Magellan Maestro 3100 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
by Magellan
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List Price: Our Price: $30.99 You Save: $119.00 (79%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Magellan Maestro 3100 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Great Deal for the Money
Summary: 4 Stars
A $199 price point has been the holy grail for retailers for a nice touch-screen GPS unit, and Magellan has done it with the Maestro 3100. I have been using this unit for about one month and am totally pleased with how it operates. The touch-screen works great and the interface is easy to figure out and navigate. I have never looked at the manual. The inclusion of the Sirf Star III chipset means it gets a quick fix and will even work indoors. Using the Navteq mapping software means that the roads are up-to-date. As far as all the other bells and whistles (Bluetooth, MP3, etc.), do you really need those? I have other devices for those purposes. This unit is designed to get you from point A to point B with no hassles, and it delivers. I only have a couple of minor complaints. One, it is slightly difficult to attach the unit to the windshield mount. It just seems like a poor design. Two, it will occasionally lag when navigating. This is particularly evident after you enter a new favorite and click the return arrow to go back. It can take 8-10 seconds...no big deal. Bottom line, this is a great deal for a name-brand GPS.Customer Review: I wouldn't recommend
Summary: 3 Stars
Even for the low price, I wouldn't recommend this GPS. I don't mind the fact that the features are lacking because we don't use most of them on our more expensive GPS anyway. But my problem has been not being able to find about half of the addresses that I put in. It doesn't know about highways and certain streets that are who knows how old (but definately older than the maps on this) so a lot of times I have to do a mapquest on the address anyway. I leave the gps on so I can see where I am and when I get to the places, it shows that I am in the middle of nowhere. Like I said, that is about half of the address that I put in. The other half, I haven't had any problems finding. My other gripe is that it will say right turn in .5 miles. The problem is, it doesn't say the street name so if you are in the city or a part of a town that has streets close together, it is hard to tell which one it is talking about. If you can't take your eyes off the road to read the street's name on the screen, you won't know that you are passing it until the little doorbell chime goes off which means it's too late anyway.Customer Review: Works Great!
Summary: 5 Stars
1st time GPS user. We used it over the past several days whenever we traveled in the Southern Cal area. It accurately defined travel routes and quickly recalculated if we deviated from its specified route. The smart way it figures out street names etc it a tremendous time saver. Especially nice is the one button "HOME" feature that will give you directions from where ever you are back to your home base. The display is very well done, with easy and intuitive icons. Particularly nice is the heads up it gives you before a turn is required and in every case for us also warned, for example, to keep left, to avoid a turn only lane. The womans voice and choice of queing sounds (bell, beep etc) were loud and easily understood. The display we thought might be on the small side, but their clever use of the entire display for maps while using command overlays for screen touch commands made it easy to view and manage while driving. The multi adjustable and locking arm lets you orient the unit any way you want. One complaint is the way the 3100 attaches to the adjustable arm makes it very difficult to remove.Customer Review: Amazing product for the price but....
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a wonderful GPS package. Everything about it is well engineered and appears to be the result of years of fine tuning and polishing. Given the "firesale" price, I keep waiting for a gotcha' to explain why they are practically giving them away. But I haven't found any issues yet. Maybe it's because it doesn't do MP3, or Bluetooth, or say the streetnames. But who cares...it does what you are buying it for. I don't need my coffeepot to squeeze orange juice nor my GPS to make phone calls.
Now for the bad news about the state of the art with GPSs in general (I found same issues with Garmin so this isn't a Magellan thing). The maps and routing *stink*. When calculating a simple 3 mile trip from work to home, I was first directed to an illegal left turn and then it took me on a one-lane dirt road behind my house when a perfectly good equally-short route using a paved road was available. The GPS maps are actually quite current, maybe a year old, and show very new construction. So what gives??? The map makers had better get their act together because this is really unacceptable.
Customer Review: Good Unit with Major Problems
Summary: 2 Stars
I was really excited to see this product at Christmas time for around $150. I didnt care about the text to speech, I didnt care about the arrival time missing (It does tell you Minutes to Destination). I just wanted a reliable product that got me where I needed to go.
After about a week the unit started rerouting while I was on major interstates and in certain locations it would automatically reboot. It rebooted 5 times in a row during the middle of the night in an area that i was not familar with.
I still kept using it for a few more weeks but then yeterday all of a sudden I look at the map and it had me on a green field. (I was on a Highway). The unit got stuck on the field and I had to reset it for it to go back to mapping.
I didnt bother calling the company because I have only read HORROR stories about their customer service. I just returned it to the store and ordered a Garmin.
Just a note.... when it was working properly I loved it.. it was just all of the rebooting and reseting that is causing me to give it a bad review