Product Review: Magellan Triton 400

The new line of Magellan GPS units called Triton is out and I get to review two of them starting with the Triton 400, a great and easy to use handheld GPS unit with plenty of nice features in a basic unit.

Ease of Use/Performance: 23/25
Convenience/Storage 24/25
Appearance/Design 25/25
How much I enjoy 24/25 

Total: 96/100

Magellan makes some good GPS products but in the past I have found some features that were a bit difficult to use and figure out. The new line of Magellan handheld GPS units called Triton solves many of these problems for a more user friendly GPS unit. The addition of a new software program that allows for a much easier interface and loading information to and from your GPS unit also makes using this new line of Triton's a pleasure.

The Magellan Triton 400 is the first of the GPS units in the Triton line with an SD card slot instead of a fixed memory size. The Triton series comes with a nice color screen and built in base maps but the main features that make the units user friendly is the Vantage Point software for file loading and map work.

In case you are unfamiliar with GPS basics GPS stands for Global Positioning System and is a satellite system that is in orbit around the world for navigation and aviation. This system allows you to receive signals from these satellites for an accurate location by these handheld or even car mounted devices.

The WAAS system is the one maintain by North America and the EGNOS system is maintained by European countries but both are interchangeable and your GPS unit will probably not even care which signals it is receiving. GPS units receive signals from several satellites to give you an accurate positioning of the unit on the surface of the world. This triangulation is made more accurate by the use of more than three satellites and the better electronics of today's technology also means more accuracy, quicker signal reception and more toys on the GPS units in a smaller package.