Full review coming soon: Very busy with life at the moment! :/
24. Pros
- Ultra-bright 4.3-inch display
- Touch screen is very sensitive, requiring only a light touch to register commands
- Excellent address input system (As you type, Maestro dims out letters that don’t spell valid city names)
- Lots of control over route calculation preferences
- Ability to exclude specific roads/highways from the route
- Good Points of Interest (POI) database (the 4250 only has 4.5 million POIs compared to 6 million on Garmin’s nuvi models. Yet I found the Maestro did a better job finding local businesses in all the areas I tested)
- Newly updated 2007 (NAVTEQ) maps
- Includes everything needed to receive traffic data
- Traffic receiver integrated into the 12v adapter
- Fast, responsive interface
- Split-screen view is excellent for understanding upcoming maneuvers
- Magellan’s QuickSpell text-entry system makes spelling street names a breeze – even from the driver’s seat
- Four routing methods to choose from: Fastest Time, Shortest Distance, Least Use of Freeways, Most Use of Freeways (Although it would be nice if the GPS would display estimated drive times for each of the four methods so you could make a more educated choice about which method to select).
- Current Location screen allows one-click viewing of your current location, time of day, speed, direction of travel, and also is an easy way to save your current location into the address book for future use (even if your current location doesn’t have a valid street address)
- Magellan’s unique “Exit POIs” feature lets you see what’s available at each approaching exit on the highway.
- AAA TourBook data included
- Nice looking device
- SiRF’s high performance StarIII GPS receiver
- Supports multi-destination routing with route optimization (ability to sort a list of addresses by distance)
- 6 hour (average) battery life
25. Cons
- Poor customer support
- Underpowered speaker isn’t loud enough, even at the highest volume.
- Night Mode only darkens the map screen. All other menus remain in the (blindingly bright) blue theme used in regular daytime mode
- Voice Recognition only works in a quiet car with little or no background noise, and you still have to speak clearly and close to the GPS unit
- Can’t enter a street address using Voice Recognition
- No way to get back to the map screen using Voice Recognition
- Maps not as smooth looking as other GPS units (probably because of fewer “shape points” being used to render the map)
- Poor documentation
- Tapping the back icon doesn’t always back out to the previous menu; sometimes it returns you back several menus and you have to start all over again
- Address Book of saved locations hidden under the “Enter Address” menu
- No way to search for a POI near your destination address
- Can’t search for a POI while en route to a destination; Other than the Exit POI feature, the only way to search for a POI is to cancel the current route
- Irritatingly long delay when accessing the bluetooth menu
- Weak Bluetooth compatibility. I was unable to fully pair an Apple iPhone, and completely unable to use a Blackberry 8700 with the Maestro 4250
- Announces full street names rather than truncated names, making for a very chatty GPS at some intersections
- Traffic data still fairly useless, as coverage is spotty and accuracy of data is inconsistent
- Text-to-speech quality, though improved over previous Magellan units, still lags behind Garmin and TomTom
- Street names are sometimes word-wrapped in a strange way, making it hard to read the upcoming maneuver
- Text entry system for POI lookups doesn’t use Magellan’s QuickSpell
- No linkage between Magellan’s 4.5 million POI database and the AAA TourBook information (so you have to search in two places to get a complete list, as both may contain different POIs)
- Poor Bluetooth compatibility
- Announcing of full street names can be overly verbose
- Although you can create and store multi-destination routes, you cannot insert a single stop along a route you are already driving. For example, Garmin’s GPS units allow you to add a single stop along the current route.
- Occasional bugs (unit froze up on me once and I had to reset it)
26. Conclusion
Magellan has been in the GPS business for a long time, and the years of experience show with the Maestro 4250, Magellan’s top of the line GPS. The new slimmer design makes the 4250 one of the best looking GPS units Magellan has ever produced. The ultra-bright 4.3-inch display is easy to read, even in bright sunlight, and the system is easy to use. The 4250 supports some very useful features unique to Magellan. For example, the Exit POI feature shows you what restaurants and gas stations are located at each approaching highway exit.
The split-screen (“TrueView”) is very useful for understanding an upcoming turn, and the Maestro 4250 is one of the few GPS units to support multi-destination routing with route optimization (the ability to sort a list of addresses by distance). I also came to appreciate having AAA TourBook information on the GPS, and appreciated the 4250’s fast, responsive interface.
