of this loop anticlockwise then pull and the battery compartment will come apart.

Like the Meridian range, the SporTrak Pro contains 2xAA batteries which are included in the box. 

Unlike the Meridian GPS, the SporTrak Pro does not come with an external storage (SD) slot.  It does come equipped with 8mb RAM over the Meridian GPS 2mb RAM, which comprised of 2mb being used for the European basemap of roads, waterways, parks, airports and more.  The aditional 6mb gives you greater scope of using MapSend data downloaded to the SporTrak Pro to enhance the detail of the onboard maps.

The PC/Pocket PC connection support on the back I don't particularly like.  You have 4 metal contact plates and a screw thread. 

You then have to match the cable up exactly, and turn the screw head about a dozen times before it fully locks into position.  Although this does give a firm connection, I much prefer Garmin's cable connections over Magellan's. 

You shouldn't have to keep screwing or unscrewing the cable, but when you do it takes a while, where as Garmin's like many plug/sockets are keyed and push straight on giving a tight connection.

The SporTrak Pro will run for approx 15 hours of use on a set of 2xAA Batteries.

MapSend & DataSend Maps

MapSend offers detailed street-level maps of the U.S. available in regional files allowing you to download just the maps you need, saving memory while making GPS navigation even easier.

The MapSend® Streets in the US CD-ROM contains highly-detailed maps that can be easily downloaded from your PC to your handheld GPS receiver for a fun and simple way to navigate.

Map details include streets, lakes, rivers, coastlines, parks, hunting and fishing, railways and points of interest for the entire United States. You choose the regions and level of detail to download for maximum memory efficiency.

The data can then be updated or overwritten with new map regions.
 

Create your own waypoints and routes on your PC, edit and download them to your GPS receiver for use on your adventure. Save thousands of routes on your PC for recording your every journey.  Plotting your current position in relation to surrounding landmarks is fun and easy, and your GPS search function will find street addresses and points of interest, quickly and safely guiding you to those locations.

MapSend is currently available seven different flavours:-

• MapSend BlueNav Charts

• MapSend Streets & Destinations Canada

• MapSend Streets & Destinations in the US

• MapSend Streets Europe

• MapSend Streets in the US

• MapSend Topo in the US

• MapSend WorldWide Basemap

Magellan also offer DataSend and DataSend Europe which allow you to create your own personal charts.  The unique DataSendTM Europe software allows you to download your routes and waypoints from your GPS receiver to your PC, to easily record your journeys and edited them for future use on a new adventure. For use with your Magellan SporTrak, GPS 315, GPS 320 or SP24 receiver.

Comparing Handhelds

Pitting the SporTrak Map/Pro against the Magellan Meridian GPS and the Garmin GPSMap76S (the SporTrak Map and Pro have the same Quad Helix antenna), on a windowsill which really doesn't pick up much of a signal at all, we found the SporTrak Pro to have slightly less signal compared to the other two receivers.  The antenna within the SporTrak Pro is smaller than the Meridian GPS and this does show. 

Garmin GPSMap76S, Magellan SporTrak Pro and Magellan Meridian GPS

If size is an issue to you, and you want a GPS receiver to put in the pocket, then the SporTrak Map/Pro will probably win over the Garmin GPSMap76 and Meridian GPS size.

Like most of the Magellan range, the SporTrak Map/Pro is no exception and is kitted out for most European countries including language support for English, French, German, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch. 

So what are the main differences between the SporTrak Map and SporTrak Pro ?  Apart from the price difference, the only real difference is the amount of memory and base map size.  The SporTrak Map has a 2mb Base map with 6mb free memory where as the SporTrak Pro has a 9mb base map and a whopping 23mb of free memory to be used for MapSend.

GPS Hardware TTFF (Time To First Fix)

Connecting the Magellan to a PC or Pocket PC

Magellan ship a PC data cable in all their GPS Receiver boxes so you can connect the Magellan GPS Receiver to a PC which has a DB9 (9 pin Serial) connector.  These are pretty much standard on all computers, except some newer computers tend to favour USB or Firewire over Serial.

You can also connect a Magellan GPS Receiver to a PDA like a Pocket PC or Palm PDA.  You can do this by purchasing a cable set from PC-Mobile.  The cable should comprise of two parts, the first part is the cable that screws onto the back of the Magellan like the one below.

The second part of the cable will have a 3.5mm socket on one end which will connect with the 3.5mm plug (left) and the other end of the cable will have a PDA connector.  This then allows you to use your favourite GPS Receiver on your favourite PDA and utilise a whole host of other mapping products anything from Topographical products like Fugawi, OziExplorer, Memory-Map to Street Routing software like TomTom Navigator, PowerLOC Destinator and you don't then need to purchase a second GPS Receiver if you're primary use going forward will be on the Pocket PC!

Summary

The SporTrak Pro is a good GPS Receiver.  The receiver is small, lightweight and has all the standard features that you'd want in a handheld GPS Receiver, the only thing lacking from this receiver is to be able to expand the store space allowing for larger maps to be downloaded with MapSend.  If the amount of space for map data is crucial, then the SporTrak Pro will really be the GPS Receiver for you.  If basemap and free memory for uploading MapSend maps isn't really important to you then a SporTrak Map will be of more use. 

Conclusion

Manufacturers Website

http://www.magellangps.com

Pocket GPS Reviewer

Dave Burrows

Pocket GPS Reviewer Website

Dave Burrows.com

Rating

Construction

Useability

Robustness

Overall Rating 93%

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