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Atomicwasteland (Rockville, MD USA) –

  

I have owned five previous Garmin units, so it was with curiosity that I first approached the use of this Magellan unit. After trying it out for a month or I think it is fantastic, but not without some flaws.

PROS:

PREDICTIVE TEXT. The thing that Magellan does WAY better than Garmin is that it has predictive text entry when you enter in addresses… AND, it will remove all the possible choices that are not in the database, which means that you cannot really easily misspell an address, as the wrong choices will be grayed out. This makes it much easier when you are in the car trying to work the GPS. If your finger slips onto a grayed out key it will not activate, and when you kind of know the address, you can start to guess it, and the GPS will remove invalid keys, which can help jog your memory to the correct spelling. With the Garmin, however, you CAN spell the address incorrectly, and unlike with a search engine like Google, it will not find it anyway.

GOOD TOUCHSCREEN. Much better than my latest Garmin, which I won’t use again as I am tired of pressing the correct keys only to have the Garmin type the key next to them instead. I literally have to press up to 5 keys to get 1 key of correct text (since the delete key is so hard to press, and will usually press the “return” key instead).
GOOD DRIVING REMINDERS. Better than the Garmin. It reminds you sooner before an exit, and then when you get closer to the exit, and then it “ding dongs” once you are ready to turn. This was really helpful to me, and I appreciated the chiming sound, especially when I wasn’t sure exactly when to turn. I am much more likely to make the correct turn with the Magellan than with the Garmin.

BETTER “ONE CLICK” MENU. On the Garmin I have to go a one screen to reach the menu, then have to find favorites, and then sort through them all to pick a saved destination -really annoying and time consuming. (I only go to around five places on a monthly basis, so it is really frustrating to have to click through 3 to 5 screens to find what I want -especially if I haven’t gone somewhere in a while, and it is not in my “most recent” list.) Magellan, on the other hand, allows you to save something like 20 destinations to a “one touch” screen (which looks like an itouch/iphone screen) where you can see them all on the screen as icons and text, and you no longer have to scroll to find them. And, this screen is always available with one click, as a permanent “one touch” screen button is viewable on your device on all times. Love it. Much easier to work with this feature than with “favorites” on my Garmin.

GREAT DETOUR CONTROL. When you are stuck in traffic you can see every detour available for every road in your journey. This allows you to pick which specific road you want to avoid. On the Garmin you cannot easily do that -you have to just try to detour around where you are presently. Here is an example where it helps. Say you are leaving a road clogged with traffic, and your GPS reroutes (using the Garmin or Magellan detour function), but then the GPS may take you right back to that road shortly thereafter. (And in my case it was a toll road, where I had to pay to get on and off each time.) However, using the detour function again on the master trip directions screen I was easily able to see all my trip driving instructions and say “whoa, it’s taking me right back on that congested toll road in two miles!”, so then I clicked on the little detour icon next to the toll road, and the whole trip was re-planned to avoid that one spot. It worked PERFECTLY and got me home at least another 45 minutes earlier than the other option. Could I have done the same on the Garmin? I think it was possible, but it was much more about having fine motor control and clicking on the exact place on the map (while driving) that I wanted to avoid, and going through several prompts asking if that was the road I wanted to avoid, and backing up to previous menus when it wasn’t. It really was impossible to do while driving. On the Magellan, however, it really was possible, and easy, to do… and safe!

CONS:

However, it’s not all wine and roses. There are some major flaws which detract significantly from the device’s use.

HORRIBLE CRADLE. It is much harder to engage and disengage the Magellan than the Garmin. Not only does the Garmin have a much easier docking and release mechanism, it also tilts so that you can pop out the GPS (in a forward and upward manner), instead of having to slide it absolutely vertically out of the cradle. This is really hard to do if you are in the passenger seat and the GPS is tilted slightly towards the driver. It also squeaks terribly when you try to adjust the GPS in the cradle. (This cradle is not a deal breaker, just annoying.) It works, but it is limited in motion when docking and undocking, and is…

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