I also appreciated Magellan’s well thought-out system of notifying the driver of upcoming turns, visually and audibly warning you at several intervals before the turn with enough notice that you’re not making sudden maneuvers.
Magellan’s routing engine isn’t quite as competent as Garmin’s, but it’s a close second and is decidedly better than TomTom’s. The windshield mount isn’t the most elegant, and traffic data is still of little value to most drivers thank to limited coverage and spotty accuracy.
Bluetooth compatibility was poor on the 4250, and I was unable to correctly pair a Blackberry 8700 or an Apple iPhone.
Magellan’s Maestro 4250 offers a lot of advanced features in an easy to use interface at a price that’s hard to beat. If money is no object, I still prefer Garmin’s pricey nuvi 760 over the Maestro 4250. But at almost half the price, the Maestro 4250 is a better bargain and delivers a lot of features for the money. The Maestro is a better GPS than the similarly priced TomTom GO 720, and a much better GPS than Navigon’s 7100. There’s still room for some tweaking and minor usability improvements on the 4250, but overall this is a very good GPS and I feel comfortable recommending it to you.
Filed under: GPS
Magellan does not seem to have a unit with “goto”, the ability to enter a latitude and longitude and goto it with the proper road directions. Unless there is a way to enter Lat and Long thru the POI system which I don’t know. With all magellan’s fine features, it does not do what almost all the other brands do. Even the cheaper ones. Am I wrong? Does anyone have a way to load the coordinates that I can’t do?
I thought I’d follow up with my decision and share my experiences thus far.
I had both units, decided against the Garmin and popped open the 4250. This is our family’s first GPS unit and our only other experience was a positive one using Hertz Neverlost.
PROs:
- As mentioned already, I’m a fan of the POI system on the Magellan and the fact that gas stations, ATMs, grocery stores, restaurants, coffee, etc show up as I roll by is appreciated. Easy to tap on an icon and get routed.
- POI alerts are pretty cool; I used the included SW to get red light cameras and speed traps and as you approach these areas, the unit will warn you that you’re within your specified range of what ever it is. I let the wife take this on a business trip she went on and she regularly had the unit warning her of these types of things in an unfamiliar area.
- The AAA guidebook is actually pretty neat. Not only does it provide POIs, it further provides the AAA info such as a description of the place, typical cost, a rating, business hours, accepted forms of payment (cash, visa, MC, etc) and a phone number that you can simply tap on when paired with a BT phone. More info rarely hurts in my opinion.
- The voice recognition, while not perfect, is kinda cool. When rolling along, I can say, “Magellan”, “Where am I?”. The unit then presents me the trip computer (speed, heading, alt, etc) and states the road I’m traveling on. While that’s kind of neat the first time, stating “Magellan, nearest coffee” and being presented options that I can vocally navigate to by glancing at the screen and selecting the number of the associated place, or moving to the next page by saying “next” or “previous” is more functional. You can also ask it things like, “nearest ATM”, “go home”, “nearest restaurant” to which you’ll get a sub-menu you can work through (american, italian, etc.) or you can just get fancy and say “Magellan, nearest chinese restaurant” select one by number and have it route you without touching or looking (if you want to take whatever is closest) at the unit is neat.
- The unit is snappy in acquiring where it is (w/in 10 sec) and I can even get signals within my house. Maybe that’s the norm today, but I didn’t expect that.
- It’s thin without any additional antenna to be extended. What you see is what you need. There is the FM antenna that runs with the power adapter if you’re going to use the traffic subscription (I haven’t tried this)
- Text to voice is nice. My wife was a big fan of having the unit speak to her in street names rather than being vague. I like it as well. Some names get butchered, but for the most part it’s pretty good.
- My mobile phone (LG Muzic – Sprint) is not listed as supported, but it works for everything except the text messaging when paired with BT. I can find POIs, click on the phone number associated with the result and the unit calls the place. Speakerphone is okay and at times it is hard to hear with road noise. It’s usable, just don’t expect polycom quality.
- The estimated arrival time is nice. In my experience, I’ve seen it overestimate the amount of time needed by a couple minutes. However, it does update as you approach your destination and I’ve not yet exceeded the arrival time. I’d much rather have it work this way than be too aggressive with arrival time.
