Magellan RoadMate 500/700 GPS Review

I also own a GPS unit although mine is made by Garmin. After my research, I came up with some important issues that every potential buyer should be aware of:

- There are units meant for road use, wilderness use, & airplane use. The airplane units allow you to track the GPS satellites while at a high rate of speed. The road units allow you to 'follow the road' when traveling to a destination. The wilderness units may _show_ the road but may not be able to calculate directions using the roads. I returned my Garmin Vista (a hiking-only unit) for a multi-capable unit so I could use it on the road.
- How does the screen look in bright sunlight and dark conditions? Is it washed out or easy to read?
- How many maps does the unit store? Some road-only units have the memory capacity to store the entire U.S. while others make you upload map segments from CD-ROMs. I wanted a smaller unit so the tradeoff was less memory.
- Does the unit allow map updates? Most companies will release a new version of software and there will be an upgrade charge. Some road-only units do _not_ have an update capability (which is crucial IMO).
- Is the antenna sufficient? This is particularly important in cities and near mountains where the signals could be obstructed.
- Is the unit easy to use while you are driving? You should be able to get all the pertinent info with a quick glance at the unit. A larger screen size allows more info to be displayed. My unit (which has a smaller screen) switches the screens to alert me of upcomming turns or destinations... I don't find this to be a problem.
- Does the unit come with the maps and mounting kits? This can be a significant added expense.

FWIW, I have the Garmin GPS60CS which I use for road travel as well as outdoor pursuits. Highly recommended for a multi-purpose unit...

Hey Ron nice review. From what you've written, it sounds as if there is a one time fee. There is no monthly charge to use the GPS that the unit connects to, is it?

Ron you are an inspiration to the gadget geek inside me. Thanks for the review, and I'm hoping you get a credit increase on your card for future reviews! Ha ha, congrats on your new toy.

This sounds like a fantastic tool, but I'm a little worried about its accuracy. I've found that a lot of online maps (mapquest and the like) are a little lacking in accuracy. I've had cases where maps send you down streets that don't exist (anymore, yet, or ever), or the wrong way down one way streets. I wonder, does this happen with this unit's database? What about the extent of maps for rural and residential areas? I'm thinking of times when I've needed to break out maps heading for cottage country, and suspect that this is an area where a gadget like this might be lacking.

Also, is the unit able to detect a deviation from a planned route and compensate? Say, for example, you're following the provided directions, but hit a detour. Will the magellan be able to detect that you've deviated from its route, and either give you directions to get back to it, or be able to pick up when you rejoin it?

Last idea (and I really doubt this one), but is the unit able to download data from other sources? I'm thinking of an upgrade where realtime road and traffic conditions can be streamed into the unit to aid in the route planning algorithm.

Needless to say, I want one now, if for no other reason than to see how it works (and try to make it better!). No wonder I became an Engineer

Nice review, Ron. Now you've got me seriously jonesin' for one of these puppies for my road trip out to CA in 2 weeks.

Chris (& everyone), here's the link to Magellan's RoadMate 700 product page, which answers some of these questions:

http://www.magellangps.com/en/produc...asp?PRODID=955

In particular:
And here's the answer:

On the map updates question, I found this information in a review at ZDNet:
Seems a little odd that they would be using Compact Flash instead of the USB port on the unit, but this review was from January, so they may have been looking at an older version of the unit. Hopefully Ron will find out more about this from their tech support - there doesn't seem to be anything on their web site.

FWIW, I did some quick online price shopping, and found the RoadMate 700 for about $1050 at both tigergps.com and cartoys.com.

This unit has been on my gadget want list since it was introduced. On the question of brightness......do you think
it would work in open top car with top down? I would be using in 2004 BMW Z4 roadster.

Ron, how long is the windshield mounting arm?? I have one of those really deep windshields. Smaller folks could probably stretch out on my dash and take a nap...

Hey Dave BB thanks for the reply.

Well, from Ron's pics it looks like the windshield mount arm is about a foot long, maybe a little less. That should be good.

I ordered one of these today from tigergps.com. Also ordered this carrying case:

http://www.magellangps.com/en/store/...asp?PRODID=966

which TigerGPS has for about $30. I should be able to give this thing a good shakeout on my 4000+ mile road trip to the HTF Meet in LA (and back) in a couple of weeks!

Ron, your reveiw is responsible for me falling off the fence on this thing, you should request royalties from Magellan.

I just saw in today's newspaper add for Fry's that they are offering the Magellan RoadMate 500 for only $499 (limit one per customer).

It looks like that price is also good through Tuesday. It didn't say anything about being able to get a rain check in the event that they sell out their inventory so if any of you are interested you might want to call ahead before making the trip.

