Customer Reviews

Magellan Maestro 4250 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(195)
4 star:		(150)
3 star:		(58)
2 star:		(41)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

I spent a lot of time researching a GPS unit to purchase. I "settled" for the Magellan 4250 because I couldn't justify the additional $100-200 to purchase a similar Garmin product and I stayed away from TomTom because a retail store rep mentioned that those units were returned pretty frequently.

I took this unit with me to Las Vegas and it got me from point to point without issues. Directions are clear and the interface is pretty straight forward. Entering addresses is quite easy, route calculation is reasonably fast. It has a day/night mode and is quite visible even in direct sunlight. My only complaint with the screen is that the unit is still too bright when in night mode and the brightness is set to the lowest level.

I used the Trip Planner to enter multiple destinations for my trip up to Vegas. This made going from one point to the next easy as I didn't have to make any address entries or search for a POI. I just click on Guide Me, select the destination from my saved Trip and I'm on my way.

POI was very useful. You can search POI by Name, Category or AAA TourBook and then search near you, in a city or near an address. I like the breakdown of POI Categories, very user-friendly. If you have a Bluetooth compatible phone, you can contact the POI if they include the phone number. Just select the phone number and you'll be connected via the built-in speakerphone, which works pretty well. A feature that I didn't think I would use is the ability to choose what POI icons (coffee shops, shopping areas, gas stations, atm/banks, etc.) appear on the map. I found this feature quite useful in searching for a nearby coffee shop.

AAA information is great, I actually used this to find a nice breakfast restaurant. It gave me the restaurant hours, diamond rating and dress attire. Additional AAA TourBook information include these categories: Accomodations, Restaurants, Destinations, Attractions and Events. I found the Events outdated, but I was told by a Magellan sales rep that AAA will be releasing quarterly updates. As of this review, AAA still has not released any updates, they hope to have it up sometime in late 2007. Looks like they are waiting up to the last minute.

AAA Members have additional benefits, see AAA's website for more details. One notable benefit is an extra year warranty.

The Voice Command feature is a nice extra, but it will most likely go unused.

Bluetooth was not compatible with my phone (Cingular 8125), however, I was able to test it using the Sony Ericsson W800 and it worked flawlessly. When you receive a text message an icon appears on the map and you can read the message directly on the screen. The same goes with phone calls. The only downside is that you can't import your contact list.

Live Traffic information is free for 3 months and it looks like $40 per year subscription, quite reasonable. When you have the unit plugged into the FM power/receiver, you'll see an icon on the bottom right hand of the screen indicating traffic status, or if there are any issues on the way to your destination. I have yet to determine how fast/accurate the traffic updates occur.

A nice feature with this unit is that once you have entered your destination, you can look at the direction list and if you see a street that you don't want to include (let's say because you know it has heavy traffic), select that direction/step and you can exclude this from your route. Nifty.

If you are into customizable icons/voices, they are not built-in.

Overall, I am very happy with this purchase and would gladly recommend it to family, friends and strangers reading reviews on Amazon.com.

Job well done Magellan!

*** 2007-11-29 Update****

I've had the unit for about a month now. I have additional comments.

Auto Detour: If you are in traffic, the unit will suggest a Detour. I've only used it once, but it came in very handy.

Traffic: I've come to the conclusion that this is pretty accurate, though I wish there was an option to use the Auto Detour feature before actually hitting traffic.

Exit POI: While on the freeway, I can check to see freeway exit Restaurants, Lodging, Gas Stations and Auto Service Shops. The unit displays the distance to each Exit POI.

Voice Command: I didn't think I would use this much, but with proper annunciation, I found it more convenient to say "Magellan Go Home" instead of pressing the options on the screen.

Size: Since this is my first GPS unit, I may be taking it's size for granted, but I like that I can fit it in my jacket pocket.

Customer Support: When I first got this unit, I couldn't register the product, so I called Customer Support. They were very helpful in helping me register my product. I also had to call them a second time to get assistance in activating my Traffic Subscription, again they were very helpful and was able to resolve my issue.

My Complaints:
- At times the unit is a little slow to respond when an option is selected
- There is no quick/easy way to add a POI by name to the Trip Planner
- Text to speech doesn't always come off well (i.e. Los Angeles/CA-60 W is read "Los Angeles Forwardslash C A Dash Sixty W")
- Searching for a POI by name takes about 15 seconds
- I upgraded my phone to the AT&T Tilt, Bluetooth usage is limited to making and receiving calls

That's about it. I still recommend this unit.

