A need to buy a hand held GPS which is easy to use - Magellan or Garmin ?

I have used a Magellan for three years, but put it on the back of my car in Castlemaine last month and ................. it dropped off "somewhere".

So now I want to choose my next one carefully. There was nothing wrong with the Magellan, in fact it saved my bacon a few times. However, I found that it was not easy to move around the various areas of the software (yes, I am an idiot with computers and such like).

What are the opinions of people who have used both brands - which is the easiest to use ?

Thanks,

Jig.

Hey Jiga
I,ve got the magellan explorist 400 and 600 i bought them because of the lithium battery that lasts for ages and is rechargeable . fairly easy to use once you play with it for a while .

IMHO A garman, just because I have always used them and finf that it is better to stick with what you know.

Personaly i think the garmin etrex for the price of around $100 is great, being easy to set up and very easy to use and also has battery save.
A real winner. Gavin

Thanks fellas, but I really need to hear from somebody who has used both and can give me an idea which one is the most user friendly.

Thanks,

Jig.

I think user friendly can mean different things to different people however I thought I would share my recent purchase decision. I did have a Magellan which was dated and when I decided to buy again I chose the Garmin eTREX 20 which was released about 3 months ago. The main reasons for my selection were: size (very small and lightweight), runs on 2xAA standard batteries (I use energiser NiMH rechargeables) so I do not need to worry about proprietary square shaped batteries when the time comes to replace and very easy to carry spares or take out of other equipment I carry, lasts up to 25 hours, tracks using both the standard USA GPS satellites as well as Russian GLONASS simultaneously (i.e. dual system for extra precision and faster lock on satellites – the latter system available in 2012), micro SD for topo maps of Australia, and more (see above link for details). I purchased locally online from Johnny Appleseed in St. Kilda/Melb (store in QLD also).

Gday Jig,Ive got the Maglln xplorer xl wth aus streets and tracks on it, cant tell you much about using wth the computer ,just turn it on and shows all trails/tracks where ever you are, used it in 5 states never let me down with all the bush track detail, When I bought it 4 years ago unit was $500 and streets/tracks was $200, but recently bought a refurbished from amazon wth 12v charger, dash mount kit etc to aus for $150. The streets and tracks topo on card is pretty good shows plenty of features,mines, camp grounds etc and the topo is pretty good for searching out gullies etc. I run another aus tracks card in my work ute on a magellan crossover gps, just switch it to off road when I need and up comes all the off road layout,including private property etc but the road/street details on the crossover arnt as good as others available,phill