Like it's name implies, the Magellan eXplorist 100 is a handheld GPS receiver made for the outdoors. The rugged case can stand abuse and its bright color makes it easy to find again if dropped along the trail. With the receiver's pin-point accuracy getting to your destination and back is trouble free.

A unique feature of the Magellan eXplorist 100 and the other two eXplorist models, is the 14-channel receiver. Other GPS receivers have only 12 channels. Although it could track the signals from 14 GPS satellites at one time, it won't, because there are never that many in the same area. But more channels does allow for faster signal acquisition, especially if it's been a long time or distance since the previous fix ("cold start"). Regular position readings for the receiver are off by less than seven meters. But since it's Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) enabled, it can reduce the error to less than three meters.

Another valuable feature of the eXplorist 100 is its multilingual capability. Information can be displayed in your choice of ten languages. But whatever language you choose, the information is displayed on one of its four screens; Compass, Plotter, Position, and Satellite Status.

The Compass Screen shows a graphical compass and if you're following an active route, your destination's name and direction. There are also two data fields for displaying the trip data of your choice, such as speed or distance traveled. The Plotter Screen for the Magellan eXplorist 100 is normally the most used. It shows your position, an arrow with your direction, the route you're following, the actual track you've taken, and waypoints in the area. Like the Compass Screen, there are two data fields for trip information.

The third type of display for the eXplorist 100 is the Position Screen. It displays position and other information in five fields of text. Your elevation and the coordinates for your current position are shown along with an estimate of their accuracy. Additionally there's a trip odometer, the time, date, and a battery strength indicator. The final screen is the Satellite Status Screen. It identifies which GPS satellites are being tracked and has a graphical display of their location. A bar chart shows the signal strength for each satellite.

There's enough memory in the Magellan eXplorist 100 to store 500 waypoints, 20 routes, and 3 track logs of 2000 track points each. You can enter the waypoints by marking your present position, entering coordinates of a location, or marking a spot on the Plotter Screen. You can later search for them by name or nearest location to you. The track log records your path every time you move and you can save the log to retrace the track or save it as a route to be followed again.