*** 2008-07-30 Update****

I upgraded the firmware on my unit to version 4.60 and I felt the need to update my review. Magellan has improved quite a few things:

- Improved visual cues on the map makes navigation easier
- Bluetooth connection is now automatic, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from a friend without having the need to re-connect my Tilt. I was even more pleased when I was able to dial a POI phone number without re-connecting. (Still no SMS or Contact support for my Tilt, but that is probably an OS issue)
- Map scrolling is faster
- Re-route calculation is noticeably faster
- Magellan even fixed the text to speech issue I mentioned in my last update

One of the features I wish Magellan would improve is the time it takes to do a POI Search By Name. I use this feature quite a bit and waiting the 15 to 20 seconds to display a result set just seems too long.

I'm pretty sure there were other improvements that I haven't seen, but the fact that Magellan has released at least 2 firmware upgrades since I bought my 4250 states that they are committed to improving the user experience for their products.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, "Job well done Magellan!"

*** 2009-07-12 Update****

Magellan released yet another firmware update, version 4.86, and I have to applaud them for their latest fixes/additions:

- POI Search By Name time has finally been reduced! I searched for a store (whose logo resembles a bullseye) and search took 4-5 seconds, very fast! There are still times when it takes around 10 seconds, but that didn't happen too often.
- Map drawing speed has also been increased when you scroll around, it is quite noticeable.
- Voice Command is more responsive.
- Lastly, Magellan added 2 new turn chimes, one for a left turn and another for a right turn. Very nice.

Alright, consider this my last review update (unless Magellan releases another firmware upgrade). I officially have no more complaints.

Thanks Magellan!

I thought I'd follow up with my decision and share my experiences thus far.

I had both units, decided against the Garmin and popped open the 4250. This is our family's first GPS unit and our only other experience was a positive one using Hertz Neverlost.

PROs:
- As mentioned already, I'm a fan of the POI system on the Magellan and the fact that gas stations, ATMs, grocery stores, restaurants, coffee, etc show up as I roll by is appreciated. Easy to tap on an icon and get routed.

- POI alerts are pretty cool; I used the included SW to get red light cameras and speed traps and as you approach these areas, the unit will warn you that you're within your specified range of what ever it is. I let the wife take this on a business trip she went on and she regularly had the unit warning her of these types of things in an unfamiliar area.

- The AAA guidebook is actually pretty neat. Not only does it provide POIs, it further provides the AAA info such as a description of the place, typical cost, a rating, business hours, accepted forms of payment (cash, visa, MC, etc) and a phone number that you can simply tap on when paired with a BT phone. More info rarely hurts in my opinion.

- The voice recognition, while not perfect, is kinda cool. When rolling along, I can say, "Magellan", "Where am I?". The unit then presents me the trip computer (speed, heading, alt, etc) and states the road I'm traveling on. While that's kind of neat the first time, stating "Magellan, nearest coffee" and being presented options that I can vocally navigate to by glancing at the screen and selecting the number of the associated place, or moving to the next page by saying "next" or "previous" is more functional. You can also ask it things like, "nearest ATM", "go home", "nearest restaurant" to which you'll get a sub-menu you can work through (american, italian, etc.) or you can just get fancy and say "Magellan, nearest chinese restaurant" select one by number and have it route you without touching or looking (if you want to take whatever is closest) at the unit is neat.

- The unit is snappy in acquiring where it is (w/in 10 sec) and I can even get signals within my house. Maybe that's the norm today, but I didn't expect that.

- It's thin without any additional antenna to be extended. What you see is what you need. There is the FM antenna that runs with the power adapter if you're going to use the traffic subscription (I haven't tried this)

- Text to voice is nice. My wife was a big fan of having the unit speak to her in street names rather than being vague. I like it as well. Some names get butchered, but for the most part it's pretty good.

- My mobile phone (LG Muzic - Sprint) is not listed as supported, but it works for everything except the text messaging when paired with BT. I can find POIs, click on the phone number associated with the result and the unit calls the place. Speakerphone is okay and at times it is hard to hear with road noise. It's usable, just don't expect polycom quality.

- The estimated arrival time is nice. In my experience, I've seen it overestimate the amount of time needed by a couple minutes. However, it does update as you approach your destination and I've not yet exceeded the arrival time. I'd much rather have it work this way than be too aggressive with arrival time.

- When routing, once I've selected an address either by city, zip code or whatever that other option is that I can't remember at the moment, it gives me the option of selecting the parameters for routing (examples are shortest distance, fastest route, most use of highways, least use of highways) and an option to avoid toll roads. I can either just hit 'go' or update my parameters before hitting go. Again, maybe this is standard, but I like these options.

- Also, the ability to exclude roads is nice. Once a route is selected, I can hit the next maneuver arrow to pop up the maneuver list. From there, I can tap on a road and tell the unit to exclude the use of that road to reroute. Handy when construction/traffic is an issue.

