The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet
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stars
"Sometimes DUMB Sometimes SMART Unit" on by Faisal_Salam
Pros: Easy to navigate, Good response time, Fast Sattalite connection
Cons: Sound Quality, Blue Tooth hang-up,
Summary: I tested it with latest Firmware upgrade version v8.3.2.64084
The first and major thing that I want everyone to know is the way this Unit tries to be over smart.
Here is the example
On any highway, if there is an exit lane that will merge again with the highway, this unit always asks me to take that exit and then after like 1000 ft on exit lane, asks me to merge again on the same highway.
Example: I am going on Highway I-66 East and I have three exits to pass before I get to my exit.
So let?s say these three exits are 12, 13 and 14 (all exits are on the right side). So my exit should be 15. Exit 14 has two exit lanes and left lane of the exit further merges again with I-66 East
This unit always asks me to take exit 14 then tells me to stay in the left lane of the exit lanes, since left lane of the exit lanes merges back on I-66, so it asks me again to merge back on I-66.
It does that on any exit that falls in my Route and has exit lane that merges with the highway again.
I tried it on I-66, I- 495, I-95 and I-695 in Baltimore & Washington DC Area, behavior is 100% identical.
There are 4 exits on my entire route that have exit lanes merging back to the highways and it asks me on all four exits to take exit and then once I take exit, asks me again to merge back on the highway.
I talked to Magellan about it and they say,? that?s how our engineers designed the routing process?.
Unit considers that there is always Traffic Jam on the highway and you should get in the exit lane to bypass all those cars and then merge back on it again. Extremely STUPID thought process whoever put it together.
Pretty smart haan ?..? That?s what I refer as ?Sometimes DUMB Sometimes SMART Unit?
It?s extremely annoying and a major issue for me.
Another thing I noticed is that if you have your phone paired with it and place a call from the unit, while the call is in progress (bell ringing on the other side), you hang up the phone from your Cell phone instead of the unit, It will hang the entire unit and you have to then reset it (at least that?s what my experience is).
3rd issue that I noticed was, I copied few songs on SD card just to test how the MP3 player works, so I inserted the card, it would read the card but would not display the songs I has on it. I am an IT person and I knew dam well what I was doing, it just wouldn?t show the songs list. And after two days, wallah, there they were. It just started showing all of them. Since then it just works fine on the player side.
4th issue I noticed was sound quality ? this is funny.
Before the Firmware upgrade, if I keep the unit?s sounds level to HIGH, its sound quality was terrible from the unit, but was fine if I stream the sound through FM transmitter to my Car Radio.
After the Firmware upgrade, if I keep the unit?s sounds level to HIGH, its sound quality is terrible if I stream the sound through FM transmitter to my Radio, but sounds OK on the unit itself (exactly the opposite situation before firmware upgrade).
I still need to test the Traffic feed since I have a month free subscription and will post the update.
I am pretty satisfied with the rest of the options this unit has to offer. I would ve given it all 5 stars if it did nt have this stupid navigation flaw of exiting and merging drama of freeways
Faisal
- 4 replies to this review
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I totally agree with your "sometimes DUMB" point because I live in Arlington and sometimes take trips via I-66 and encounter the same problem with my Maestro 4350. While it is a somewhat smart feature Magellan should allow users to turn that feature off because it can be incredibly annoying particularly when getting off only to get right back on causes you to reduce speed thus impacting fuel usage and time.
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My Garmin Nuvi 880 does the same thing with regard to the exit lanes on I-66, I-270, etc.
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The feature you hate so much is one I would appreciate. There is one area in Delaware that the exit/entrance lane is the best way to go 80% of the time. I only know that because I travel the route so often. If I were anywhere else in the country, I wouldn't know about exit lanes that rejoin the highway until it was too late to take advantage. Now that you know about this "dumb" feature, just ignore the exit/entrance when the highway isn't congested and you know it's not your final exit. You can determine that beforehand by previewing the route before your trip.
As for hanging up the phone freezing the unit, just don't do that. Hang up using the unit. As the Dr. says, if it hurts when you do that, don't do that.
After reading your review, I still would have given it at least 4 stars.
BTW, I'm also an IT guy, but I know "wallah" isn't a word. The French word you tying to say is spelled "voila"! -
For your sound... i found that if i turn the sound on the device down to about 60% and then use my radio to pump it up louder then i get way better quality out of it... the sound dosnt seem to like sounding good for me when i turn it all the way up
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