It all started when I was looking at my friends Magellan map330 about 3 years ago, and from that point on I have wanted a GPS. I have made up my mind that Magellan is the better brand, but i am trying to find one that has all the features of the map 330, but is currently made. I was looking on ebay, and I found a few magellan meridian gold and meridian marine gps units, but they were refurbished. are refurbished units good?

personally I would steer clear of refurbed units. I don't know much about Magellan as I am a Garmin person. Make sure you get one with color mapping and available downloadable maps. Turn by turn directions are nice if you go on driving holidays much.

I found an auction for one that is new and still in the box, so I am hoping I will win the auction .

Will they all work off-road?
i've been trying to find one with the biggest screen.
but alot of them seem to be geared towards City mapping.
and the hand held ones seem small.

Yes, all GPS's work offroad. Get a mapping model, some software out now like Map Sorce Lakes and Recreation shows alot of trails. I have a Garmin 76C an it works awesome! Has auto routing and most of the same features that the $1000 units have only in a smaller package.

You can get PC software form DeLorme called Topo USA. It is a CD set of topographic maps of the entire USA. You can not "MAP" your route, but, if you can read a topo map and a street map it's awesome. You can insert the TOPO maps into your GPS unit and track your progress and see your location on screen. Then when you return from your trip, you can down load your way points to your PC for storage and personal mapping of trails :-)

Zig

Here is a 2D and a 3D map I exported to give you an idea of what it does. BTW, this is a VERY low resolution export that has been reduced to download.

those are great if you have a laptop bvut you cannot upload them to a Garmin (not sure about a magellan) the only ones you can upload to Garmin units is GARMIN maps! They are pretty good so its not a problem.

Delorme works directly with one of the GPS handheld units. Im not sure which one but they can be uploaded.

Zig

well ill tell you what man i worked at cabelas over christmas break and i worked at the optics counter with all the gps units that i messed with all day long.  I have seen what all of them can do and finally i purchased what i found to be the best one.  Its the Garmin Vista C.  I think that it is the best overall of all the units that Cabelas carries.  It has the electronic compass which i feel is very important and also has the barometric altimeter.  You can buy the Garmin software and get the topographical maps.  The goverment is only allowed to release up to a certain date from the satellite images and stuff so i think the garmin software maps were last updated in the 80's.  So any pond and strip pit will be shown as long as it was there before the early 80's.  The software is expensive but not always nessicary.  The vista C comes with a base map built into it which will have all the major highways, state routes and cities.  But when your out one the trail you can just save waypoints.  The vista C has 24 MB of memory and you are able to save about 12 counties worth of topo maps on it.  and if your on the trail you can tell it to track where your goin and it will save up to 10 trails of 10,000 waypoints.  which means that you could take 10000 different turns and it will trace it.  Then you can upload those trails on to your computer with the software and save them on the program.  Then delete them off your gps unit and put them back on later if your goin to that place again.  As for the unit, the screens on all of them are just about the same size.  They just look bigger and smaller as compared to the size of the rest of the units.  The Vista is color which gives you better screen resolution and the better screen resolution gives your better battery life.  It only takes 2 AA batteries and you can purchase a plug for your cigerette outlet.  Also garmin has more sattelites, and the Vista is WAAS enabled.  WAAS enabled means that it goes off of towers also which means it will pinpoint your location down to a cubic foot as compared to Magellen which is 3 cubic yards.  Hope i was helpful because that was a lot of typing and i feel like a salesman for Garmin lol.

I have a couple of GPS receivers that I like.

1) Garmin Rino 120 - GPS with FRS and GMRS radio in one unit.  Two or more people with these units transmit their locations to each other when they talk.

It accepts map downloads and waypoints from the PC, but does not do trip routing.

I got it on ebay, refurbished, for $150.

2) Garmin GPS 5 - Monochrome GPS only.  Creates routes and gives turn by turn directions (not audible).  You cannot enter addresses on the GPS but you can save waypoints and use them or select a city.  If you use the Mapsource CD, you can create waypoints and routes on the PC and download them to the GPS.

I bought mine refurbished at Sportsman's Warehouse for $155, including the $120 Mapsource US Cities software.

For around $500 you can get a Rino 530 wich combines the features of both and has a color screen.

The thing about color screens is that they use more energy which means shorter batery life.

As for the electronic compass, I don't go anywhere off road without a real compass so I don't really care about the electronic one.  If you are moving, the GPS will tell you which direction you are headed.

personally I would steer clear of refurbed units.

Why?