Magellan Maestro 4250 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
by Magellan
|
List Price: Our Price: $58.00 You Save: $541.99 (90%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Magellan Maestro 4250 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Compared to the Roadmate 760
Summary: 3 Stars
I have had this for a week now. I am comparing it to a Roadmate 760. we won't even talk about having no hard buttons because that is just the way it is now. I find some of the directions a little strange. So far I have been home. So I know the directions are strange. If I was in an unfamiliar area, I wouldn't know they were wrong. I find that if I miss a turn the 4250 is slow to respond. If it directs me to turn and I miss it purposely, it does not give me the next logical turn. For example, I can turn into my subdivision. If I miss that, the next turn is 1/4 mile. Probably the same distance to my house. It will skip that one, even though I have not passed it yet. It had me going another 1/4 mile and making a U turn. Coming from the other direction it does the same thing. Every time I have tried it, it does the same thing. Misses the next turn and then has me back track. Today I told it to go home. Instead of a straight shot, which it is. It had me do a left, right, right, left to end up on the same street I was already on. Just strange. Yes, it would have gotten me home. But the directions just don't make any sense sometime. But it is lighter then my 760. The voice commands seem to work some of the time.
Updated 4/23/08. I returned it. I routed to Metropolis Il. The fastest route showed 70 miles and an hour longer then the shortest distance, which is the correct one and the fastest one. Then I did fastest again and this time it routed correctly. It is inconsistant. Can't be trusted. I like the interface better then the Garmin I owned and the Tom Tom I had for 2 weeks. The Garmin did not show the address when you arrived. Which can be a problem when you are going to a new place and you don't remember the address. The 4250 showed the address after you arrived. I tried 2 4250s. The first one had a dead pixel and It showed a Pompii restaurant that was a block from my house as being 15 miles away. It showed the address as 15 miles away, but if you routed it, it went to the one 1 block away. I never saw that before. Perhaps the 3rd time is a charm. I may try another one.
Updated 04/28/08
This is an update. I bought another 4250. Well, now I know that the 2nd one I had was not defective. This one does the same thing. I routed to Sweet Tomatoes close to my house. I was to turn left. I purposely missed the turn. About 1 block away is another left turn. Same distance to the restaurant. It did not route me there. It wanted me to make a right turn and basically go around and try it again. It showed that same route until I arrived at Sweet Tomatoes. Then it said, "you have arrived" I tried Metropolis again. It said the shortest time was 60 minutes longer then the shortest distance. Then, if I did shortest time again it would be correct. In other words it corrected itself after it realized that the shortest time was not actually the shortest time. Both units did that. So obviously programmed that way.
I returned it again. Perhaps I will try the 5310 when the price comes down. ( I really like the interface and how it works, if only it could route correctly.)
Customer Review: Ok, but not great...
Summary: 2 Stars
I have been using GPS devices for a few years. I used Mapopolis on my Dell Axim, I own two hand helds for hiking, both by Magellan. My first real automotive GPS was a small Garmin I3, and then I upgraded to a Garmin Nuvi 350.
Recently my Garmin Nuvi stopped acquiring satellites after only 13 months of use, so I decided to switch brands and tried the Maestro 4250.
After using the Maestro for only one week I have decided to return it. The Garmins are just far superior to Magellan in the way the maps look, and more importantly the routing engine in Garmin picks better routes based on my experience of driving routes I am very familiar with.
Luckily I called Garmin and they are going to replace my unit with a refurbished one, even though it is a month outside the warranty.
Two times this week using the Maestro it had locked up on me and I had to reset the unit with a paperclip in a small hole in the unit. Now I don't always carry paperclips around with me, and I would have been screwed had I been on a road trip. Also I did upgrade to the most recent firmware on the Maestro before I began using it.
The Bluetooth function on the Maestro was not very good, I was able to sync with two LG phones. The voice quality wasn't that great, but it was useable. My address book did not sync with the unit, only the phone numbers showed up.
The voice recognition works only if your windows are rolled up and the stereo is off, and there is not a lot of road noise, and even then its functionality is very limited and not ready for prime time.
Traffic updates from what I have noticed are not that accurate and not that useful. Better off turning to a local traffic radio station.
The Magellan does boot up faster than the Garmin, and it also acquires satellites and locks on faster than the Garmin and the build quality even appears to be better on the Magellan, but none of that makes any difference if it doesn't do it's main function well... Navigating.
With the Magellan I went on a road trip up to Bear Mt. in NY state.. A few times a came upon roundabouts on Seven Lakes Drive, which can be very confusing on which exit to take. While I was driving around the roundabout the cursor was lagging behind the map screen so you really couldn't tell which exit to get off. Ok, so I had my stereo on and didn't hear the unit telling me where to get off, the map screen did me no good. The Garmin again performs much better in that respect.
