Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I had really high hopes for this GPS. I shopped for quite awhile and owned a Garmin that was due to be updated but decided to replace the unit rather than pay to upgrade. After reading a lot of reviews of the Garmins with quality control issues I opted to give Magellan a try. I have owned the unit around 2 months. I took a trip from Indianapolis to Santa Fe, NM and used the unit the entire time. Last weekend I drove from Indy to Chicago and back again. I guess I have used it about 3000 miles and here is my impression.
First the bad points:
1. The unit will power down occasionally. It has happened to me 4 times so far.
2. The spoken directions ie.."Turn right" are crystal clear. The problem is when it says the street names. The street names are muffled. Usually I can understand what it says but other times I have to look at the screen to figure out what street it is talking about.
3. I put in a route to take me home from a casino near Chicago. It said there were roads that were closed in my route. A road closed icon even came up on the screen. I thought OK it will just route me around the closed road. Well I got up to where I could see the barricades and it told me to turn on the road it knew was closed. I went on past the closed road of course and it recalculated a different route it took a lot longer to go that way. It would have been quicker to go back the way I came in which would have been back tracking a little bit but the unit was not smart enough to realize this.
4. I was almost home the other night and knew what exit I needed to take on I-65. It was telling me to go 1.3 miles further then take that exit. I didn't even think there was an exit 1.3 miles further on the interstate so I took the exit that I knew was right and I checked when I got home and there wasn't another exit for around 10 miles. This makes me wonder how often it sends me on a wild goose chase in areas that I am not familiar with. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
5. Sometimes the auto zoom will zoom out so far it looks like a satellite view. And to top it off this happens when you are in a really congested areas where you really need a lot of detail. It happened to me once in Oklahoma City and Chicago.
6. When typing on the keyboard the unit pauses and hangs up causing you to have to press the same key a several times before it registers. This makes entering an address frustrating and time consuming.
7. Adds show up on the screen while you are driving. I understand that the Garmin adds only show up when you are stopped. I didn't find the traffic alerts helpful. It has an icon on the screen that turns red when there is trouble ahead. Instead of just automatically rerouting you it requires you to click on the icon and then it will give you alternate routes. You select the one you want and then it will take you on your new route. You have to do this while barreling down the interstate at 75mph. Kind of defeats the purpose if I kill myself in the process. I just wished it knew which route was the least congested and route you to that one automatically.
The only good point for me is the screen is big and easy to read.
I am going on another trip next week. I am going to take it to Las Vegas and drive to Tucson, AZ then to San Diego and then up to LA then back to Vegas. If it performs any better I will update my review.
All of the other reviews were so positive but I am really disappointed in it's performance. Perhaps the others just haven't used it as extensively as I have. I am probably going to replace it with a Garmin. Even my old Garmin is light years ahead of this unit.Update 11-16-10
Just got back from another long trip. I had my mother along and she is around 70 years old and not very tech savvy. By the end of the trip she was making fun of the GPS unit wondering how bad it was going to screw up every time I turned it on. This unit is not able to do basic routing about half of the time. I don't understand all of the positive reviews. The phrase I hear in my sleep at night is "When possible make a legal U turn." because that is what it says more often than anything else. I wish I could return to Amazon but its been too long. Save your money and buy something else. You have been warned.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Magellan RoadMate 5045 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic
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