 My favorite out of 3 different GPS's so far.... |
| Review Date: June 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Trish, CA |
I am enjoying this Magellan RoadMate. In the past I have had or still have a TomTom 100 and a Garmin Nuvi 350.
Using this Magellan RoadMate is a piece of cake in comparison. As soon as I turned it on, my car's location was on the screen in an instant. No waiting for 30 seconds or more for the satellite to find me.
The One-Touch screen worked perfectly for me. Just one touch..no punching! ;-) I touched the screen to enter my home info...the city, street, so on and it all came up within seconds and that's how long it took to enter.
I also like the fact the the voice is clear and there is plenty of notice before you make a turn and there is a doorbell or ringing when you should be making the turn.
I purposly made a a few wrong turns to see how long it would take to recalculate the route. My older models would miss a few turns before the voice told me what to do next...this one, the doorbell rings instantly almost...the next block. For me, one who is in a constant state of "lostness", this is a true blessing ;-)
The size is also a bonus for me. Since I am often out of town visiting friends, I usually take my GPS when I run in the mornings. Yes, my sense of direction is so bad, that I get lost within yards from my starting point. This fits in my small pack and I can run as far as I like, touch the screen to return to the starting point and wella, I'm like everyone else now..no fear.
LOVE this GPS...No complaints at all from me. |
My PT Cruiser now knows the way to San Jose
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| Review Date: June 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: PT Cruiser, CA USA |
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R27CXBL4TVHYAN I didn't expect to be so happy with this GPS. I also have the Magellan RoadMate 1470 4.7-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator which I like very much but from the descriptions I read about this one it sounded like this would be a major step down. It isn't. This is a great little GPS for this price range.
First of all, come clarifications. As of the time of posting the size description on Amazon says: 7 x 3.7 x 3.1 inches ; 4.9 pounds. I'm not sure if that's the size of the box it came in or what but the actual unit is about a half inch thick, not 7 inches. And it weighs 4-1/4 oz according to my postage scale. So it's small enough to fit into your pocket. I thought I'd have a tough time reading the screen of such a small unit after the Magellan 1470 that is 4.7 inches wide, but I can see it perfectly well, no problem at all. The other thing is that when I read the description and it said no text to speech or on Magellan's site when it said no SayWhere support that it meant that there would be no voice support at all. All that it means is that instead of saying "Turn left in .4 miles on Main St." it just says "Turn left in .4 miles."
It still gives you plenty of warning and if you're entering a freeway it tells you whether the entrance is on the right or the left. Actually, when trying it out I didn't even notice that the street names weren't spoken because I could see them on the screen. It reminds you several times at different intervals when you are approaching a freeway exit or making a turn onto another street. Another feature that I really like is the little bell (which you can change to other sounds) that lets you know right when you're supposed to turn.
One nice feature on the 1470 (although it's just kind of a 'bells and whistles' thing for me) is the AAA support that gives you all kinds of places to go that are near wherever you happen to be and written descriptions of them which this unit doesn't have. This unit includes pre-loaded maps for the U.S., Puerto Rico and Hawaii. The 1470 includes maps for Canada. With the 1210 you'd have to buy an add on. Other than that and the size, there aren't a lot of differences. They both use the same holder, which in California has to be on the dash. Because the touch screen is a little smaller, I have to be a bit more careful when typing in addresses with this smaller screen but with the 'smart type' thing that fades out letters you don't need it isn't too difficult.
I didn't need to read the manual to be up and running with this GPS. I mounted the holder on the dash of my PT Cruiser, which was the perfect spot for it, plugged the USB power cable into the unit and then into my cigarette lighter and it was ready to go. It found my location in just a couple of minutes. Then, I pressed the "Go to" button on the touchsreen, selected "Address" and typed in the city and street that I wanted to find. It has the smart type thing which fills in the word after a few letters or gives you some suggested choices so you don't end up having to type a whole lot. It found my destination right away and I was ready to go.
The screen is nice and bright and you can easily see where you are going. The voice is pleasant and it's loud enough to hear even with the radio on. You can adjust the volume by touching the handy icon on the touch screen and going to the volume menu.
All in all, I really like this GPS. It's a nice size that will easily fit in your pocket or purse and for me it has all the features that I really care about in a small amount of space and is a lot less expensive than the RoadMate 1470 model. I posted a video showing the difference in size between the two models which I hope helps if you're trying to make a decision. |
Good, Low Cost Portable GPS Unit
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| Review Date: July 20, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Gregg Eldred, Avon Lake, OH USA |
I was provided an evaluation unit of the Magellen Roadmate 1210 Portable GPS Navigator. This is not my first experience with a portable GPS unit, I have been using a TomTom One for a couple of years.
Upon opening the box, you will find the GPS (pre-loaded with maps of the United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico), vehicle power adapter, windshield mount, adhesive mount for your dashboard, and a small instruction booklet. It comes charged, so that you can immediately begin using it. Once you have entered your home address, you are basically ready to go. I don't think that you can get a simpler setup.
This is a fairly thin unit and the screen, at 3.5", should be good enough for a lot of people. The windshield mount is excellent; once attached to the windshield, it is impossible to move the mount. And the GPS remains in place, benefiting from a very good attachment to the mount, yet the unit can be adjusted quickly and easily. You will not need to worry about the GPS moving during normal driving, either from the mount or the attachment. Entering destinations is very fast. As you begin to type a city, the Magellen begins to guess your destination. You do not have to change states, like on other units. If you want to go to, say, "Dearborn, Michigan," start by typing "dearb" it will fill out the rest, showing you "Dearborn, MI." It tries to auto complete the street, as well. Another feature of this unit is that as you type a destination, it removes letters from the keyboard, which makes entering the remaining data easy. It is also a little unnerving as it auto completes the names (as in, "how does it do that?"). For the mounts and the software alone, this is an extremely good unit. The default maps are much more up-to-date than I expected. Recent road additions (within the last year or so) in my area are reflected in this unit.
It is not without its issues, however. If you want to take advantage of map upgrades, or to add new maps and Points of Interest (POI), you will have to purchase a special USB cable ($15 list). If you want to get live traffic, that is also an additional cost for the vehicle adapter ($80 list). However, you do receive traffic updates for "life." While traveling, you will notice that the map "jumps." It may be to poor signal strength or a peculiarity in the software, but if you are really watching the travel indicator, you will see that it leaps ahead at times. Also, I noticed that street names pop in and out of the map as I was driving. The keyboard drives me crazy. I looked through all of the settings and could not discover how to change it from "ABCDEF" to "QWERTY." For a person that lives on a computer, it is very frustrating to have to type on an unfamiliar keyboard. Not having a way to change it to the way I want to type makes entering destinations "challenging." Finally, this unit takes a while to boot up. I think that it takes somewhere between 30-40 seconds to start up. And once it does boot up, you will want to wait for it to find a signal. Many is the time where I entered my destination, started on the trip, and waited for the GPS to get a signal and catch up to me.
For the price point, this is a very good portable GPS. Just be prepared to purchase additional cables to get the full features of this unit. |
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