If your idea of a trip is one that starts when the road ends, you'll like the Magellan SporTrak Topo GPS receiver. It comes with an extensive built-in nationwide topographic map database. Combined with the handheld's small size, light weight, and rugged design, you'll find it can be the right navigation tool to guide you anywhere.

Packed into its 2.2" W x 5.6" H x 1.2" D case, the Magellan SporTrak Topo has 8 MB of general map features and 100 MB of topographic map detail. This basemap covers 80% of Alaska and 100% of the other 49 states. Topographic contouring and elevation is shown, along with major roads, cities, waterways, and coastlines. Included with the receiver is a CD of Magellan's MapSend Topo 3-D topographic maps, to be used if you want enhanced details. The CD has much more information on lakes and rivers, major and minor roads, and outdoor recreation points of interest. The data can be downloaded from a PC using the included interface cable. If you should need city street maps or some area not already covered, there's 16 MB of memory for additional map data.

Position accuracy for the SporTrak Topo is within seven meters horizontally and ten meters in elevation. To achieve greater accuracy, the receiver can use the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS), and Differential GPS (DGPS). WAAS and EGNOS require no other equipment and can reduce position errors to less than three meters.

Even for first-time users, the operation of the Magellan SporTrak Topo is simple. With its menu system and directional keypad, it's easy to move through the nine navigation screens. There are screens which display their information with images and others with text only. And most screens have data fields which display your choice of trip information. Additionally, you have a choice of nine languages for the text. And since there's a built-in help system, guidance for screen functions is always available.

Viewing the navigation screens on the SporTrak Topo is never a problem with its high-contrast grayscale LCD. The 1.4" W x 2.2" H display has adjustable contrast and backlighting for reading under any light conditions. The keypad is also backlit and to help save battery power, there's a shut-off timer. It can be set to turn off the backlight if a key hasn't been pressed for a certain interval. Tapping any key will turn the backlight back on.