OK to use Euro eXplorist 500 firmware in a North American eXplorist??

I was looking at the support page on the Magellan site at:

http://www.magellangps.com/support/

I first entered 'eXplorist series' in the 'Product Family' box and
then 'eXplorist 500 North America' in the 'Select a model' Box.

That takes you to the support page where they offer pdf manuals
and a firmware upgrade. The firmware upgrade is v 2.03 (This is
what I currently have installed in my 500)

I went back to the support page and entered 'eXplorist 500 Europe'
in the 'Select a model' box. The support page for this selection
provides no PDF manuals but you can download an upgrade, the European
firmware upgrade shows as v 2.57

I see the European upgrade provides 3 new screens with things like
speedometer dials, a jumbo text display and a fancy tracking display.
It also installs a 'Velocity Made Good' selection that you can add to
the displays like you can with ETA, Time to End, Bearing, Distance etc..

See the link below for images of what this European firmware provides

http://www.magellangps.com/support/softwareupdates/500_600_4257_rn.asp

Is it OK to upgrade a North American eXplorist to this European
version? Will it effect the accuracy of the US unit?

Has anyone ever done it?

I have a North American 600. I have applied the Euro update. It seems to
work fine. The only glitch I have found is that it defaults to km instead
of miles. You can go into the menus and change the distance measurements to
miles or feet as you want.

Mike Schnierle wrote:


OK Thanks. km is no problem cuz we're stuck with that in Canada :)

I was worried that it might screw up some not-so-obvious things
like removing the WGS84 option from the Map Datum selection or
changing the basemap to European countries and streets.

I find it baffling that the European firmware has SO much more
that the North American version. There's a huge difference.

It's like North American customers are second class citizens :-)

Jim Townsend wrote:

Magellan is under new ownership.

Tech support went to Pakistan or India or somewhere over there.

They have probably laid off all the U.S. employees that knew anything
about customer support.

The people (person?) that took care of software development is probably
gone too.

There is no info on the Euro update about it's release date, scant
details about changes, no history of changes. Maybe a U.S. release with
the same or similar updates is pending?

They have a newly designed web page that was implemented just before the
time of the change in ownership. It sucked at implementation and has
not gotten any better, maybe even has gotten worse.

I think we're seeing a company that is in its death throes.

Too bad, I really liked them when they were still in the game and had
their heads out of the sand...

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA (jackerbes at adelphia dot net)
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine dot com)

Jack, what Garmin would you recommend as a Explorist 600 replacement. I have
a 600 with a 2 gig card and Mapsend Directroute US 2.0 loaded as regions for
the US. I would be looking for something with similiar capabilites.

Thanks,