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 basic GPS
Summary: 5 Stars
On a recent business trip, my rental car was broken into in a hotel parking lot. Though my Tom Tom Go was safe in my room, the mount and charge cords were stolen. Since my Tom Tom was a couple of years old, the battery life was poor and I needed to replace the unit to complete my trip. I purchased the Magellan 3100 locally and thought, "well, it's cheap, but it will get me through this trip." I didn't expect much, but was surprised how GPS technology has improved in the last two years.
The Magellan is MUCH quicker to acquire satellite positions than my Tom Tom, and, like another reviewer says, can even locate the sky when indoors. My Tom Tom used to take a couple of minutes to acquire a signal when sitting in a rental car at the airport, delaying my trip. The Magellan is small and easy to put in my carry on luggage, vs. the bulkier Tom Tom which didn't quite fit anywhere.
I haven't had to contact Magellan yet, so I can't compare their support vs. Tom Tom, but I can say that Tom Tom's support isn't all that helpful. Numerous messages posted to them have gone unanswered and they provided little help in my request to purchase the parts stolen from my rental car.
Another reviewer commented that the maps on the Magellan can't be updated. If that is the case, for $200, GPS units are almost becoming throwaway purchases .... Tom Tom's map updates cost me about $150 over two years and didn't seem to come close to recognizing new roads and on ramps in Southern California or Pennsylvania anyway.
What I love about the Magellan are the cool points of interest - everything from Starbucks to pizza can be easily found wherever I happen to be.
There are far fancier GPS units out there, with all kinds of cool features. But if you simply want a basic unit from one of the recognized leaders in the industry, this is a good place to start. The Magellan 3100 is a great, small, basic GPS.
Customer Review: Terrible Navigation! Avoid at all costs!
Summary: 1 Stars
This past Black Friday, I picked up this navigation at Staples in Queens. I had driven to the Staples using Tom Tom on my PocketPC, but decided to test out the Maestro 3100 driving back. What transpired driving back from the Staples to the city would ultimately lead me to return the Maestro 3100 later that day.
At first glance all appears well. It turns on quickly, and receives the satellite information, and then problems arise. Entering an address becomes a painful, and slow process. Rather than showing partial results, it waits until it thinks there are few enough partial results, or a specific confirmation from the user, make any mistake and you're punished with several dialogs. I was able to look past this problem. But, I was not able to look past the following three major problems.
1. Navigation System will block out screen with Loading route information when it needs to reroute. I can't tell you how terrible this is. Every other navigation system out there will display this progress bar on the bottom of the screen while your map is still being displayed with a route. It's quite terrible when this navigation decided it needs to reroute while you're in the middle of a highway, or an important upcoming turn.
2. It will need to reroute periodically for what appears to be no reason whatsoever. This coupled with 1 leads to terrible things.
3. There's NO estimated time the trip will take, or estimated time you will arrive. This is an integral feature, as you definitely want to know how long your trip will take, or how long a miscalculated detour will take. This is especially frustrating when coupled with a misdirection due to 1.
I got to my destination very frustrated, and immediately returned it to the closest staples. The entry level Tom Tom for the same price is LEAPS and BOUNDS better. I'm truly sorry I wasted my time with this unit, and advise you to avoid it.
Customer Review: 5-star for Amazon 2-star for Maestro 3100
Summary: 3 Stars
I give Amazon shopping experience 5-star for
(1) Fast FREE shipping (3 business days)with confirmation and tracking.
(2) Lowest price at time of purchasing ($168 one week prior to Thanksgiving).
(3) No question asked return.
2-star to Maestro 3100 for
(1) As some reviewers stated: It does "freeze" when turned on for several times during 5-day usage.
(2) Old database (no upgrade/update available) and seemingly highways- oriented. For example: I live at southwest suburban of Great Houston Metro. On my way to Toyota Center(POI), it kept telling me to take US 59 instead of US 90(recently renovated highway) then IH610 then TX288. However, it did locate old sub-divisions addresses all right.