Ronbo,

Congrats on your latest toy and welcome to the wonderful world of GPS auto navigation. When I purchased my 2004 Acura MDX it came with a built-in navigation system and I was dubious at the time about how much I would use it (even though it was one of the top-rated units at the time). Now I can't seem to live without it.

Apparently the two systems (Acura's and Magellan) share a lot of common features so I know exactly where you are coming from. In fact, if I changed a couple of words, your review could read like an MDX NAV review. I love both the voice navigation and the ability to command it with my own voice. I understand that the 2005 MDX is going to include some upgraded features including the ability to tie in to real time road reports to change the routing dynamically. I doubt that this is simply a software upgrade so I'll probably have to live without that feature until my next vehicle.

Like I said, welcome aboard!

hi guys!

Ron, great review. This unit seems way kewl and it would definitely be a must buy for me (as I am currently driving 30-40K annually). However,

I keep oscillating over this unit. I currently use a laptop PC that sits on a permanent mount over my passenger seat. The GPS comes from delorme.com and cost $130. The Delorme unit is about the size of a credit card, connects via the USB port and sits on the dash. The use of the laptop drops the price of GPS navigation dramatically. In addition it allows me to use an Aircard cellular phone which plugs into my PC port and gives me email access while driving (or while stopped anyways:-) ). The Aircard has also rescued me many times when the delorme software has not been updated to include the newest subdivisions. I can just surf over to yahoomaps and pull up what I need to find my destination.

The laptop also gives me a 15" screen size so I can see a lot more detail at a glance. On the down side, I doubt the screen is as near as bright as the Magellan. Both systems offer voice commands and voice controlled navigation.

If I didnt need my laptop at every location I travel to I would have already invested in one of the Magellans.

Darn, what to do...I guess I need to find a rental service for the Magellan product and give it a solid try to see if I could go without my laptop in the passenger seat. Though the cost difference is huge, the Magellan would help me a lot with space issues while travelling, and with the amount I drive may be worth it in the long term.

Ron, I do hope you are bringing it to LA?

Regards

Gregg

One of my best friends' SUV is tricked out with this GPS. It absolutely rocks getting around LA, but sometimes it can be a bit stupid (had it since March and have never upgraded it though). The unit sometimes has issues of finding where we were at in LA, as though it couldn't find a signel, strangely this never occured downtown but would usually happen on campus at USC, go figure. We used this on a roadtrip from LA to Portland to Seattle end of last semester and it definitely helped us find gas stations and restaurants (eg, "who wants Dennys? «pokes GPS», ahh here's one ten miles up the highway and about two miles off it, sweet.") Not that we really needed it to get from LA to those cities (hmm just drive up the five, that was complex), but getting around Seattle, it was unparalled. Took us straight to the dorm we were looking to meet someone at at Udub, then navigated us to Ivar's on the Pier, then showed us how to get to some of the other things we wanted to get to and took us back to Udub. It's definitely my favorite toy to play with while in my friend's car, even if we know exactly where we're going I want to get it out and set it up.

I noticed Ron said it had trouble finding a place called BJs, I've found the Magellon can be VERY persnickety about spelling. For instance the way to get it to find an In-n-Out burger is to spell it precisely as In-n-out. If you don't have the hyphens in there or you type out and instead of N, the unit will never know what you're looking for. Likewise if you're looking for Trader Joe's and you type out the whole name, you better have the apostrophe in there or it won't find any.

Also we've found a few places it simply doesn't know. Urth Café, one of our favorite coffee spots in LA, isn't on the original map system, in fact we tryed to type in the street address and discovered that Melrose inexplicably ended in her database about 2 blocks before the coffee shop. I think this is actually because it changes from Melrose Blvd, ave, Pl, or St into Melrose Blvd, Ave, Pl, or St at that point and we were telling it to find the address on the wrong permutation of Melrose (again with the persnickety-ness). However when we left Urth Café, the unit had no trouble finding us a route to Amoeba music or an In-n-out. In fact it's quite often more clever than my advice, because she (the unit's name is Judy, short for Judas Iscariot something something something) advised we take the St before Sunset, which would have made us avoid all the traffic on Sunset, wheras I thought we should take Sunset. As much fun as it is to cruise the strip, Judy was right and would have gotten us there much quicker.

However she can be very wrong about some things. For instance once we were down in Santa Monica and told her to find the shortest time to Amoeba music in Hollywood, she had us take the 10 all the way back to the 110, the 110 up to the 101 and the 101 to the Hollywood exit, a huge circle entirely dependent on traffic and the 110 north can be especially nasty between the 10 and the 101, anytime of day or night. So we took the 10 to La Brea I believe and then just drove across town to Hollywood and probably saved a ton of time from sitting in traffic on the freeway (if it was say 2 in the morning, it might have been faster. And another time on coming back from Hollywood, she routed us to go all the way across town to Western first then to drive all the way down western to the 10 then take essentially 2 blocks down the freeway and get off on Vermont. It would have been a lot less city driving if we'd taken La Brea down to the 10 and the 10 across town down to Vermont, but apparently she did that route because the way the 10 curves it made the La Brea driving longer than the Western driving, but apparently failed to consider how far we had to drive across town from La Brea to Western.

