- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 26 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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19 out of 19 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"Portable Magellan Roadmate 800"
Pros: Portable, 20GB HD, Touch Screen,
Cons: High cost, cannot use MP3/Photo feature concurrently with GPS, possible software issues
Summary: This is the first portable GPS road navigation I have bought in my life, so I did a lot of research when I was looking at buying one this year.
I wanted something that I didn't have to load maps on, that was portable and battery powered, that a decent sized screen, and that was the latest and greatest.
Well, the Magellan roadmate 800 definentaly fit the bill. The battery lasts a good while (my guess atleast 2 or 3 hours of use). It has some pretty nice features built in like the re-routing feature; if you get stuck on the freeway in traffic it re-routes you around it. The Garmins will only do this if you have an additional $250 antenna and subscription to their traffic service.
The detailed maps loaded on the 20GB harddrive is really nice. For an additional fee of like $200 you can unlock the already loaded European maps on the harddrive. Oh, and not to forget that you can load MP3's and photo's to a dedicated 4.5GB's which is excellent. Unfortunately, you cannot listen to music or look at photos while the GPS is guiding you.
I've had the unit for about a month now and have used it extensively. I've used it in the suburbs of NYC, LI, and in NYC.
Unfortunately, when I was using it in the city, it made some mistakes in guiding me to the Lincoln Tunnel. This was quite disappointing because one of the main reasons I bought it was for its guiding capablilities within the city. I'm sorry to say I was disappointed with its performance within NYC. When it re-routed me to the tunnel (this is after it said I was on 34'th St when I was actually on 35'th st) it routed me in a direction that was completely incorrect. I think the GPS antenna may have lost its signal, which should not happen (even in the city) with this 12 channel antenna.
As for the re-routing feature, it seems that the algorithim simply tries to get you back to the same route you were on rather than calculating the best route from where you presently are. Once it told me to make a u-turn when i KNEW there was a better route (and thats the route I took, and once I was on MY route the GPS finally caught on).
Another thing I don't like about this unit is that its a little too simple! I would have liked the option to pick different grid systems instead of just Lat/Long like MGRS. More user control over the system would have been nice.
Lastly, sometimes the unit is alittle slow to refresh. Maybe this is due to the processer being to slow for the units 20 Gig HD, not sure.
Overall, the 800 is a nice piece, but it seems there are some issues with the guidance software that I wouldn't mind seeing fixed.
Where to buy
Magellan RoadMate 800:
$99.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$99.99 | Yes |
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