(3) Having difficulty to identify the addresses along the "Service Road"--cannot find Red Cross Building (2700 Southwest Freeway). You wish Red Cross was one of POIs! By the way, it cannot tell, many times, whether I was on Highways or service roads (ingress/egress from & parallel to highways at many southern States).
(4) Slowly recalculating re-routes. I deeply believe this is the most important feature to evaluate GPS devices assuming most units on the market can pinpoint the addresses correctly. I'll use the GPS only for locations where I never visit before and very likely to miss turns along the roads. I missed turns on purpose to test this feature. I don't how other GPS devices work but this 3100 sloooooowly responded even froze once.
Overall, it is a very practicle unit and could be the most worthy unit per dollar on the market without fancy features. The reasons I returned this unit are old database near I live and frozen issue, which seemed a known defect but the tech support told me that my unit was bad. Anyway, there are happy users on the review. Just buy it from merchants that handle return easily such as Amazon in case you experience the same way I did.
Customer Review: You get more than you pay for
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my third magellan. I had two Roadmate units. They both died. They both had the annoying habit of overheating in summer and, consequently, getting slower and slower and slower and....then stopping entirely. And then they just stopped working altogether. So I wasn't holding out much hope for the maestro when it showed up. Same basic design and maps - some interface updates, but clearly the same unit reworked and repackaged. But: it wasn't. The overheating problem has been pretty much solved. It's done it once in the last 18 months, on a 100 degree day - can hardly complain about that. Given that, I think it's outstanding value. The maps are great (in the midwest - I took it to the west coast and it sucked somewhat), the reaction time is very fast, the route selection is usually pretty good (and better than Garmin's laughable choices), and it has the unique feature (I think) at this price point of allowing you to build routes in a separate folder: extremely useful if you're making deliveries or need to get around a selection of places (real estate agent, anyone?). The interface is easy to understand and, IMO, a lot faster to find places than any other brand given the way they've structured it: use the "zip, downwards" option for finding places. Warning times are usually good, and the directional instructions it uses suit me very well. Downsides: The manual on-off button stopped working after 6 months. The unit has had four little "incident" so far where it simply stops working and re-sets itself, losing all your stored data. (Gotta back up to SD card!) the maps will never be updated, and Magellan's customer service and support is truly awful. If you do have a problem then you may as well just buy another unit, because Magellan won't be any help.
On balance, and bearing in mind the price, I think it's a great "disposable" GPS that you should expect to last 18-36 months.
Customer Review: Customer Service Horror Story
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased a Maestro 3100 3 weeks ago from a reseller. I had the unit for less than a day and then it would not charge. I walked thru all of the steps as mandated by your tech support representative, but we could not get the unit to work. This was on Monday July 23, 2007. I called and talked to Lisa the support center. I told her that as I had just purchased the product brand new I did not want it repaired, and wanted her to send me a new product. She told me that she would do that and I gave her a credit card number, that was to be credited when the old unit was received. She also stated that she would expedite the unit out to me. I was leaving that Friday on a trip, where I needed the unit, so I thought everything would be good. The unit did not get there in time, but I thought you would still honor your commitment and send me the unit. 10 days later no unit, I called into your support organization again and this time I talked to Andrew. He stated that the reason the unit had not shipped as there were not any in stock. I asked why I was not contacted and he did not have an answer. I asked multiple times to speak to a manager and was never successful in getting to one. He stated that one would call me back within 24 hours. Based upon previous history, not sure I can expect that call to be returned. In summary, I bought a brand new unit, it did not work, Magellan promised to replace it, but I have received nothing and they have my original unit. I have since called and talked with support who refuses to let me speak to manager, will not give me a tracking number for the replacement unit, but continues to make promises that they will ship one. I am out my original unit that I shipped back, along with not receiving a replacement unit....Filed a complaint with BBB