- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 62 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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36 out of 48 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"Don't waste your time or money on this one"
Pros: Nice sleek design, current maps, great POI, AAA
Cons: terrible text to speech, unreadable fonts on map, confuses instead of aiding you while routing, bad u turn function, too many impt options buried
Summary: My Garmin C550 was recently stolen and after doing some reading up I decided to buy the Maestro for a change. What a huge mistake.
Where do I start? Out of the box it looks solid and has a nice sleek design. The interface looks pretty good too though it?s not as intuitive as the Garmin. The Maestro requires too many finger taps to frill down to menus and options that should be readily available.
The first thing I noticed was how tiny the fonts were on the map screen. Since it is a huge screen this is inexcusable. I have perfect vision and yet I still struggled to read crucial information such as the next turn, what road I?m on, and what icons to select. What is also missing on the screen is the ETA. I looked high and low for this option but it doesn?t exist. Instead it gives you how many hours and minutes to your destination and you have to calculate the time of arrival in your head. I don?t think any nav system excludes ETA except for this one.
The routing is very confusing as well, mostly because of the text to speech voice that speaks too fast, too garbled and too robotic. A nav system is supposed to eliminate confusion when driving. The Maestro just adds to the confusion. Between a voice you can?t understand and text you cannot read, the Never Lost will get you lost.
I live a mile south of 6 lane major road. I purposely missed the turn I usually take off of that road to see how quickly I?d be rerouted. The next left is only about ¼ mile away and also leads me directly to my home. Instead, the Maestro kept prompting me to make a ?legal u turn when possible.? I missed a host of lefts I could have taken as the Maestro kept asking me to make that u turn. This lasted for 2.7 miles till the maestro finally asked me to take a left ? into a Wal-Mart parking lot!
I took a trip from my home in Mass. to D.C. and it was a horrible experience. The routing and voice instructions were so unclear and confusing that I was better off just using MapQuest. At least I could have read MapQuest?s printed fonts.
The bad is so extensive that I will list them. I?m sure I?m forgetting some
1) Quick Type, a good feature that grays out letter that is not needed is only available when keying in an address to route. Why is it unavailable when keying in a Point of Interest?
2) When switching from map view to menu and vice versa there is often a delay and glitch. The hourglass keeps coming up. The same happens when switching back and forth from map to the step by step maneuvers.
3) Small fonts on a big screen. You can barely see the fonts especially at night.
4) The colors at night are too bright even if you turn the brightness level down. Too green, too red, too blinding.
5) TTS is nearly impossible to understand and the pronunciation is totally off. ?Aiport? becomes ?A-Row-Poit.? New Castle becomes ?En Why Cast Lee.? ?Turn left in ¼ mile? becomes ?Terlefbin ¼ mile.? The woman?s voice is way too fast and way too unclear. It makes for one confusing rote.
6) Your destination is not announced as being on the left or right. You have to guess. This can pose a danger.
7) The Maestro will have you drive for miles asking you to u turn. This is not very helpful when you?re in an unfamiliar town, your bearings are lost and you do not know whether to turn left or right. There is no option to turn this off as there was in my Garmin C550, which wouldn?t keep insisting I make a u turn even if I had it enabled.
8) The road exclude doesn?t work. The highways I want to exclude keep showing up.
9) Terrible foam carrying case.
10) So much more bad, but you get the picture.
The only goods I can think of are
1) It looks cool
2) Sturdy hardware
3) Quick calculations
4) Excellent, current maps. It shows new developments that my Garmin didn?t.
Needless to say, this is going back in a couple of days. I?ll go back to Garmin, which is thousands of times better than this, only I?ll have to decide which model.
- 12 replies to this review
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A long winded review from someone who's nit-picking - intentionally trying to discourage buyers. I hope people read the responses to his review before cancelling their orders.
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i think this guy is being a little silly or has an ex-wife that works for Magellan. There are things I wish my 4040 did better, but it is a decent unit.
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I agree! Just wait, mine was falling apart in less than 3 weeks!
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Trip Management? WAYPOINTS? Refueling? Cost estimates? Ease of use? (list goes on). For the 500 bucks this unit retails for I might as well pony up another 200 and buy a cheap used laptop with Streets and Trips and GPS. I would be able to navigate, watch DVD's and play MP3's. Maybe catch some porn on high speed at the hotel it sends me to. This is such a scam until they get out of the dark ages.
I'm taking this crap back. -
I have nothing to say but good things about this unit. I have used it for about a month and have found NONE of the errors reported in this review. Fast start up, clear instructions, easy navigation, roads are clearly marked (possibly he needs to Zoom in), brightness is good - not bad, all in all a very good solid unit that works at a great price - $400.
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If you don't want to u-turn just continue whatever direction you are going and it will reroute you without a u-turn. Usually, if it asks to do a u-turn you went the wrong way in the first place.
All of the things this person has complained about are really small issues. Like really the case is horrible... I like it and think it is just fine.
My suggestion to this person is to return it and go back to mapquest since nothing will make them happy. -
If you don't want to u-turn just continue whatever direction you are going and it will reroute you without a u-turn. Usually, if it asks to do a u-turn you went the wrong way in the first place.
All of the things this person has complained about are really small issues. Like really the case is horrible... I like it and think it is just fine.
My suggestion to this person is to return it and go back to mapquest since nothing will make them happy. -
If this guy wants perfection he should hire a local guide.
I have never owned a GPS before, but I did some homework and tried to apply some common sense.
All I want is a GPS to help me out, not to guide my life. I accept that it may not be perfect, but them I'm not either. Thats why I got a GPS.
I decided I don't want an MP3 player (my car has a radio) and I really don't need bluetooth (I have no desire to chat incessantly while driving)so no complaints with Magellan 4040.
Printed maps are always out of date, including the latest and greatest. It takes about a year to get them updated, printed and distributed so there is no reason to expect Magellan to be better.
I don't try to fool the GPS by making deliberate mistakes just to see what happens. I do it inadvertently because I'm not able to turn or know a better street to turn on. The route is recalculated within a reasonable amount of time.
The GPS sorts my error out for me, perhaps not in the best way but the end result gets me back on track. That's all I expect.
My 4040 gives me an ETA, so I don't know what Larry is looking at on his screen. Even if it did give me an elapsed time to destination, the arithmetic required to calculate an ETA is minimal. Larry may need a make up class in adding time.
Fonts are fine and so is the text to speech.
I think Larry is a just a disgruntled nit picker or is stooging for another manufacturer. -
The reviewer either is a Garmin paid reviewer or just too critical of the Maestro 4040, I too almost did not buy the 4040 because of this review, but it's hard to pass the $399 price from costco. The fonts are fine. Bluetooth is good as well, was able to connect with my NOKIA phone without problems if you follow instructions. Reviewer says 4040 does not tell you if the location is on the right or left when you arrive, but it does 100% of the time when i used it. I'm keeping my 4040 and he can keep his expensive Garmin.
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I think reviewr is too harsh. Based on his review he should have give a rating of ~5.
font size is no problem. The voice is good enough. Text to speech has issue with many gps's. Still no problem in understanding.
U turn comment is true but one can correct it much better in 4" screen compared to a 3" screen with other manuafactorers. -
I almost did not buy the 4040 because of this review. This review is full of holes. The text on the screen is great. I'm 50 with glasses and I was just looking at it today going what was this guy thinking. If my wife can use it anyone can and she picked it up without any help. AAA option is great; I tried it because of it. Most glad I did. Screen is great, if you want to speed 150 more for Garmin then that's why we live in thre USA.
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This guy is complaining about the tiniest details. I have the Magellan 4040 and the "issues" he talked about are not noticeable at all. The voice is not confusing - the text size is perfect - and the system will reroute directions most of the time. My system has never asked me to take a legal u-turn. He's being overly critical.
Magellan Maestro 4040:
