In Outdoor mode, you get topographic maps of the 48 contiguous states, but unfortunately, you can't enter specific addresses for navigation, which limits its use for walkers in urban areas. To get directions, you can either select a point on the map or enter the longitude and latitude. You can enter the location of your campsite to record it as a starting or ending point for directions. Alternatively, there's a handy tracker that records your route as you walk, like a breadcrumb trail, as well as a compass.
Sadly, we couldn't test Marine features of the Magellan CrossoverGPS, although if we had the means, we would have certainly been on board. But alas, there is no CNET sailboat or yacht to speak of. That said, the CrossoverGPS offers boaters many of the same tools found in outdoor mode, including a trip planner, a voyage tracker, waypoints, a compass, and a place to enter the location of your port.
Finally, the Magellan CrossoverGPS includes a music player and an image viewer. The music player is rudimentary but supports MP3 and WMA music files and playlist creation. You can't, however, listen to music and use the navigation features at the same time. The picture viewer supports JPEG and BMP images.
Performance
We tested the Magellan CrossoverGPS in San Francisco, and from a cold start under clear skies, it took the unit about two minutes to acquire the necessary satellites to get a fix on our location. Subsequent starts were a bit erratic; at times, it was instantaneous while at others it could take as long as five minutes to get a lock. The system did an excellent job of pinpointing our location as were driving around the city, and it gave us accurate directions when we entered a specific destination. Yet while CrossoverGPS created directions fairly quickly, route recalculations were quite slow. On a number of occasions, we were instructed to make a turn after we had already passed the street, and this continued on for a while as the unit was always trying to catch up with us. General performance was also a bit sluggish. There was a noticeable lab when launching the unit's different functions; let's just say, we got used to looking at the hourglass icon.
Music playback through the system's speaker was actually quite good. There was plenty of volume and rich sound quality. The Magellan CrossoverGPS's lithium ion battery is rated for up to 8 hours of use on a single charge.
What You'll Pay
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