GPS Navigator Best buy Cheap

1. 

   Ted
   February 28th, 2010 - 09:02

   If you plan on using your GPS outside North America, then avoid this GPS. There is an artificial lock on it, God bless them, so that you cannot put points of interest, or buy other maps for it. You are stuck with the preloaded ones. We were pretty annoyed to discover this after we’d left the US, and realised it is now useless.
   
   This thing is cheap and you won’t be able to do anything nerdy with it. Do yourself a favour a get a real one.
   
   I can’t comment on its durability as it’s been used for about 3 weeks, that’s it. *&^$*&%^!!
   Rating: 2 / 5
2. 

   Dan Crane
   February 28th, 2010 - 10:27

   The Magellan Roadmate 1340 will get you where you are going. However, it can take you down roads you don’t want to be on. In New Jersey I ended up on a single lane road (not one lane each way, just one lane)with grass growing in the middle and enough large pot holes for the front end of the car to be sliding down to the left as the rear end of the car slid down to the right. This road would probably be impassable in snow and scary as all heck in a rain storm.
   
   I advise you to watch the map as opposed to listening to the directions. Magellan would misplace my location onto the lanes headed the other way or onto a city street that ran along side the highway. The voice would then start directing me to do a legal u-turn or would tell me to take the next right. This would happen once or twice a trip. It won’t misplace the road, but it will misplace where you are on the road.
   
   Once, instead of having me turn left, it told me to turn right, right, right, right and then left on to the same road I could have turned left on at the first stop light. None of these were one way roads. It will get you where you are going but it can send you on some bizarre trips along the way.
   
   If the Magellan was the only GPS system, I would keep it but there is no way it can be the best GPS. Mine goes back to the store and I will get the Garmin that I have heard no complaints about.
   Rating: 2 / 5
3. 

   S. Brode
   February 28th, 2010 - 12:22

   As a first-time GPS owner, I have found I REALLY like the features of this unit …. but, sadly, it may get returned. Yesterday I purchased a Garmin nuvi 260 for $[...] more than this unit cost, and I hope to decide within a few weeks which one to keep. I would have no problem keeping the Magellan, except I’ve realized after a whole summer of usage that I just don’t trust the thing!

   Pros of the Magellan Roadmate 1340:
   
   - Text to Speech directions. Definitely a must for a GPS since it tells you what road you are actually looking to turn on.
   
   - Lane Assist shows you clearly which side of the highway you need to be on. Great feature – to get this on Garmin you have to pay a lot more money!
   
   - Ease of use — you can quickly turn the volume down right on the map screen. You can also toggle between speed, direction, ETA, distance remaining and time remaining right on the map screen. This is a nice feature and is not available on the Garmin 260 – it only displays arrival time and speed (though you can touch a button and bring up a large dashboard with this info – but it’s not as easy to read.)
   
   - Route Changes can be made if you want to plan to use a different road ahead of time (don’t do this while driving, of course). It is nice to have the option to tell the unit you do not want to use a specific turn; the Garmin I have does not offer this feature. However, you cannot exactly tell the Magellan which way you DO want to go – it decides for itself which other routes to use…. sometimes it can be trial and error to get it to take you the way you like – in the end I print a Google map if I really want to have specific routes planned out. Of course the Magellan will recalculate your route once you deviate from the one it chose.
   
   - Quick and easy to get to your address book, and it also lets you store other information like phone numbers.
   
   - Points of interest can be displayed on screen if you choose. You can also push one button while driving on highways to bring up POIs. Very nice feature.
   
   - The Magellan tells you 2 miles in advance, then 0.5 miles in advance, when you need to make a turn.
   
   - You can add at least two stops to a trip, and it is easy to change their order if you decide to go to a different place first. I haven’t used this feature … it might even be more than two stops?
   
   - When setting a destination, you have the option to choose between four navigation preferences, and the Magellan will bring up a screen so you can see them side by side and see the times the routes take.

   Cons of the Magellan Roadmate 1340:
   
   - I have read in a discussion forum on Amazon that customer service absolutely STINKS. I have not had any experience myself, but this would be a HUGE drawback for me if I ever needed any help with the unit. Who needs that kind of frustration?
   
   - The main reason I will probably return the unit to Costco is because, as I said, I don’t really think I can trust it. I am always second guessing its directions, because I have had many experiences with it telling me things I should NOT do. I cannot seem to fix these quirks with changing navigation settings (like using faster or shorter routes, etc.) For example:
   
   1) Driving from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., on I-270, the unit consistently tells me to exit in Gaithersburg, MD. It KNOWS I need to continue on 270 to the D.C. beltway, but on every trip, it tells me to exit on Rte. 28. If I don’t do that, it tells me to exit on Rte. 189. Who knows why? I can’t take the time to see where it is sending me. What if I am somewhere one day where I really don’t know my route and it does this sort of thing?
   
   2) Last week I was shopping in unfamiliar territory and it told me to turn left at a major highway. Since I was sitting at a traffic light, I zoomed out to see where I was going, only to discover that the Magellan was sending me left, then right, then right again, then left. Crazy! All I needed to do was make a right turn and I would be heading the right direction.
   
   3) When I began to approach my checkered flag (same shopping trip), I saw that the green route continued past it, then looped around and came back to it. The unit wanted me to drive 0.7 miles further than my destination, then turn around and use the same highway to come back to it. I used my brain and turned into the shopping center, which I could see approaching on the left.
   
   4) On a beach trip with my parents this summer the Magellan didn’t like anything we did. We were using Rte. 17 in Virginia to get to the Hampton Roads area, and continuing on to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The Magellan did NOT want us on Rte. 17 and kept telling us to get off at all these different exits. It did not help to change navigation settings. Thankfully my mom knows the way by heart, and we had no idea where the Magellan wanted to send us. I really just wanted it on so we could see how much longer we had to go. This experience and others confirmed for me that I will always need to plan my trip ahead of time, and will always need to supervise the unit to make sure we don’t follow its quirky directions.

   All in all, I regret to get rid of this handy little unit, but like a bad boyfriend, we have some trust issues. I am not sure if this unit behaves worse than others, or if I should expect the same quirks out of Garmin. Time will tell. I WILL say that the unit has served me well many times and has gotten us “found” quickly when we were lost. I am not an avid traveler and mostly wanted a GPS to help me navigate this region, which is fairly new to me. For $[...] the Magellan Roadmate has done just that…. but am I just waiting for it to take me 20 miles out of my way someday?
   Rating: 3 / 5
4. 

   gdgtlvr4
   February 28th, 2010 - 13:15

   I was prepared to like the 1340, having used many Magellans in the past. However, the spoken street names on the 1340 I tried were muffled/garbled, unintelligible and usually late. The chime that should sound when you are at a turn always sounded after the fact. The route selection was way off course and the gps couldn’t discern when I had reached my destination. I couldn’t believe how long it took to acquire a signal – even when the car had not moved while the gps was turned off.

   I was totally surprised this unit was of such low quality. Perhaps the new ownership needs to pay more attention to quality control.

   The unit gets a “2″ only because it has a good database.
   Rating: 2 / 5
5. 

   M. Kooiman
   February 28th, 2010 - 14:04

   I have used a Garmin of some sort over for the last several years and admit that I am partial to that brand. However, after doing a side by side comparison between an older Garmin and the Magellan RoadMate 1340 I can say both devices get you where you’re going and both have good features not available on the other device.

   I took a trip from Dallas to Austin and had both devices operating at the same time. They both planned the trip using the same route. They both told me when to turn and both showed a map on the small screen to give me an idea of what was coming up.

   FEATURES I LIKE ON Magellan:
   
   1. When typing in the location of my destination, Magellan using a smart feature that grays out letters that couldn’t possibly be used. This keeps you from mistyping an address.
   
   2. As you approach a turn or change that is important (merge, etc) Magellan warns you earlier than Garmin, giving you time to change lanes if necessary.
   
   3. The screen shows movement so you know it is tracking your progress.
   
   4. On screen, while traveling, Magellan shows icons for food and gas so you can create modify your path if you happen to get hungry or need gas. I attempted to use this feature while driving and it came up with several gas stations nearby but didn’t actually modify the route to take me to the selected station. I think the problem was more user error so I’m leaving this as a plus.
   
   5. AAA members can search for locations with AAA discounts. Not too useful if you aren’t a AAA member but I found it to be kind of nice when searching for a hotel.
   
   6. You can save a destination to a favorites. The Garmin has a recently searched feature but not a “favorites”. Personally, I don’t find the favorites to be useful because once I’ve been there a couple of times, I don’t need a GPS to find it again but I can see how this would be very uesful for others or for saving places you visit once every few months.

   WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:
   
   1. I found the voice difficult to understand at times and would have liked to change the voice to male or to a different accent. I have my Garmin set to an Australian male voice. It is a little easier on my ears and I’ve found it easier for me to understand.
   
   2. I found the screen difficult to navigate while driving. I wanted to zoom in or out while driving and kept hitting a wrong spot on the screen that was too close so it changed the driving stats instead of zooming the map in and out. It is really important while driving that you don’t get distracted by the device so having to “look” when you want to touch the zoom icon is a bad thing.
   
   3. MINOR negative – on the Garmin I can change the icon representing my vehicle. This really had no operational value but it adds a factor of fun.
   
   4. While driving down a highway and had no turns, the Magellan was constantly telling me to stay on the highway. Every major exit gave me a tone and it told me to stay on the highway. Some people will consider this a plus but it was more of an annoyance to me.
   
   5. On the Garmin, after making a turn, the Garmin will tell me verbally what the next change in course is going to be. Magellan does not do this so I found myself looking away from the road to see what the next turn would be.
   
   6. When I miss a turn, Garmin says “RECALCULATING” followed by the next turn in the altered route. Magellan was silent until you were close to the next turn. I like to know when I missed a turn.

   All in all the Magellan performed well. My list of cons are mostly differences from the Garmin that I am used to. As I said in the title, it will get you where you’re going.
   Rating: 3 / 5

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