I won't say that I'll never try Magellan units again, but for now I will stick with Garmin because I trust them and am more experienced with them.
No matter what unit you decide to buy, always bring maps, or printouts of your route with you. You never know when your unit will lock up or stop working.
Update 7/18/08: One thing I forgot to mention in my first review. The LCD screen is way too bright at night, even in night mode, and on the lowest setting. I found the brightness too distracting.
Customer Review: It's ok but still not ready for prime time
Summary: 2 Stars
I received this unit as a gift and was really excited. It had all the features I wanted such as street to text, route detour and millions of POIs. After using this unit, reality set in and eventually I had to return the unit. Props to Amazon with a no hassle return.
Here is my experience.
Pros...
Came with a protective case
Had millions of POIs
Correctly spoke the street names
Great to get you to places you haven't been before
Allows users to bypass or detour around roads. This part is great and would be better if you could program the unit always skip a certain road. Currently, it only allows the detour on the current route and doesn't save the detour for future trips.
Clear bright screen
Suction cup and mounting unit worked well
Could receive traffic reports (And yearly subscription was $20 or less.. I have forgotten the exact amount)
Locked on signals very quickly
Wasn't loaded down with extras that I wouldn't use such as audio readers, tip calculators, etc.
Cons...
The screen would randomly change from map to driving directions without anyone touching the screen
When selecting the fastest time, it would route us next to interstates but not on them thus making us hit many many stop lights. Getting on the interstate would cause it to recalculate and then it would behave.
We were driving home from a trip, when the fastest route was selected, it estimated the arrival time as 5:46 pm. When the shortest distance was selected, the arrival time would change to 4:06pm. The time difference was from it trying to make us drive through the city on surface streets instead of using the interstate which was almost totally empty.
Sometimes on short trips, if we deviated from course, it would take as long as 30 seconds to recalculate, thus causing us to miss the next turnoff and recalculate again.
When using the detour function, finding the correct street to route around was trial and error.
When using the detour function, the unit would "panic" when we told it we didn't want a certain off ramp and would try to have us get off the interstate 8 miles too early and drive through the city. (We just wanted to get off one ramp earlier, not five off ramps)
The screen seemed to forget it was a touch screen and would require repeated touches to use. (up to 6 times)
The suction cup on the mount only has a little rubber tab to pull allowing it to detach from the windshield. It's durability might be questionable and if it broke, getting it off the windshield would be a pain.
The breaking point was when it would try to route us through downtown areas instead of using the interstates when selecting fastest time. I checked every time and there weren't any traffic issues on the interestate, but the unit seemed to have a fondness for stop lights.
Customer Review: MAGELLAN WINS
Summary: 5 Stars
AFTER READING ALL THE REVIEWS I HAVE TO AGREE WITH ALLMOST EVERYONE GOOD AND BAD. REASON FOR BAD IS FIRST I BOUGHT A MAGELLAN 5310. LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT AT FIRST THEN EVERY THING WENT BAD. I HAD TO TAKE IT BACK BECOUSE IT LOCKED UP AND WOULD NOT WORK. GLAD I DID THE 4250 COST LESS AND HAS VOICE COMMAND AND BLUETOOTH.
THATS WHEN I SPENT DAYS READING REVIEWS, REALIZED THEY ALL HAVE THERE PROBLEMS AND FOR THE PRICE,OPTIONS AND POI I STILL REALLY LIKED THE MAGELLAN AND THE 4250 SEEMED LIKE THE ONE. SO I RISK IT AND ORDERED ONE.
REALLY GLAD I DID THIS ONE HAS WORKED PRETTY MUCH FLAWLESSLY.
I STAYED AWAY FROM TOM TOM BECOUSE SEVERAL FRIENDS TOLD ME IT HAS BAD MAPS,THE ASSOCIATE AT THE STORE AND THE REVIEWS ALL AGREAD. HEARD GOOD THINGS ABOUT GARMIN BUT NOTHING TO CONVINCE ME TO PAY MORE THAN I DID FOR MY MAGELLAN.
THE 4250 ROUTES AND REROUTES QUICKLY. THE POI IS ALLMOST A GOOD AS THE YELLOW PAGES IT HAS EVERY THING YOU COULD NEED,AND ONE CLICK ROUTES YOU THERE. PLAN ALL YOUR DESTINATIONS FOR A DAY IN A FOLDER AND GO TO IT AND JUST SELECT THE NEXT DESTINATION IN ANY ORDER AND IT ROUTES YOU. ADDRESS BOOK WORKS GREAT TO, SELECT TO ROUTE OR IF YOUVE ENTERED A PHONE NUMNBER JUST TOUCH IT AND THE BLUETOOTH CALLS FOR YOU.
