Customer Reviews

Magellan Maestro 4370 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have had so many portable GPS units, it's not funny. I've had one of the first Tom Tom and about eight or nine others including Pharos, Garmin, Nokia, and several lesser brands.

These boasted of being accurate, having media players, blue-tooth, fm transmitters, etc.

My recent gps was a Nokia. Who knew they made one. Big mistake buying it. The blue-tooth was terrible at best. Part of this being the speaker. The fm transmitter was absolute garbage. It did a terrible job putting it on any channel. The media player was a joke. The USB connector for the power had five metal prongs, bare prongs. Everyone else has them mounted on something so that one of the prongs won't get bent like mine did. Not worth fixing since it wasn't considered a defect.

Some of the other units I've had had had poor mounting systems that allowed the unit to bounce or was a pain to have to re-mount if I moved it from one vehicle to another. Most have stupid gooseneck mounts, which you can never seem to position correctly and which bounce slightly when you drive. Some used a proprietary charger. Most came with just one charger and no case.

Some of the units had poor graphics or too much on the screen. Most you have to manually turn on and off in the car. Some had the software on a SD card. If you wanted to put music on it, you needed a new and bigger SD card and you had to move the software over to the new card.

Anyway, the best piece of advice I can give anyone is to buy a GPS at a store where you can return it, even if you have to pay a 15% restocking fee. The Nokia I bought recently was a POS but because I bought it online, I could not return it. If I had bought it at, say Best Buy, I could have returned it, even if it meant paying $20 - $25. I wouldn't have been stuck with it.

Now on to this Magellan, the 4370, which is a newer model of the 4350. First of all, Best Buy had it on sale for $149, which was a great price. I bought it knowing that I would have no issues paying 15% of the price for re-stocking if I didn't like it.

The bad (cons) first:
1. Doesn't show your speed.
2. Weird location for the plugs; there are two. One for the headset which doubles as the antenna port and the USB port for charging/power. They are on the right side of the unit with the headset port above the USB port. The USB cable is angled to the bottom so it points to the front windshield.
3. Included case is a POS. It's not an enclosed case for one thing.

Now all the good stuff (pros). Pay attention because this is important stuff most of you have no idea of.
1. Great graphics or at least very clear because of the higher resolution screen.
2. Easy mount to use since it's basic. The suction cup is small but holds this thing really well on the dash. By the way, for you folks in California, the law is that you have to mount this puppy on the lower left area of the front windshield. Don't mount it in the middle of the front windshield or anywhere where it can interfere with the driver's view to the front. The mount is firm but again, can be positioned easily. Plus the pivot points have teeth so once you tighten the mount, it will not move at all.
3. Great price at Best Buy. (That was important to me, although even at full price it was nice.)
4. Comes with home and car chargers.
5. The software is stored internally so the SD slot is available for all the pics and music you can store on an SD card. I have an 8GB card with lots of music and lots of pictures.
6. You can play music and still navigate or play pics and listen to the turn-by-turn directions or turn the music off.
7. The FM transmitter works well, even on strong signal stations.
8. Blue-tooth is good and even does texting on the GPS screen. I have never heard of that.
9. Volume is loud and you can change the voices (different races and gender).
10. This is a big one for me. TURNS ON AND OFF by itself in the car if you use the cigarette/car adapter. No more having to turn it on or off manually.
11. The satellites are picked up very fast.
12. The names of the streets are pronounced.
13. Comes with a case. It's not very good but good enough to put in your glove compartment.
14. Easy menu to use.
15. Tells you what path to take when the road forks before you get there.
16. Bright screen during the day and changes to a screen that is easy to see at night.
17. Lots of options for use, including the ability to immediately see where you are using GPS coordinates.
18. AAA Roadside and other AAA information readily available.
19. Once you get to your destination, it tells you that you are there and it's done. Some GPS units start telling you to turn around right away.

So far, I think this is the best GPS that I've had, especially the graphics. Hope this helps.

I have owned a Maestro 3225 (Costco special) for 1.5 years. I recently purchased both a Magellan Maestro 4350 & 4370. I paid about thirty bucks more (including shipping/taxes) for the 4350 (3 weeks prior) but surprisingly I think it is worth more. The 4370 follows the laptop fad of a glossy highly reflective screen with no bezel surround. Actually it has a bezel but the plastic surface is flat from corner to corner. All that does is add more area to create a reflective glare that makes the screen harder to see in daylight. It's fine at night however.