- It came with a travel pouch. Nice touch when throwing the unit in a bag.

- AC adapter was included along with the car adapter. The Garmin I got only had the car adapter. Weird.

- Reroute is fast. Drive past an instruction and within a few seconds, the unit calculates a new solution. If you're moving enough, I've run into scenarios where the reroute computation start is fast, but takes a bit to figure out the actual route.

- Wife acceptance factor was good. She's not a tech guru, but is happy with this unit. It's intuitive for her to use and she told me it significantly reduced her stress when she had to drive in So CA on business having the unit with her.

- Adaptive keyboard is nice. As you type a city or street name, the unit removes invalid letters that aren't associated with the correct spelling of a street name. It's minimized fat fingering a wrong letter and speeds up typing since you can be a bit sloppy. Additionally, it does the same thing when selecting street number to allowing you to chose only valid house numbers for the street you've selected.

Cons:
- No support for waypoints on a multidestination route such that the unit moves onto the next destination upon arrival of the previous destination. The 4250 does allow you to plan a trip and enter multiple destinations, but it won't advance to the next destination without me telling it that I'm ready to do so. More of an annoyance to me than anything since I can get to the next destination within a few clicks.

- As mentioned previously, the power button doesn't always behave. I've held it on for 10-15 seconds with no response and didn't get one until I pushed it repetitively, held it down and did a number of other various things to get it to turn on. In the 2 weeks I've had it, I still don't know what the magic sequence of pushes of the power button is needed to get it to turn on when it decides to act up. But I've not had to use the reset button on this unit yet either.

- Routing gets a little wonky giving me some questionable directions at times; I have confidence the unit will get me where I need to go, but am not always certain that it selects the best way to get there; for instance, yesterday it essentially told me to take an offramp and then take the continuing onramp in lieu of having me just continue on the original road. Although technically, I guess it may have been the shortest route for the roads given. Still....

- While voice is cool, the unit is sometimes hard of hearing and you may need to issue commands multiple times to get it to respond. Some have reported false voice activations (radio or something else triggers it to turn on). I've had this happen only once when others in the car were speaking. There is an option to disable voice recognition.

- BT with mobile phone doesn't pull in my contacts. I can use the phone to dial using the contacts and the GPS unit handles the call; it'd be better to me if the GPS could see my contacts

- My GPS and phone don't 'see' one another when in the vicinity of each other; I've not had BT devices before, but I expected the units to pair automatically if they saw one another. Instead, I have to manually connect the phone to the GPS if I want to use it. Kind of a pain - maybe because my phone isn't supported?

- Unit hasn't woken up on a few occasions when connected to car adapter power. It usually comes on automatically when I turn on my car. There have been times that I've needed to play the power button roulette game until it comes on. I've not picked up on a pattern of when this occurs. I was going to exchange the unit, but am unsure now if I will after hearing this isn't an isolated thing among this model - I'm guessing SW bug is involved.

- Can't enter addresses via PC or trip plan. I think someone said tomtom can.

Those are the main things that I can think of. Overall, I'm fortunate to have gotten a unit that works for the most part and am happy with the features it brings for the price. There are some nice things that Garmin provides, but when it came down to it, having BT in this feature packed unit seemed to make more sense for me than the more expensive (when comparably equipped) Garmin 750. Garmin units are nice, but at the higher price I haven't yet felt the need for MP3s (I have an iPod and a music phone), pictures, a translating dictionary or other stuff I'd likely not use. I don't need a GPS that can make coffee, but I do expect it to guide me to coffee!

For me Magellan was the right choice and I'm pleased to have it as my first GPS unit. There's plenty of POIs, the AAA guide book is a nice touch and talking to the unit is neat. Hopefully this helps someone else that's looking to make a decision.

I wanted so much to like this GPS. I spent a lot of time researching difference ones and narrowed my selection to the TomTom 920, the Nuvi 760 and the Maestro 4250. Both the TomTom and the Maestro had some cool features that really appealed to me (Voice inputs, AAA guide and so forth). In reading reviews, I decided against the TomTom since many indicated that it would not get you to your destination on the most efficient route and their customer service was attrocious. Reviews of the Maestro were mixed and the most common complaints where the unit crashing. The Nuvi had great reviews but was so much more expensive than the other two units. Amazon had the Maestro on sale for $356 and that opportunity was to great to pass up. On the first day of plugging the unit into the cigarette lighter I got a message "USB connection detected, please refer to PC instructions for downloading maps". It would not let me do anything and the screen just sat there frozen. Thinking I had not read the instructions thouroughly I unplugged the unit and operated via the battery. The unit worked very nicely, clear screen, nice picture resolution, voice commands worked great, all in all I really liked the whole package. The next day I went to turn the unit on and nothing happened. I kept trying and finally had to call customer support. They were very courteous and I had no wait time (unlike some reviews that quetioned the customer service). The rep told me to hold the power button for 10 seconds and push the reset button at the same time. After trying a few times, the unit finally powered on. I then told him that I had this problem when connecting the unit to the cigarette lighter. He told me to push the reset button while the unit was on and to try again. Same results "USB connection detected....". He then said that this was a known problem and that my unit was defective. These words echoed in my brain as this was the same answer I had heard so many other people utter in their review "this was a known problem". If it is a known problem then why not FIX IT!

