Magellan Maestro 3140 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
by Magellan
|
List Price: Buy Used: from $69.97 (click here) Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Magellan Maestro 3140 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Works great with lots of useful features.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using the unit for a week now in the LA area. I am pleasantly surprised by it's usefulness and much improved experience over a Garmin unit I was familiar with.
Features I liked the most:
- Detects when your going really slow in traffic and automatically gives you an indicator on the side to take a detour.
- Blue Tooth speakerphone works well although not perfect. Everyone could here me fine but they all said I sounded like I was talking through a pipe.
- Very accurate in properly detecting what I'm typing in.
- Easy to learn and I've found that after using it for only a week, I can quickly enter an address and be on my way.
- Reroutes within 1/2 to a full block after missing a turn.
- Screen size is plenty and gets the job done.
- Text to Speech works really well. Sure some street names sound robotic...but I found it to be very helpful and eliminated the need to look at the unit as much. The more your eyes stay on the road the better.
- Points of Interest seemed to work much better than a Garmin that my parents paid twice as much for.
- Allows you to decide traffic rules easily every time you select a new destination. Example: Avoid Freeways, Prefer Freeways...etc.
- You can click on any part of the route and choose to exclude it. This is HUGE!!!! for me. Sometimes these devices just pick a freeway or road that you know better than to take...but would still like some help from the device. The Magellan allows you to click on a road or freeway and exclude it and then it will re-route using a different option.
Customer Review: Excellent for the price
Summary: 4 Stars
I was mainly looking for Text To Speech. I bought this for 149.99 and have had it for about 2 weeks. I am happy with the unit so far. The POIs are sligtly outdated. It did not know about a mall 10 miles away from my home. But its not a big deal. It grabs satellite signal very fast, reroutes quickly and gives efficient routes. The coolest feature is Multiple Destination Routing and how it optimizes where you should go first. (This feature is only available in Garmin's higher end units.) Bluetooth feature was an added bonus (the other side could hear me clearly). I had researched a lot before buying and was aware of the very low battery life (compared to other brands available in the market), but then I use it only in my car, so I don't even need an A/C adapter. The car adapter works good for me. Overall, this unit is very economical, does what its supposed to do very well (give routes), and good value for money.
Update 03/21/2008
I did a bit of research online. Firstly I updated the firmware to the latest version from Magellan's website. According to people's reviews, its supposed to improve some things, but I haven't had got opportunity to play around with the unit much after upgrade. But most importantly,
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=66&threadid=2120938
provides a way of updating Magellan 3225's POI database to 6 million. Those instructions work for 3140 too. And after upgrading, it does find the new mall 10 miles from my home, which I had said earlier it couldn't find. I highly recommend Magellan 3140, now that you can easily upgrade it to 6 million POI which is the industry standard now.
Customer Review: Very User Friendley
Summary: 4 Stars
Excellent GPS, lots of POI's, very intuitive and user friendly, fast rouing and re-routing when you make a wrong turn. It has a easy to read (bright) display, and a eye-friendly night mode, that dims it and uses darker colors for background. It does have some problems though. There are no current map updates for it yet, the one it comes with is August 2006, and a update via download or purchase at their website would be MUCH appreciated. Also, there is a software update (version 2.16) available online from Magellans website (free), and I recommend getting it, it makes some pretty nice improvements. You will need a blank SD card (I would say at least 128MB. but a max of 2GB) and start with a full battery like the update says to. Maybe the other complaint I have relates to the one about the outdated map, it has routed me strange ways, taking longer routes than I needed to. There might be newer streets and freeway exits that it doesn't know about. But it does eventually get you there. I like that it gives you phone numbers for the POI's too, so you can call ahead. Although some of those are outdated too. I live in California where it's illegal to suction it to the windshield, so I also recommend a friction dash pad. It is very east to use. I went to multiple electronics stores, and liked the Magellans best. There are a lot of good GPS units out there, but for the price you won't find one better than this. The only reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is the map being slightly outdated, especially in southern California where the roads change on a daily basis.Customer Review: I love it!
Summary: 5 Stars
This gps comes about 80$ cheaper than Garmin Nuvi 350, but excels the Nuvi in many respects - multi-destination routing, detour, exit POIs, bluetooth and AAA Tour Book. Apart from lacking picture viewer and mp3 player, this is almost near to a complete auto GPS.
I can not find any thing wrong with routing algorithm which many say is better in Garmin. I think Garmins are over-hyped - Maestros are equally good and lot cheaper. I don't have Garmin unit but I compared with the Google Map and it produces exactly same route as (and sometimes better than) Google. It has more options to optimize the routing (fastest time, shortest distance, etc.). With the multidestination routing, you can also modify your trip. Initial signal reception is also very good and fast.
AAA POIs works like charm. I have discovered many places which I have never thought of in my vicinity. My AAA membership gives me 2 years warranty too (I do hope I won't need to use it)
Quickspell keyboard is amazing. But quickspell keyboard does not come up when you search for POIs. One other thing that bothers me is no panning available to view map in 3-D mode; and switching to 2-D mode is not straightforward, it takes pressing couple of buttons. I have seen in Garmin Nuvi you can switch from 2D to 3D mode by double-clicking on the map area - I is not there in Maestro. Firmware update around the corner?
Overall I am very satisfied with the purchase.
Customer Review: The best GPS in this price range
Summary: 5 Stars
This is by far the best GPS out there (of course within that price range/category). In my personal experience, it is much better than the TomTom and even the Garmin Nuvi 350/360 etc.
I have used the Magellan Maestro 3140 as well as the TomTom One and can definitely tell you that the 3140 is worth the extra money you pay for it.
For beginner's, it has Text-to-Speech which means that it tells you to turn left on Elm Street v/s. saying turn left in 200 yards (TomTom). To TomTom's credit, it makes it almost impossible for you to miss the turn by constantly saying "Turn left in 200 yards", "Turn left in 100 yards", "Turn left NOW"...but I found that a little irritating - instead the 3140 will say turn left on Elm Street and give a chime a few seconds before to let you know that the turn is here.
Second thing is the POI's - it has 4million as opposed to TomTom's 1 million. I know both sound a lot, but the difference is that the 3140 has 4 times as much information on the restaurants, groceries etc. I found Magellan had even the newer places already in their database too. Also, the PlacesOFInterest (POI) dtabase is organized - for example under restaurants, you can then choose cuisine type ie Thai etc.
The final killer is the fact that it has AAA guidebooks incorporated in there - so no more lugging extra books with you.
All in all, this is a great buy.