And my friend tells me when she first got the unit, it thought she was in San Francisco and she actually had to 'gasp' read the instructions to reset it/get it to work properly.

Overall though it's a wonderful toy and very useful to get around LA in, especially finding gas stations, parking centers, or places to eat. They're definitely a lot of fun to play with, even if you know where you're going

Adam

Gregg, I don't know if Ron is bringing his (I imagine he is) but I just ordered one of these specifically for my drive to the meet in LA. So there will definitely be at least one unit out there for demo purposes! Hopefully by the time I get there I will have figured it out!

I was also interested to learn that you use the DeLorme laptop setup. I have used the DeLorme mapping software for several years now and really love it. But the hassles involved in using it on a laptop in the car seemed daunting. Probably OK for long-distance trips (like you do), but way too much if I just want to find a new restuarant across town - plus with a passenger in the right seat where does the PC go then? I also looked at going the PDA route (I have a Sony Clie), but again there are mounting hassles (especially in my new car), and now you have limited storage capability. So the Magellan unit seems like a like a good compromise, with super-easy mounting and a complete mapping/POI database built into the unit.

I see DeLorme now has a Bluetooth GPS module, which would improve matters somewhat by eliminating a cable.

My holy grail would be a unit like the Roadmate which utilizes DeLorme mapping technology (very doable - the entire Steet Atlas & Topo USA map DBs only take about 4GB on my laptop, so they'd fit on a unit like the RoadMate), allowing you to create routes on the PC and then download them into the portable unit.

My main concern about the RoadMate is Magellan's silence on map/POI updates. With a USB port surely they will do these at some point. How often they'll offer updates, and how much they'll charge, are two key questions which I hope we have answers to soon.
Thanks for that tip, Adam. My RoadMate will definitely be put to use helping me find In-N-Outs when I get out west!!

Ron, thanks for the tip. I actually went out to the site to grab the update so I'd have it when my unit came in, but ran into the registration prompt. Sounds like that update adds a lot of new features.

I can't wait to wring this thing out on the open road!!

I’ve been eve-balling these Navigation systems for several years now. I would really like to get one for my auto. Like others here I do a lot of traveling and can’t say how many times I’ve been in a strange city and I would loved to have had this device to help find locations. Still the price point at the time (over $3,000) made me hold off. Now that they have come down to the $1,000 level I’ve been looking into it again.

Ideally, I would like to upgrade the dash my ’99 Seville with an ’04 dash with the factory Nav. system installed. However, after talking to me dealer I found that in order to do this I would need to replace the entire wiring harness at a cost of about $3,000 before I even considered the dash conversion. This basically rules this option out for me.

I next considered after market systems, most notably the unit made by Alpine. The system installed was still too expensive (about $2,300) for my budget. I also just didn’t like how the Alpine looked after the installation.

With the emergence of the Magellan and Earthmate products a lot of these issues seem to have been addressed. Magellan’s windshield mounted units seems like the best solution to the whole ergonomic problem of a permanently mounted system. While Earthmate goes a step further being able to place the whole unit, PDA or small Laptop, into the glove box. Also both systems have a very competitive and reasonable price point of around $1,200.

I would be very interested in opinions and comparisons of those that can closely examine these product side by side.

Got my new toy today.

Like Ron said, setup is just about as easy as can be. The windshield suction mount exceeded my expectation. That sucker is strong!

Before I did anything else, I ran the firmware update. Then I popped it into the car, turned it on, and sat in the driveway until it was able to make a satellite lock. The manual says this could take up to 15 minutes; in my case it took 4-5. Supposedly this long lock time is a first-time calibrarion. Ww'll see tomorrow.

Once the unit had correctly located me on my home street, I used the POI search to plot a route to the nearest Taco Bell (hey, it was the first thing I could think of, and NO, I didn't actually get anything to eat). Once I got there, I did an address search on my house and told it to take me back. The unit routed flawlessly. It seeme very accurate. It gives .5 mile warning before turns, with nice big graphics showing you the intersection. All in all, a big for my first experience.

One negative - the RoadMate bounces a bit when moving - this is to be expected given the nature of the beast. But my unit rattled while moving. Very annoying. After I got back, I tightened the screws in the mount. Hopefully that will fix it. Ron, does yours rattle while driving?

Also, while I was downloading the firmware update, the same page had a link to an optional update:
Ron, have you installed this one?? I'm on dialup at home and therefore didn't try to get it, but I'll grab it at work tomorrow.