Here I had read all the stories about other people having their unit crash and now I find myself two days later in the same predicament. I was both disappointed and frustrated. It is a really nice looking unit and works great when it works. But having two crash issues in as many days just made the product not reliable enough for me. I am amazed that a company like Magellan that has so much experience in the GPS market is able to put out their top of the line unit with so many bugs to make the unit unusable.

I ended up bitting the bullet and ordered a Nuvi 760. Based on what I have read, my wallet may be a little smaller but at least I will have a reliable GPS. I have not received it yet so I cannot compare the two but I am hopping for better results.

Update:
January 15th, 2008. I have now received the Nuvi 760 and took it for a test drive today. Right off the bat I did not like the interface of the Nuvi as much as I did on the Maestro. The way the Nuvi gave directions was very sparse. On the Maestro, it was very good at warning you in advance of turns that you may encounter, it even showed you a graphics of the turn you were about to make. Just before the turn, it would warn you and then right at the turn a little bell would chime telling you to turn at that spot. This was a very nice feature that I thought was standard on all units. The Nuvi does not do this and only tells you just before the turn. The volume level on the Nuvi is extremely very low, I can barely hear the unit on high level, the Maestro was much louder. The AAA detailed location features of the Maestro are a wonderfull feature that the Nuvi lacks.

Now, it has only been one day that I have owned the Nuvi so I will surely update this review again or post a full review on the Nuvi page, but so far I vastly prefer the interface and map routing of the Maestro but the Nuvi appears rock solid in performance. I did not encounter one problem or crash whereas with the Maestro I had two crashes and two problems that were fatal.

In summary, if we could put all the features of the Maestro into a Nuvi, we would have a perfect unit. I really wanted to like the Maestro and I really liked the Maestro features and function, if only it was not as fatally buggy I could recommend it.

I took a while in seeing which of the several products out on the market i would be most interested in. The top of the line Maestro 4250 for Magellan has several features that are something i desired, and when put to use, came out with great results. Il list off some of the more desirable and less desirable qualities of it.

Pros:
- 4.3" Screen.. vibrant, decent size and well layed out.Black exterior is beautiful. Pastel colors displayed on the screen are nice IMO. The Garmins are the only others i was interested.
- Navigation. Split screen is great when coming up to near direction. Very easy to follow.
- Text To Speech. It works well, but you are limited to one women. She speaks it well. Example: Turn left on to Main street in 1.2 miles.
- POI's. Grouped well, and easy to understand, as well as many of them.
- 2D/3D possibility.
- Multi-trip planner
- Setup.. very easy and sticks well to the windshield.
- Car/Home charger comes in handy


Cons:
- When cruising w/out specific route destination, i find that very little detail is shown on the map. As soon as i put in a specific place, it names every street around my location.. kinda weird. ( Still looking at this)
- Dark Mode. It can be a bit bright, but if you adjust settings you'll be okay. ( Settings help, but often split in dimness when in dual or split screen mode which is not often anyways)
- Speech Volume. Loud and clear, but any sort of music can tone it down so make sure it is on the highest level so you dont miss a direction.



Undecided:
-Voice Command. This is a biggie, and lot of people looking at this model know that very few or no others feature this right now. It simply works by saying "Magellan" in which it will reply with "Say a Command" then you can say or touchscreen the command. It does work, BUT you must speak with a LOUD and clear voice. Radio needs to be off to be honest or it will be dumbfounded. Its a pretty cool feature, but i wouldn't base your whole review/purchase off of it. If it was a bit more sensitive to speech, it would be an excellent feature.

EDIT December 6, 2007 -

Things to take note of.. don't worry, it still is highly suggested

The Good ..

1.) I set my HOME position as the current position when i was in my driveway to see accurate it was. it was SPOT ON and directed me onto my street and into my exact house and drieveway perfectly after a 30 minute commute earlier on.

2.) Satellites are always full signal around here which is fantastic.

3.) Route Recalculation ( this is a biggie in my opinion !! ). I purposefully missed my home street and drove on by following the main street. It took less than 5 seconds to recalculate a route to get back another way. ( i secretly knew there was one other way to get back easily). Sure enough it took me down the exact street i was hoping for and was in my driveway the next minute.

