HP TouchSmart. Touch the future now.
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 56 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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10 out of 10 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Definitely worth it for the price!"
Pros: Value, accuracy, clear voice commands, great rerouting
Cons: occasionally slow GPS signal, ?? limited POI, occasional odd directions
Summary: This is the first GPS I've bought and this was after much reading of all of the criticisms of this particular unit. I was very wary of buying this after all the negative reviews. However, for $300 I had to at least give it a chance to see what it was able to do.
First off, out of the box the Roadmate 300 comes with a windshield mount, AC adaptor, 12V adaptor, usb cable, and your manuals and software. I've read criticsms of people stating that you can't plug and go as stated on the box. These people are right and wrong. You are able to plug and go out of the box because the unit has what's called "basemaps" built into the internal memory, which basically consists of all major highways in North America. However, all other roads aren't available and need to be downloaded to the unit. So though it is functionally usable out of the box, it is essentially useless out of the box until you add some maps to it.
Initial GPS localization did take about 10-15 minutes, but subsequent localization has taken as short as 5 seconds to 1 minute at the longest. The key is to make sure your unit doesn't travel far from it's previous location that it was on, a.k.a. use the unit frequently, which you should anyway since it's a fun toy to drive with.
The setup isn't difficult at all unless you aren't computer saavy. I highly recommend going to the magellan website and going through the online manual for the Roadmate 300, as the manuals that are provided with the unit itself are lacking in explicit instructions. The online manual states exactly how to mount your Roadmate, and how to install the software, create your map regions, type in addresses, create trip plans, etc. Initial setup only takes 1-2 hours, depending on how fast your computer is and how computer saavy you are. I recommend installing the full version from the CD so you don't have to use the CD again while running the software.
Another misconception I've read from other reviews is that an SD card is needed for detailed maps. This is not true. There is 80MB built into the unit exclusively for mapping purposes. I took a trip from the Chicago area to Mall of America in Minnesota, and created two large regions, one encompassing all of the Chicagoland area, and one of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and it took only 28MB, leaving me with 52MB left for other detailed maps of my choice. Downloading these maps to my Roadmate did not take a long time either. If anybody has had difficulty with long downloading times, it's probably one of two reasons. The manual states not to create a monstrously large region, which would be over 80MB. If you do, it'll take forever to download detailed maps of that size to the Roadmate. The other possibility is that one has a slow computer, or a computer without USB 2.0. If the directions are followed explicitly from the manual online, things will go smoothly with initial setup.
The test run was my trip to Mall of America, and the directions from the unit were clear cut the entire time, and it never led me astray once, having an accurate measure of the speed of my car, the time left to get there, and the miles left not only for the entire trip, but the miles left until the next direction change. Only a few things bothered me on the way back though:
1. The unit told me to "stay to the right" at a certain point, I was on a 4 lane highway, and the right most lane was exiting to another highway, usually the unit will say exit to the right for those situations and so I stayed in the 3rd lane, only to miss my exit. However, the unit quickly recalculated my route and gave me accurate instructions to get back on course.
2. At one point I was take I-90 east and it told me to "stay to the right", to go towards I290S/53S, so I did. Immediately afterwards the unit told me to stay to the left, which made no sense because staying to the left would take me back on I-90E while staying the right would take me to 290S. Well in the end the unit did want me to stay on I-90E and for some reason had me get off the highway and back on it for no reason at all, but I ended up having to pay a 40 cent toll to get back on. Very confusing, unless the makers of Magellan are funded by the Illinois Dept. of Transportation.
My only other gripe about the device is that when I typed in "Borders", "Barnes and Noble", and "Blockbuster", in the POI, they didn't pop up. Then I realized that for some reason there were no retail stores listed under POI. They had an extensive list of all the malls around my area, as well as restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, etc., but no retail stores, which I find a little bit surprising. I've been unable to find an update for the POI database as well, which is a little disappointing. However, all the good things about the device, as well as the functionality of it, make me very satisfied, especially for the price I paid.
Other little things, I did update the firmware to 1.81, people may complain about the fact that there's more frequent warnings about directions, and extra tones, I obviously never used the device with older firmwares, but frankly I appreciate the warnings at 2 miles away and at half a mile away, I think they're very useful when you're in unknown territory. And the guy that mentioned that there's only an aerial view was wrong, when you press the view button you get 3 different screens, aerial, manuever list, and truview. And though the Truview does appear on it's own occasionally, pressing the view button will set you back in aerial view if one so prefers. I hope this review has been helpful, it's purpose is to reiterate that the device is definitely worth it for the money, and if one gets really hung up on wanting a device with a large POI database, monster HD so as to not need to download maps, and faster GPS localization signal, then go out and pay the extra $200-300 and get the Roadmate 760, Garmin 2620 or Garmin 2720.
Magellan RoadMate 300:
