mitch528's Full Review: Bennett Marine MAGELLAN ROADMATE 300 (883629147512...
[UPDATE] The minor annoyances built-up to the extent that I ended up returning this device. While the external antenna greatly improved signal strength and decreased satellite acquisition times, the unit started randomly losing satellite lock, and would not recover unless the unit was cycled off & back on or an "Initialize GPS" procedure was completed. Magellan support only provided useless canned responses to my request for assistance in resolving this new problem.
THE GOOD
The screen is nice & sharp, even when being hit with direct sunlight (it's transreflective, so it works just as well with the backlight or sunlight being reflected). The voice prompts are super-helpful, telling you what side of the road freeway onramps and offramps are, as well as what side of the road your destination is. The styling is a nice break from the standard utilitarian look. The suction-cup window mount is very sturdy. Positioning is very accurate, and so far the directions it has given me have been right on every time. They may not be the way that I would have taken, but they got me there every time.
THE BAD
THe touch screen is fairly tempermental, and sometimes acknowledges your tap with a sound but does not take the associated action. It took almost a half-hour for the unit to find the minimum 4 satellites out of the box, and it takes 60-90 seconds to figure out where it is after subsequent startups. There is no good permanent dash-mount solution sold by Magellan. Reception with the built-in antenna thru the windshield is marginal (I've ordered an external antenna to see if this helps), and I have completely lost GPS signal during some trips. When this happens, the unit displays a list of turns similar to Mapquest, so at least you're not completely lost. If you go off-course, the unit sometimes hesitates before calculating a new route. Route re-calc is a bit slow, and sometimes by the time it has figured it out, you have passed the turn it wanted you to take (especially when travelling on highways).
ANNOYANCES
If you have a route plotted and want to search for a nearby restaurant or gas station, you need to cancel your current route and plot a new route to the Point of Interest (POI). Screen brightness and volume controls are buried in sub-menus, and require a minimum of 4 keypress/taps to get to from the nav screen. The desktop software to load the maps onto the unit is not the easiest to use, and here's a tip: Disable your antivirus software when you install it (I was getting errors during installation until I did so).
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