The Bad ..

1.) Power switch can be very stubborn, but hold it down hard for 5-10 seconds and it will always boot.

2.) POI's.. while there are several of them.. they are not generally arranged very well when it comes to distance. I find that i drive too far away to the closest grocery store when i know for a fact its only 5 miles down the road. It sometimes hides on the bottom of the list with a much higher distance equivalent for some reason ( which is why its at the bottom because its sorted by closest distance if you choose that anyways, but its there. )


Conclusion: For the price, this product is hard to beat in comparison to Garmin and TomTom products.

Buy the 4250, you won't be disappointed.

I am very happy with the Magellan Maestro 4250. Registering and activating traffic with Magellan's web site worked smoothly. The unit picks up a signal quickly and gets traffic info within about 10 seconds which is plenty fast. I was able to pair using bluetooth with my LG CU500 phone which isn't listed as being compatible so that was an extra bonus. I mainly got this model for the integrated traffic, great POI database and multi route capability. Voice commands and using the built in mic for phone calls isn't perfect. I do need to move close to the mic and speak loudly for either to work well but it does work. It is nice to just say Magellan, Go Home. I expect from other info I have seen online that customer service from Magellan is horrible but I haven't needed it and I have never needed customer support for most electronic gadgets so while that weighed into my decision it wasn't a deal breaker. I chose the 4250 for the features I want for about $300 less than the Garmin 760. I am happy with my choice!

I bought the Magellan 4250 from Amazon for $357. I have previously owned a Magellan Roadmate 760, an HP rx5915 Travel Companion (TomTom) and three Garmin handhelds, one of which I have also used for auto navigation overseas (a Garmin GPSMap 60CSx). I have agonized about what new GPS to get for a couple of months now and have extensively investigated this one, the Garmin Nuvi 760, the Navigon 2100 and the new HP 300 series.

Design. The unit is attractive with both black and silver in the bezel and it's nice and thin... about the size of a Pocket PC device. The mounting bracket only adjusts two ways, but you can get that third degree of freedom by rotating the direction of the suction cup on the windshield so it works fine. I like this mount much more than the old flexible mounts on the Roadmate series. Those were horrid. They include a slip case for it, which is a cheap one, but nice of them to do anyway.

Startup. The unit doesn't always start up easily. It sometimes seems to 'stick' at the lawyer garbage screen even when I press the ok button. It usually starts just fine, but when it does stick, it still usually gets going after about a ten second pause. Occasionally, I have to turn it off and on again. I guess this is what we get with a Windows CE based device.

Satellite Lock. The first time I started the unit, I told it where I was in the config menu and it's been very quick to get a satellite lock on every startup. It's generally ready to go before I get out of my driveway and has been very reliable at maintaining a lock. It is much faster than the old Roadmate and faster than the rx5915 (which also has the SirfIII chip).

Maps. It's not Magellan's fault, but I'm quite irritated with Navteq for screwing up the maps around my home. About three years ago, I reported that their maps lacked my neighborhood street even though it's been here since 1985. They emailed back about six months later saying they had come by and added it to their database. What they didn't say is that they totally messed up what is where, putting streets in the middle of houses and shortening the overall street to less than half of its real length. What a mess! I've had to set my 'home' to a spot down the street that is still on the map. Other newish things in my area (such as a new major road that's only been open for a bit over a year) are in place, though, so you shouldn't give too much weight to whether my neighborhood is rendered poorly. Garmin uses the same company for their maps and TomTom uses a different company, Teleatlas.

Basic navigation. The 4250 seems to do a decent, though not perfect, job of navigating. I drove it to another city about a hour away today (on a route I'm familiar with) and it did make what I consider to be the 'right' choices. It had a couple of questionable calls that I'll have to keep an eye on. At one place, I took an exit to stop at a store and to continue my trip, it wanted to send me back onto the highway the wrong way for one exit instead of just telling me to do a U-turn and re-enter the highway. Another time, I pulled off the road for gas and, when it recalculated, it wanted me to cross the main road I'd been traveling down and go onto local roads (instead of turning left back onto the highway). My experience has been that all GPS devices do a certain amount of this stuff, but I was surprised by these two that seemed so far from reasonable by any standard. I'll have to keep an eye on it, though the rest of the navigation was quite smooth. A feature I haven't used yet is that, once a route is calculated, you can select a segment and exclude it. That's something the Garmin lacks that I really wanted so I'm glad to see it here.