Surprisingly there is also a small, but significant (to me) software difference as of June 3, 2009. I immediately updated both units with Magellan's latest firmware & files once I charged their battery. When on a route the 4350 allows instantaneous speed as one of the toggles in the lower left corner (along with distance remaining, ETA, and trip time remaining) but the 4370 does not. I do not have them both in front of me now but the software version of the 4350 is (apparently) more recent than the 4370 so it may be something that will be corrected/added later. I have not yet browsed their files (from my laptop while connected via USB to mini USB) to see if I can copy something from the 4350 to the 4370. I will likely do that after backing up the 4370 in case the graphics differences come into play.

In addition the 4370 sometimes pauses slightly when announcing your next turn where the 4350 never does. The 4350 is not perfect however. Occasionally the verbal does not match the graphics. The graphics are always correct but it seem the verbal commands (rarely) will jump ahead to the turn after the one you have not yet made. I have not had the 4370 long enough to experience it doing that.

The graphics on the 4350 are quite adequate so I would rather have the 4350 for difference in daytime use but I cannot talk my wife into switching with me.

Magellan has odd pricing these days. I also just got a Roadmate 1440 from Amazon via Pony Express aka We'll ship when we get aroundtoit. Including shipping (free for the 1440) and tax (local 4370 purchase @ BB) it was only fifteen bucks less than the 4370.

I have not used the Bluetooth, Media Player or FM modulator yet.

UPDATE: Magellan produced another software update which added current speed as one of the toggles in the lower left of screen. Groovy. For a buck fifty I have to increase the star rating from my original 3 of 5 to 4 out of 5. Vent mount (purchased separately) reduces daytime screen glare.

Google for 'Magellan Maestro 4370 Skin'. You may be able to add lots of great functionality to the unit.


I've had many GPSes. This is the best of them. It has many features, so many, that some of them are not even emphasized/mentioned/described in the manual. For example,
1. Auto-Zoom: I love it. It is very "aggressive" changing the zoom and angle depending on how far the next maneuver is. I always see what I want: from an overview of next few miles to a close-up of my next turn.

2. Volume Level based on current speed: other GPS are too loud when driving 20mph and too quiet when driving 75mph. Maestro 4370 adjusts sound volume level to the speed.

3. It turns itself on/off when you start/stop the car.

4. You can choose from ABC/QWERTY keyboards (ABC is a show-stopper for me). Keys that are invalid at a certain point of entering an address are disabled - great feature reducing keyboard errors.

5. Offers to save location when external power is disconnected.

6. AAA POI/ratings database.

7. Route options: it shows you on a map 4 routes created using different routing parameters. Routes are drawn with different colors. What a joy!

8. The screen is high resolution and beautiful.

9. Next maneuver commands are clear and given ahead of time. You have plenty of time to get to the best lane. Plus, 4370 has lane guidance/assist.

10. GPS fix time is very good.

11. FM traffic reception is good.

12. POI database is pretty good.

13. One-touch POI access is a great feature.

14. Tells street side of the destination.

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Decent, not great:
1. BT hand-free calling could be louder and more reliable. Perhaps, my phone (ATI Tilt) is not 100% compatible.
2. No phone book import over BT.
3. The touch screen is not always perfectly responsive. Maybe, I have to get used to this particular device.
4. The screen is gorgeous, but reflective.

I recieved the 4370 GPS on June 26th, 2009. Bottom line is, it's already back in the box, ready to be shipped back. What a disappiontment this thing turned out to be. I purchased it for $275.46 on the 23rd and now I see Amazon has raised the price to $375.46 with a supposed retail value of $599.99? Check the Magellan web site people, they list it's price as $299.99. I bought this unit to replace a 4250 that quit working after I tried to upgrade the software version from Magellans web site. I should have known better than try their upgrade since my 4250 was working fine. I have since talked to service at Magellan (they never answered my email) and am waiting for a return authorization number to send the 4250 in for repair. For some reason this process takes several days (I'm calling again tomorrow). So basically Magellan's service is HORRIBLE (I'd like to use stronger lauguage here but I won't). The 4370 looks basically the same as the 4250 with minor differences, EXCEPT, the screen is all one piece of flat plastic whereas the 4250 has the raised black edge around the screen. I don't know about anyone else but in the sunlight this screen is much harder for me to see than the 4250's screen. The 4370's screen is a WVGA enhanced graphics screen but honestly, it was no better than my 4250's screen (and worse in sunlight). The 4370 boasts handsfree bluetooth phone use but I could never get it to recognize my iPhone (I didn't care about this feature anyway). Also on my "do not care list" is the integrated MP3 player and the built-in FM transmitter function (which I also could never get to work). The 4370 did have it's good points and it did get me to where I needed to go with the voice guidance (I think all GPS' have this feature now). It is a very nice looking GPS (if that counts for anything) but the one main reason it's going back boils down to this. The battery is junk! I charged this unit fully several times and left it on between charges and it was asking to be plugged in because the "battery was critically low" WITHIN 1/2 HOUR of a complete charge. Now, that's ok, I guess, if you'll only be using this thing in your car but I don't. I use it in the car, out of the car, and on my motorcycles so with all it's good point's and bad point's, battery life is what killed the deal for me. And if I didn't like my 4250 so much and the looks of the Maestro series I would have nothing to do with Magellan ever again. But that's just me and my experience. What you've got to ask yourself is just one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya?

