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"Maestro 4000 - Great product!" on by rits125
Pros: Amazing accuracy, Re-calculating route speed, booting speed, "DING" tone at turn - Accurate!
Cons: none - if you insist I would say the "fancy" features - bluetooth, mp3, this that..etc. are available only in 4040
Summary: Folks,
Magellan Maestro 4000 is amazing and absolute value for money, with its precision of the distance, response speed for re-calculating route and boot-up speed. I have used Magellan in Hertz cars extensively and just fell in love with it. THis model Maestro 4000 matches up the expectation to the same level! I have tried Garmins - old ones as well as the newer ones - DONT BUY THEM, the worst part of GARMIN is when it asks you to take a right-turn, while you are already in the left-lane and near the interseciton and sometimes GARMIN just goes confused leaving you wondering in the middle of the road. I have had many bad expeiences with Garmin which is why I bought Magellan Maestro 4000 though there plenty of advertisement, propaganda and the stuff for Garmin. Last but not the least, the wide-screen of 4000 is too good! -
"Good when it works" on by bigg1013
Pros: Accurate guidance
Cons: Reboots and now won't turn on.
Summary: Works fairly well except for the ocassional reboot. Today when I tried to use it, it wouldn't turn on. Guess it's time to send it in for repair after only 3 months of use.
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"Great fun, took us to the beach out of the box." on by siestas
Pros: AAA descriptions, nice display, intuitive controls
Cons: Could use more landmarks, POI's
Summary: I bought my Magellan Maestro 4000 and drove immediately to the beach. The unit worked well straight out of the box. Powered from the cigarette lighter it acquired a strong accurate signal through a rainstorm and quickly calculated a route to our destination, a beachside inn which was listed in the included AAA database. The unit’s screen was bright and readable even in direct sunlight (after the rain stopped). The family nicknamed the female voice Maggie as a derivative of Magellan. Along with the voice prompts at 2 miles, 0.5 miles, and about 300 yards before a maneuver, Maggie goes ding-dong to signal the moment a left turn should be made, and dong-ding to signal a right. Nice touch.
Halfway to the beach, while going through a speed-trap town, we threw Maggie a curve ball. We missed one of her ding-dong’s. Maggie quickly recalculated an alternate route which we followed. Maggie then seemed to get a little confused. She verbally told us to turn left when the map showed a right. Eventually we found our way out of the neighborhood and got back on track.
Along the way we listed all possible landmarks. The listing was by no means comprehensive, but we figured that we could always find gas, food, etc. in a pinch. The mapping and turns were accurate through almost 200 miles of two and four lane highways save for the above mentioned misstep. While traveling we attached the suction cup mount to the windshield and it worked fine. We were greeted at our destination with an amusingly expressive, “You have arrived.”
Here was the biggest problem we had. At dinner, we consulted the AAA listings from our room, and found a place to our liking. We took the unit back to the minivan and Maggie led us to the middle of a residential neighborhood instead of the intended restaurant. Using the AAA database to find the phone number, we called the restaurant to verify the address. I switched to the general non-AAA listing of the same restaurant, and we found our way with no problem. After further review, I found that the AAA listing for the restaurant was on River Dr., and the general non-AAA listing was on River Dr. SW. Same street number on both listings, but the absence or inclusion of the suffix SW defined two entirely different streets.
After dinner it was dark and Maggie’s display automatically changed to night mode. We routed a different way back to our inn using “most highways” instead of “shortest route” and liked the new way better.
It wasn’t hard to intuit all of Maggie’s functions. I only had to look at the included brief instructions once or twice to learn things like one needs to quit the route one is using in order to access the AAA database. Overall we think it’s pretty cool, works well, and was worth the $350 we paid for it. We will really enjoy the AAA database. I think we’ll keep Maggie. -
"Good for point-to-point, but VERY limited POI List" on by mgironda
Pros: Nice, intuitive interface; big, bright screen with good resolution; plenty of info at your fingertips; AAA support; bundled accessories
Cons: POI list has only TWO categories of shopping; only 48-state map support with no plans to expand
Summary: I grabbed this little guy based on the reviews here (thanks!) and toying around with it at a local store... I was pleasantly surprised at Magellan's new, slick interface and the small bezel of the unit. Once out of the box, I found it very easy to program, creating routes to different places and tracing steps. The "avoid" feature is very good for detouring, etc. The online registration procedure, linked from the bundled CD-ROM, alerted me to a firmware update which installed without a hitch (make sure you have an extra SD card lying around with 16+mb... I used an old one that came bundled with a digital camera). Protective sleeve-type case is included as well, which was a nice bonus.
THE PROBLEM OCCURRED when I tried to find any local Electronics Store (i.e. Best Buy, Circuit City), a local chain convenience store (Target), and a local housewares store (Bed Bath & Beyond). The unit has no knowledge of any of these stores!! Further exploration and a call to tech support revealed that "Shopping Malls" and "Book Stores" are the only categories available for Shopping... a HUGE problem in my opinion for those emergency trips during vacations for, say, an AC adapter for a cell phone or a forgotten bathing suit replacement. All other categories of POIs are very good (TONS of restaurants, Medical, etc.) but this shortcoming was enough for me to return the unit.
Also, the unit does not support Canada maps and, according to Magellan's web site, it never will... bummer for trips to Niagara Falls.
As long as these issues are improved, I'm going to give the next model up, the 4040, a try instead. -
"As price come donw, it's still not woth buying it..." on by A12345
Pros: Loud and lear sound, small size unit.
Cons: It's freezes the location. Even "reset" button proveded by Magellan doesn't help!
Summary: Own this device for 2 days and I'm not new to the GPS's. My Brother-in-Law bought bought a Garmin, Nuvie 350. I like the size of it but not the screen, so I decided to go with someone that I trusted for last 4 years: Magellan Maestro 4000. Stupid me.... Folks, don't buy it. It's cheaper than Garmin - but let other company use this device. Hertz, for example. Maybe Magellan makes them smarter for Hertz, but for us, average users they don't. I learnd the my lesson: it cost me 350$. The device is freeze, ant it's takes about 20 minutes to locate the satelites. 20! Minutes. Think about this: YOU will sit at YOUR CURRENT LOCATION FOR 20 MINUTES OF YOUR LIFE - I DID IT! And what Magellan support says? Thay have no clue why... Like I said: If it comes with Hertz - it's working. If you buy it - your on our own buddy.... Think twice before you buy Magellan, company suck!
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