Voice / Text-to-speech. The voice on this not great. It's an irritating woman's voice that tends to grate on the nerves. I turned the volume down and that helped a lot, but I don't understand why they don't give us a choice of voices like they did with the Roadmate. Why do companies remove features that don't cost anything (or much) to add to the new product once developed on the old one? The text-to-speech is a bit smoother than on the old Roadmate, but I'll still probably turn it off as I did before. It drives me crazy that the voice reads every single bit of a long line of alternate road names. They separate the different names with a / in the screen... why not just have it read to the first slash. It's totally ridiculous and irritating for it to keep repeating 'turn right on Bennett Road / US 29 Business / US 250 Bypass' over and over as you approach a turn. You can see the alternate names on the screen... how about just having it say 'turn right on Bennett Road'?

Traffic. I live in a rural area and don't use this. I'm saving my free activation for my next trip and so can't speak to how well it works.

Exit POIs. This is one of the features I think has a lot of potential. I haven't been able to test it yet, but was disappointed that it says in the manual that, if you do exit to a gas station using it, then it will cancel your current route. That seems silly since it can remember a set of waypoints in order for a trip, and it can detour around a traffic problem without losing your route. Still, that's a minor annoyance and I think the feature will be useful. I'll find out in about a week when I'll be traveling on Interstate highways.

Screen. The screen is sharp and clear and bright. I've read some people comment that they don't like the colors, but I do. I find them nicer than the colors on either the rx5915 or the Garmins Nuvis that I looked at. It automatically turns to night mode, which it nice, but the night colors are not as nice as those on the rx5915. The 4250 night colors are a black background with white roads, where the rx5915 night colors are a nice set of dark and light blues. Still, this is a very nice screen and is easy to read in every lighting condition I've hit yet. (Haven't had the sun directly on it yet.)

Trip Mode. One of the things I liked about the Garmin Nuvi 760 I considered was the ability to take a set of waypoints and optimize them for the shortest time to travel them all. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 4250 has the same feature. You just set up some waypoints in the trip editor and then tell it to optimize the trip. Very nice if you have half a dozen errands to run and want the GPSr to help you keep the trip as short as possible. That's about all I've done with trips, but it all seemed easy to do.

Voice Recognition. Forget about it; this is worthless. It's bad enough that the things you can tell it are extremely limited (and mostly not the things you'd really want), but it can't hear you over even regular road noise. I had to lean way forward toward the unit just to get it to respond to the 'Magellan' key word and it never did respond to most of the other commands I gave it. And if you did want to know something like the nearest ATM, you'd have to cancel your route before even asking as those options don't show up when a route is active. Just pretend this feature doesn't exist.

Bluetooth. This was disappointing in that it won't remember my phone (Razr v3) and reconnect. You'd think that pressing the 'connect' button in the phone menu would do it, but it doesn't. I have to go into my phone and have it search for new devices every time to get it connected. Now who wants to go through that? Even when connected, the speaker is marginal and it cannot access the phone's contact list so this is another worthless feature in my book. I'll stick to my bluetooth headset.

Address Book / Points of Interest. It's built-in points of interest are quite comprehensive, though it would be nice if they would let you combine a search by category and name. You must choose one or the other, which means you can't narrow it down by category first and then search by name. Still, it works and it does have pretty much everything I've ever asked it about. The address book works well and includes the option of storing up to three phone numbers, plus a note field, for each entry. If you use the bluetooth with your phone, it will dial those numbers if you wish. You can designate an entry as a 'favorite' to have your most used addresses in a shorter list. Custom POIs (now call 'enhanced') can only be saved using the included POI software and is one of the weaknesses of the Magellan. I can't express strongly enough the senselessness of not allowing GPS coordinates to be entered into the address book or of not allowing addresses to be entered into the custom POI file. To make my POIs, I have to use Google Earth to give me the GPS coords for a given address and then copy those into the POI Manager software. Given that every address in your address book is ultimately a GPS coordinate, it's absurd that you can't freely copy those back and forth. Add to it that you are limited to only ten categories of POI in your custom file and you just have to wonder what they were thinking. So overall, the address book is pretty good and custom POI handing is pretty marginal.

AAA Tourbook. I wasn't very excited about this when I chose the 4250, but after looking through it, I have changed my mind. It has a ton of great information about places you travel through. Instead of just finding the name of nearby hotels, it gives you quite a bit of information on each. You look up the hotels near you and it gives you the AAA stars, a description of it, amenities (so you can know if it has high speed Internet and such), whether it takes pets, and so forth. It does the same for food, events, entertainment, etc. I think this will be very useful.

Overall. I wasn't sure at first, but I am starting to think I'll keep this unit. Although I have pointed out several flaws in the product, the truth is that every brand has major flaws. Owners of the new Garmin Nuvi 7xx series complain that it locks too strongly to roads, putting you on roads that you're not on, and that it can take a long time to start up. They also have a variety of UI issues that are different than those that Magellan has, but just as irritating. There are also many things I like better about the Garmins.

