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Ok, first the good stuff... it has a TON of POIs (points of interest) loaded, and the maps are much more updated than the Garmin I presently own. At first glance, I really liked all of the external buttons, as well as having the touch screen. I soon found, though, that all of those external buttons leave no room for you to grab it without changing the settings. Not horrble, but very annoying. I was surprised, after reading many good reviews on this model that it was actually not very easy to use. There is no "back" button, as there are on other models of GPS. That gets confusing when you are trying to find out how to program it or change a setting without disrupting your travel route. I never did figure out how to get to my "favorites" menu, and the directions aren't helpful on that, either. I did find out how to save POIs to it....I just couldn't access them again...LOL! Not very user-friendly in that respect. Also, the volume doesn't go up very far at all. At full volume, we had to turn the radio almost completely down to hear the directions when on an expressway. I guess my car is louder than I had thought, but again, with other models, no problem adjusting & hearing in same situations. All in all, not a bad GPS to get from point A to point B....but not one I would purchase again.Read full review
I bought this GPS as a father's day present for my husband. I received it very quickly and it looked like brand new in a new box, with all the goodies that comes with it new, needless to say my husband got the his father's day present early. The day I received the GPS my husband checked it out and begin trying to figure it out. He loved it. It has lots of options and looks great. The only problem is that when my husband downloaded the newest software from Magellan, the GPS unit completely shut down and wouldn't come back on. We contatcted Magellan to see what we could do and they are sending us a brand new unit. Kudos to Magellan for making it right! The unit has lots of buttons and options. If you want something simple this is not the unit for you. You also can't download map updates for free, but instead have to buy a CD for like $80 to get map updates. This is fine for us, but for someone who may travel nationwide, it may become expensive to buy updates every year or so. It is also a little bigger than others I've seen and used. If you want to be able to put it in your pocket when walking in the city, this is not the unit to do it with. It's a little bulky and has buttons surrounding the face of the unit as well as a touch screen. It is easy to accidentally push one of the surrounding buttons. All in all this is a great product. My husband loves it. I'm just waiting for the new one to arrive!Read full review
The Magellan Maestro 3250 is easy to use. The most common task, inputting a destination address, is facilitated by some smarts built into the unit. Eg, just type in the first letters of the city and hit OK; the unit will show you possible selections. Same with streets. When choosing an address, it greys out the numbers which don't apply. The GPS receiver is surprisingly sensitive. I have two other GPS's, one for hiking/biking and one for aviation. The Magellan seems to acquire faster and gets more satellites. It's also newer so maybe the technology has advanced. Two gripes: the map won't stay "unzoomed": if you unzoom to a larger scale, it'll rezoom to its chosen scale in a few seconds. Second, the suction cup mount is useless. The plastic seems too stiff and the suction cup won't stay stuck to anything.Read full review
First off, I absolutely HATE the current crop of GPS units because of one main reason: They have pretty much all decided to eliminate external buttons, including Magellan itself. The Magellan Roadmate 6000 (very similar to the Roadmate 3000, which I also own), came packed with enough external controls to accomplish nearly everything without ever bothering to look up on and touch the screen (though screen control is available). I guess to save money they all decided to merely throw their units into a stupid gray plastic case that does NOTHING other than house a power button. It is, in fact, rather dangerous. At the very least, they should have a volume control that can be found by touch if needing to direct one's attention elsewhere and hear what is going on without that GPS blasting instructions into your ears. The Magellan 3000/6000 problem is that the interface is outdated, and fairly unsophisticated even at the time of being current. Looks like an early 80's video game. And their POI upgrade is a ridiculous $80 (like many of the others), that without being offered a preview or any right of return. One at least needs a preview of the $80 package to find out whether it sucks (in some respects) like the prior POI database, in which from Portland, Oregon it told me the nearest Fry's Electronics was 2,000 miles away while I knew of one up the street and another half a dozen or so within 600 miles. Some of them I knew for sure were more than 10 years old. And how long would Magellan continue sucking $80 out of its customers? Every year? Would they even stop updating maps for the 3000 or 6000? Terrible company, exemplified by their subsequent decision to obliterate (like the other outfits) all external controls on newer units and thereby voluntarily destroy their greatest advantage over the competition. Alas, I keep buying these old Magellans because of those buttons. Oh, pretty darn good navigation too (the lack of POI's notwithstanding). Very quick instructions and rerouting, along with a wonderful speaker. The female voice is quote cool too. These things are thicker than the current crop of GPS devices. I wonder if that lends to the speaker sounding terrific, whereas the newer ones tried by me are crackly, tinny and with hardly much high volume. What I lose by sticking with the 6000: 1. Near as I can tell, the only thing aside from more pleasant graphics is the lack of speed limits on the streets. That is a way cool and helpful feature missing on these older Magellans. What I would lose if going to one of the newer offerings, including those from Magellan: 1. My buttons, the external volume control and mute, the Up/Down buttons, the Enter and Back buttons, plus Menu, Locate and Bluetooth. 2. The amazing speaker 3. The night lights on all those buttons showing me how to find them easily. Plus their colors of blue, one green and one red, along with orange/green for power are rather pretty to just look at. Therefore, until someone brings buttons back into the genre, I will pay the robbers at Magellan their $80 for a map upgrade every so often and be thankful for having discovered these little things 3-4 years ago.Read full review
Applications in this model are straightforward. Easy connect directly cell phone with Bluetooth options. This model uses a "Key" number that needs to match the "Key" number put in the cell phone's Bluetooth option. KISS (I used number ( One ) which did the job. The unit locates itself GPS easily but since my unit tested came from Denver, it boots up thinking it is still in Denver, I am in South Carolina. No big deal! Quality? This unit has 14 external moving buttons (switches)located around the bezel. Although eases of selections is enabled, increases possibility of breakage. If dropped, may break away an internal switch that are difficult to solder on the main board. My unit was delivered with a switch busted loose. The repair was exceptionally detailed, a well versed electronics tech would be challenged. Overall, the consideration to buy one should be individually determined by choice. I can only provide pointers and observances. There are many models to choose from, each differ and seem tailored to specific needs. Read the reviews as I did. Notes: Top has two map buttons, zoom-in and zoom-out on the top corners, "zoom-in" was damaged on my unit--but fixed. Following buttons have Blue back lighting and seem excellent for night use: Menu - Changes mode to touch screen system options View - Changes mode to Destination and address book, Dining and other points of interest (POI) Phone - Changes mode to phone calls (once you set up the BlueTooth, relatively straight forward task) Enter - Accepts the cursor position and activates onscreen options Escape - backs out of current screen to previous Four Way Pan - toggles left, right, down, and up across the screen options. Power - hold a couple seconds till Blue back-light shows then system will boot. When on, hold for couple seconds and system will activate "Sleep Mode" but still the option to cancel is a touch screen option at that point. I do recommend viewing through instructions for the 6000T. This will clarify any misunderstood options. Overall I would rate this unit as average, updates (if provided or available) may up its rating to "Good" but for what it does could never justify an "Excellent" rating. These GPS units are definitely NOT a dime-a-dozen item and can be very useful. V/R Mactool63Read full review