Bought the Magrllan 4370 at Best buy for $149.95. Have used several navigation devices but from pure performance and build quality, the 4370 should be among the top ten navigation devices on the market today. I am completely satisfied with this product.

Consumers should understand that there is no perfect electonic device in the market today. Every device has one or two issues around it but the overall justification is performance and obviously the 4370 does what it was supposed to do.

I will not sugarcoat my experience with Magellan, it has been awful. The units (I bought two), freeze unexpectedly, overheat routinely, and I've been trying to return them to Magellan. Tech support is in the Phillipines and is absolutely the worst I've ever experienced. I have faxed them, emailed them (twice), and called them 6 or 7 times and despite promised of return phone calls, they never get back to me. This is probably the worst electronic product and the worst company i've ever dealt with. I am kicking myself for not buying a Garvin.

Update: I wrote this review two weeks ago and I never received a response (although promised) from Magellan "tech support". They told me I was entitled to new units, and I provided them all of the documentation. I suppose I will make do with these less than adequate GPS units until I get frustrated enough to buy a Garvin.

One thing is for sure: I WILL NOT SPEND ANOTHER CENT ON A MAGELLAN PRODUCTS. They've created a lot of ill will in this ex-customer.

I was given this GPS as a gift by my husband. He bought a refurbished model here on Amazon. I was skeptical about using a GPS but was a believer after a trip to New York City. Unfortunately, several months later the unit just locked up while I was driving. Luckily I had paper directions as back up. I was never able to get it go past the first logo screen again. Magellan Technical Support was fine and they sent me a new refurbished model. It worked again for a couple of months and locked up again the same way. I just got off the phone with technical support again and this time I had some questions. The biggest one being why the unit is still running software from 2008????? You would think they could update the software to deal with this and other problems. Anyway, I was very nicely told that they would see if there were any updates and load them if possible. I kind of doubt there are any but I am keeping my fingers crossed. So, I am going to get yet another reburbished model. I am not very optomistic that this one will work. If it doesn't I am trashing it and buying a different brand that will be more reliable!

I gave my old TomTom to my son and actually went to Best Buy to purchase another one. However, the salesman showed me a Magellan Maestro 4370 that was on a really good sale. I was hesitant because I didn't know alot about Magellan and knew that TomTom made a good GPS. However, after playing with it in the store, seeing what it could do and listening to the salesman, I purchased it. BIG MISTAKE.

As long as it works, the Maestro is a good piece of gear. The problem is keeping it working. I owned it for 2 months and on the second long trip I was on it quit working. I was driving down the road and realized that the GPS was no longer moving with me....it was stuck on one location. I turned it off and back on and it seemed to work OK. A little while later, I noticed it was doing it again. This time when I turned it off, it would not turn back on. Would only go as far as the logo screen but would not come on. After wasting alot of time talking with one of their technicians on the phone I ended up sending it to them. They sent me a replacement. The first trip I went on, guess what? Same thing happened again. It froze up while on the trip and when I turned it off, it would not come back on. Once I again, I spend 30 minutes on the phone with a technician (who tries to tell me how to reset it, which I had already tried a dozen times). So I had to send it back again.

Well, I've now got my third one since I originally bought it 4 months ago. While it is working so far, I have lost confidence in it. Keep wondering when this one will freeze up.

My lesson from this? Stick with Tom Tom!

I cannot rate it with 0 star; otherwise, it should be 0 star.

I bought this GPS at Best Buy for $150 before my trip to CA a month ago. I updated it with the newest software and tested it for a whole month. It worked very well and I like it very much'during my testing. However, when I arrived at LAX airport and after I picked up my rental car, this device failed to acquire signal when I turn it on. After reset it few times, it stop to startup at all. I was forced to rent another GPS from the rental car company for the whole trip, which I spent almost the same amount as I paid for the GPS. To me, this is a bad experience. I don't think this product is reliable at all.

I was happy with the physical product, but it is worthless now because the most current map is from 2009 and Magellan is not providing anything newer. I won't buy another Magellan product. Please note that "lifetime maps" means Magellan's idea of a 3 year lifetime for the device.