The TomToms (if my TomTom-based rx5915 is any example) have a whole slew of usability issues (like not showing you the address for an entry in your address book and not showing addresses of POIs you searched for) and it has given me some amazingly creative routes that loop you out and around, going miles out of your way, when a simple right turn would have gotten you where you were going. But the TomTom also has some really nice features that the others lack.

So I am simply resigned that none of the companies can actually design a complete product and the act of choosing is just one of deciding which irritating things you can and cannot live with, and which unique features you'd really use. I do find myself wondering if the people who design these things ever actually use their own products. If so, I just don't see how they would make the decisions they do.

Anyway, I think overall, this unit will be pretty good, and even if the Garmin were to edge it out in operation (which I'm not sure it would), there is no way it would be enough better to justify the extra $150 or more that it costs. And this has several nice features the Garmin lacks. While I am a bit obsessive about my electronic gadgets and am quite hard to please, for 95% of the people out there, this would be a fantastic unit with lots of great features. The only caveat is that, since the voice recognition and bluetooth are virtually useless, I'd say that if one of their less expensive models lacks the voice recognition and bluetooth, but is otherwise identical, it would probably be the better bet. On an absolute scale of what I think a GPSr should be, I would have given this 3 stars, but compared to the other options out there, I feel 4 stars better represents its relative merits.

Well, after reading all the reviews about Garmin, Tom Tom, and Magellan(M), I decided that the price and ease of use of the M was the deciding factor.

After I received it, I set it up, turned it off, registered and called it a day. The next day, I tried to turn it on and it wouldn't come on. I tried looking for tech support and got a message saying the support is 6-5 PST, of course it was past that time. I sent an email into support, and it bounce back undeliverable. Hmmm, so much for that.

Luckily, I got it to come back on after a while by hitting the reset and power at the same time.

Now the good part, I had a Saturday lunch party to go to the next day, so I programmed it with the address and picked fastest time. It did it's job well and I was impressed. The only comment I will make about the route it picked, was that if it had been rush hour traffic, I would have been sitting in some major traffic. This is not really a critism of the GPS, they(all of them) just don't have the common sense that a human has. You must use common sense when using these things.

The only other negative comments, was the map didn't have a major highway close to my house that was completed about 3 year ago, so it kept telling me to go back to another street that was a slower route. Also the street I live on was spelled wrong. Go figure! (The Garmin had it wrong also, only the Tom Tom had it right) I checked there support site and nothing about the 4250 exists. Nothing!!! So support gets another star taken off the rating.

So bottom line, the product is good, easy to use, and accurate, but supports sucks. I hope Magellan gets the message from all the negative posts about their support.

Again, you must use common sense when using these things.

Happy GPSing.

After becoming too reliant on the GPS system in my wife's car, I finally decided to stop getting lost and get one for my car. Hours spent online doing research and playing with different systems in-store led me to the Magellan 4250. I've been using it now for a week mostly on roads I know to see how the Magellan reacts and which directions it gives me.

A few highlights:

-Love the vocal instructions that say "turn left on Main Street" as opposed to "turn left here"
-Price for the features seems good and could not justify another $200 or more for the Garmin 760 (which I also looked at)
-Directions have been consistently good
-Small things like estimated time of arrival, ease of use (it is very easy to use), and screen clarity are appreciated.

A few lowlights:
-When starting up, can take up to 5 minutes to orient itself and figure out where it is
-Display is very bright at night even at lowest setting
-"Voice" is a little irritating

Voice command feature is actually pretty cool but it is not perfect and I often have to repeat myself (the kids however love talking to "Maggie" Magellan).

I really like the 4250 so far and I can't figure out a few of the poor reviews. Some of them sound like they never even bought the unit but just want to rip on Magellan. I have not found this GPS "buggy" and mine has never reset on me. I think the unit is solid, well built, and attractive. I also don't have problems turning it on as long as I hold the power on button for a few seconds (manual says 2 seconds but I usually hold it a little longer).

After having it a couple of days I checked the Magellan site and found that there was new firmware available that took mine from version 2.24 to 3.34. Speed and response time was good but I think it got better with the firmware upgrade. The firmware update also supposedly improves routing and fixes some reset issues. I hope it also corrects the the issue several have mentioned where it pronouces "DR" as "doctor", not "drive", haven't tested that yet. Route calculation is fast on this unit, easily as fast as my TomTom.

Besides what I mentioned above here are some of my Pros/cons.