- When routing, once I’ve selected an address either by city, zip code or whatever that other option is that I can’t remember at the moment, it gives me the option of selecting the parameters for routing (examples are shortest distance, fastest route, most use of highways, least use of highways) and an option to avoid toll roads. I can either just hit ‘go’ or update my parameters before hitting go. Again, maybe this is standard, but I like these options.
- Also, the ability to exclude roads is nice. Once a route is selected, I can hit the next maneuver arrow to pop up the maneuver list. From there, I can tap on a road and tell the unit to exclude the use of that road to reroute. Handy when construction/traffic is an issue.
- It came with a travel pouch. Nice touch when throwing the unit in a bag.
- AC adapter was included along with the car adapter. The Garmin I got only had the car adapter. Weird.
- Reroute is fast. Drive past an instruction and within a few seconds, the unit calculates a new solution. If you’re moving enough, I’ve run into scenarios where the reroute computation start is fast, but takes a bit to figure out the actual route.
- Wife acceptance factor was good. She’s not a tech guru, but is happy with this unit. It’s intuitive for her to use and she told me it significantly reduced her stress when she had to drive in So CA on business having the unit with her.
- Adaptive keyboard is nice. As you type a city or street name, the unit removes invalid letters that aren’t associated with the correct spelling of a street name. It’s minimized fat fingering a wrong letter and speeds up typing since you can be a bit sloppy. Additionally, it does the same thing when selecting street number to allowing you to chose only valid house numbers for the street you’ve selected.
Cons:
- No support for waypoints on a multidestination route such that the unit moves onto the next destination upon arrival of the previous destination. The 4250 does allow you to plan a trip and enter multiple destinations, but it won’t advance to the next destination without me telling it that I’m ready to do so. More of an annoyance to me than anything since I can get to the next destination within a few clicks.
- As mentioned previously, the power button doesn’t always behave. I’ve held it on for 10-15 seconds with no response and didn’t get one until I pushed it repetitively, held it down and did a number of other various things to get it to turn on. In the 2 weeks I’ve had it, I still don’t know what the magic sequence of pushes of the power button is needed to get it to turn on when it decides to act up. But I’ve not had to use the reset button on this unit yet either.
- Routing gets a little wonky giving me some questionable directions at times; I have confidence the unit will get me where I need to go, but am not always certain that it selects the best way to get there; for instance, yesterday it essentially told me to take an offramp and then take the continuing onramp in lieu of having me just continue on the original road. Although technically, I guess it may have been the shortest route for the roads given. Still….
- While voice is cool, the unit is sometimes hard of hearing and you may need to issue commands multiple times to get it to respond. Some have reported false voice activations (radio or something else triggers it to turn on). I’ve had this happen only once when others in the car were speaking. There is an option to disable voice recognition.
- BT with mobile phone doesn’t pull in my contacts. I can use the phone to dial using the contacts and the GPS unit handles the call; it’d be better to me if the GPS could see my contacts
- My GPS and phone don’t ’see’ one another when in the vicinity of each other; I’ve not had BT devices before, but I expected the units to pair automatically if they saw one another. Instead, I have to manually connect the phone to the GPS if I want to use it. Kind of a pain – maybe because my phone isn’t supported?
- Unit hasn’t woken up on a few occasions when connected to car adapter power. It usually comes on automatically when I turn on my car. There have been times that I’ve needed to play the power button roulette game until it comes on. I’ve not picked up on a pattern of when this occurs. I was going to exchange the unit, but am unsure now if I will after hearing this isn’t an isolated thing among this model – I’m guessing SW bug is involved.
Now My wife use a cheap garmin nuvi 760 gps which she bought from amazon it work quite good.
All the pro’s and con’s have been plagiarized from other reviews, especially Amazon. Dude write something original.
Garmin nuevi 760 4.3-Inch Widescreen
I’m very happy with this GPS. I previously had an older Magellan and it was awful- it got to the point it wouldn’t even turn on. SO we decided to switch to Garmin, and this Nuvi is quite good actually. I like the Text to speech option, however the voice is VERY robotic, and some words I would’ve hoped for better pronunciation- and other times it speaks too quickly and I don’t understand it- but it’s better than nothing, and you can turn it off and go with a voice that doesn’t attempt to say road names
I like the search options, it’s quick to load, and just nice in general. I also like that you can download random “treats” from the Garmin site, such as images to replace your arrow and seasonal voices. fun!