THE SCREENS A GOOD SIZE. VOLUME IS GOOD EASY TO HEAR SOME REVIEWS SAID HARD TO HEAR OVER THE RADIO, WELL IF YOU WANT A LOAD RADIO YOUR NOT GOING TO HEAR IT DUH, WARNS YOU IN PLENTY OF TIME TO GET OVER FOR AN EXIT OR TELLS YOU THE ENTRANCE IS ON THE RIGHT OR LEFT, IF ITS A QUICK TURN IT TELLS YOU FOR EXAMPLE TURN LEFT WITH AN IMEDIATE RIGHT TURN SO YOU GET THE RIGHT LANE. THE TOUCH SCREEN WORKS PRETTY GOOD, IT WORKS BETTER WITH A PEN. THE VOICE COMMAND WORKS ALSO PRETTY GOOD TO. YOU DO NEED TO REPEAT COMMAND A COUPLE OF TIMES,AGAIN ITS NOT PERFECT BUT IT DOES WORK WELL. MY BLUETOOTH IS EASY TO CONNECT NOW THAT I DOWNLOADED THE NEWEST FIRMWARE 4.6 THAT JUST CAME OUT. WHICH I DOWNLOADED 7/9/08
THE MANUAL REALLY IS LOUSY YOU MUST MUST MUST PLAY WITH IT AND TOUCH EVERY ICON BUTTON ECT TO FIND OUT ALL IT WILL DO.
THIS ONE HAS NOT FROZEN UP AND NEVER HAD TO RESET IT.
COMES WITH THE HOUSE CHARGER CAR CHARGER AND USB CABLE, ALSO THE SUCTION CUP,I PURCHASED THE BEAN BAG WORKS GREAT. I HAVE HEARD FROM EVERYONE DONT LEAVE ANY EVEDENCE IN THE CAR OF A GPS OR IT WILL BE BROKEN INTO.
I AM GLAD THAT I BOUGHT THE 4250. I WOULD GLADLY RECOMMEND IT.
update dec 2009: Still love my Maggie use it a lot, but never the bluetooth, just a pain to use, the Gps itself has made a few mistakes, off freeway and back on crap like you hear on a lot of gps reviews. seems like it takes longer now to aquire satilights when starting up,making a stop in route is annoying, should have a pause button lol, but still glad I bought it.
Customer Review: Unique features, good performance, some quirks
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this Magellan 4250 GPS about a year ago for $299, so the price today seems to be a real bargain. There were some initial problems with the software which were fixed by a free update. A more recent update further improved routing calculation time and on screen graphics.
The best features of this model are:
1. Logical, easy to use interface.
2. Lots of POIs, AAA information and features (if you're a member)
3. Clear, easy to follow verbal instructions with appropriate warning of upcoming maneuvers and good text-to-speech for street names.
4. Split screen view shows a close-up, simplified view of complicated intersections, and a chime (like a doorbell) tells you when to turn and which way (decreasing ding-dong for left, increasing dong-ding for right). Both of these features are very useful and are unique to this product line.
The worst features are:
1. Screen is easily washed out in the sun, too bright at night (even at it's lowest setting).
2. Voice Control feature is very limited.
3. Bluetooth hands-free phone feature is limited, dependent on compatability with your phone, and it's difficult to know if yours will work well before you buy it and try.
4. Map update is expensive ($79).
Other Comments:
Using the windshield mount with any GPS was disappointing for me. The scree was washed out in the sun and way too bright and distracting at night. I tried mounting in different locations (high, low, left, center) and still wasn't happy. Vent mount didn't work well in my car, and alternative mounts would interfere with passenger space or other important things. Eventually I decided to mount the unit flat in a semi-clear space on the center console ahead of the arm rest, using some foam and double sided tape to make a flat, cushioned support. This has so far worked quite well and I wonder why more people don't try it.
The advantages are:
1. The unit is out of the driver's line of sight, reducing distractions. The screen is still easily visible, and is more legible since it's partially shielded from the sun.
2. The touch-screen is right at my fingertips, allowing me to easily adjust the volume or tap it to repeat the last direction. This was much more difficult with the screen on the windshield.
3. When driving, there's very little reason to look at the screen, so it really doesn't need to be right up in my face. I glance at it to see the split screen view of an upcoming intersection, or to make a volume adjustment, and that's about it.
Conclusion:
An excellent GPS and a great value. Do some research first if BT is important to you, and plan on updating the software to get the best results.