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Magellan GPS unit heads in new directions
Dec 16, 2009 (New Haven Register - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
WITH SO MANY DRIVERS adding portable GPS units to their cars in the past five years, it's time to talk about trading up to a better device -- and handing that old one down to a teen or senior citizen who still doesn't have one.
Enter the Magellan Maestro 4700 GPS, which we sampled because it is a modern, larger and more sophisticated unit than an entry-level GPS portable (such as ones we already own, namely the clunky-but-effective Garmin 330 or sleeker Garmin Nuvi 200). The Magellan 4700 is also reasonably priced, at about $180 on sale. It ships with some gizmo-lover goodies, in addition to NAVTEQ maps of the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico: --4.7-inch widescreen, which you get used to quickly. --Bluetooth for synching your phone. --One-touch feature for bookmarking your favorite locations. --Highway lane assist. --A section on AAA Tourbook points of interest. --QuickSpell with SmartCity Search (if you want to trademark something, just run two words together apparently), voice command and predictive traffic.
Some of those are valuable and work well, while others didn't seem useful at all in practice.
Take the Bluetooth, for example. It's great to receive an incoming call without fumbling for your phone in a car, and you could hear the person calling you OK, but in several calls I tried, the caller couldn't hear my words clearly even if I placed the unit on my driver's door window. The phone and GPS sync up automatically when you enter your car, which is great, but if you're talking on the phone at the time, the call will be cut off when the GPS Bluetooth kicks in.
Overall volume could be louder, given road and radio noise, but it's serviceable. Unlike my basic GPS units, the 4700 does have spoken street names. That's a really good thing, but it's not very fluid, as the street name is added in after the turn alert and a slight pause. It would better if the unit said, "In point-five miles, bear right on Route 40, Hamden-Cheshire," instead of "Right turn in 2 miles (pause and then slightly less clarity and projection) Route 40, Hamden-Cheshire."
Predictive traffic alerts you to notorious trouble areas, such as the I-95-I-91 split, and suggests options, but the options I saw were virtually the same as the current route. So that didn't seem to help much.
But lane assist is very helpful since it overlays the map with green signs showing which lanes go where at a highway junction. QuickSpell works nicely, too, since it grays out letters that don't lead to a possible place name once you start spelling a town or street. Then it jumps to a short list of possibilities.
Voice Command is a cool thing to try but most users don't find it useful. If you press a certain icon, the machine asks for your command. You say, "Nearest restaurant" and (if it understands you correctly, a hit-ormiss proposition), it will display a list of restaurants. Pick one of the five on screen at any one time and identify it (with its number position on-screen), and the machine will ask if you want to go there. Sometimes it was very helpful; other times it seemed to list places behind me by 8 miles. If you're going north at 40 mph on Route 10 in northern Hamden, you don't want to see a listing for a New Haven restaurant.
On the "freeway," a word the 4700 lady uses that is not used much in Connecticut, there's an icon to press for upcoming gas and restaurant options off the exits. This worked OK at times, and led us to a Shell station that we would not have found simply by pulling off the exit.
The AAA TourBook Guide is pretty neat, given the motor club's solid standards, but you have to remember to tap into that function when on the road. And it, too, will suggest restaurants several miles away instead of one you're passing at that moment. The 4700 also can show a symbol for restaurants on the map, as well as 3D landmarks. The 3D thing is great when it displays one (a stadium, for example) but it's a nonfactor in most areas. The Find My Car feature is also a rare usage since it requires you take the unit with you at a large venue so that it can find where you parked later.
The 4700 does not come with live traffic alerts, but you can buy a TrafficLink cable for about $50 that some people find helpful in cities (there's no monthly fee but "coupon" ads tend to pop up).
Some of you are Tom Tom or Garmin devotees, and a comparable unit (with lifetime traffic) is the Garmin 265WT or 285WT, also in the wider screen. As with all GPS units, I would suggest using the included suction cup holder to affix it to the windshield instead of the provided dashboard disc. Then take it down when leaving the car somewhere, since thieves look for the GPS units or mounting devices when they're trolling for smash-and-grab valuables.
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