Pros:
- I like the map screen way better than the Garmin's or TomTom's. It is more attractive and easy to see in direct sunlight. My TomTom's screen was almost impossible to see in sunlight. It also has more info than the Garmin's. I like that the 4250 shows the compass direction you are traveling and satellite reception on the map page, the Garmin does not.
- The Current Location screen shows altitude as well as all the typical stuff. None of the other models I considered display altitude.
- Voice Command is really cool. My kids love speaking to it and I have found that it works very well after you learn how to properly address it. The number of commands are limited but it is very handy.
- POI's on map screen are easy to see and the icons let you know what is there. My TomTom had a generic indicator for POI's no matter what kind they were.
- The AAA info is very nice and handy. Descriptions are quite extensive.
- The spoken street names and exits are nice. My previous GPS did not speak street names. Many people think this is a must have feature. Personally I don't think so but I do appreciate it.
- The female voice is fine, easy to understand, and plenty loud. I can't imagine it not being loud enough, as some people mention, unless you were in a convertable.
- The trip planner with multiple destinations is great. The other model I considered (Garmin 260w) only supports a single destination and one way point. It is nice to be able to plan the whole trip in advance and be able to save destinations in the address book.
- Rerouting is very fast and it doesn't just tell you to make a U-turn!
- Interface is easy to use.
- Arrival time is much more accurate than my TomTom.
- Includes AC and Car adapters, case, USB cable, etc...
- I haven't used traffic since it is not available in my area but I do like that it is an option if I travel somewhere were it is available.
- No mp3 or picture support. I bought a GPS, not a PDA so why would I want that stuff?
- Very fast satellite acquisition.
- Included software allows adding customer POI's.

Cons:
- Map data isn't old but it isn't as current as the Garmins. My map data is from Q2 2007. An update is supposed to come in Q3 2008. Several recent POI's are not listed.
- ?? Not a con yet for me since I haven't used it, but I have read from the reviews that support is not very good. The web site is quite helpful though.
- I agree that the night screen is a bit too bright.
- Basic cradle that comes with unit is kind of lame in it's adjustments. I liked the TomTom one better.

My decision came down to a choice between the Garmin 260w and Magellan 4250 because I didn't want to spend more than $300. The Garmin 260w is also a nice unit but for the price the Magellan includes so much more. To get a Garmin with similar features costs over $100 more. Overall I am very happy with the Magellan 4250 and would recommend it.

Update 7/11:

Took first long trip with my 4250 and was very satisfied. My unit did say "Drive", not "Doctor" when announcing directions. Maybe this was fixed in the last firmware. I have not updated to the new 4.60 FW yet. I also found that I kind of like the windshield mount now. It is much more stable (doesn't vibrate as much) as the ball mounts I have used with other GPS units. I cradle the GPS then mount it just like I want it and it works great. I love the trip planning option, I put all the places we wanted to go into the unit before we left. It is also great to save a location in the "where am I" screen so you can return to it later if you wish.

Update 7/25/08:

Installed the latest 4.60 firmware and very happy. The first thing I noticed is that they improved the "night mode" of the 4250. The colors have been changed so that it isn't nearly as bright in night mode and is much easier on the eyes. Unit seems even faster and more responsive. Have had no negative issues.

After extensive research, I purchased a Magellan 4250 - great price for a fully loaded gps. Out of the box eperience was good, nice bright clear screen, fast satellite hook-up, dead on location accuracy, and an intuitive menu system. But (you knew this was coming, didn't you?), after trying it out and spending over 2 hours on the phone with three different support technicians, I have decided to return it.

Why you ask? First, it has an annoying habit of refusing to turn back right after being turned off. It sometimes takes a full minute or more to turn back on. Guess I could live with that, but not the next issue. The bigger problem is with its bluetooth features. It would link up with my cell phone and function properly - receiving and sending calls perfectly. However when you turn off the 4250, and later turn it on, the link to the cell phone is completely gone, like it never was there. The only way to re-establish the link was to go thru the discovery process again.

Hello tech service. I eventually talked to three different techs (the good news is that wait time was very reasonable, less than 1 minute each time), and was eventually told that 1) this is a known problem (it actually was duplicated by one of the techs who had a 4250 availble to her 2) that there is a work around - turn bluetooth off on the cell phone before turning the 4250 off (nope - didn't make any difference) 3) that the 4250 was supposed to be shipped with firmware 2.36 (mine had firmware 2.24, 4) firmware 2.36 would fix this problem, and 5) firmware 2.36 would not be available for download for approximately two months!

Hmm....what to do. Since bluetooth was important to me, and the principal basis for my decision to buy (along with the good price), I decided to return it. Too bad, it's otherwise a nice unit. But releasing a new model with an obvious flaw and more importantly not being able to supply a software fix for several months is definitely not the way to win my business. I guess I'll pay the price for the equivalent Garmin.