Customer Reviews

Magellan RoadMate 1210 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was provided an evaluation unit of the Magellen Roadmate 1210 Portable GPS Navigator. This is not my first experience with a portable GPS unit, I have been using a TomTom One for a couple of years.

Upon opening the box, you will find the GPS (pre-loaded with maps of the United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico), vehicle power adapter, windshield mount, adhesive mount for your dashboard, and a small instruction booklet. It comes charged, so that you can immediately begin using it. Once you have entered your home address, you are basically ready to go. I don't think that you can get a simpler setup.

This is a fairly thin unit and the screen, at 3.5", should be good enough for a lot of people. The windshield mount is excellent; once attached to the windshield, it is impossible to move the mount. And the GPS remains in place, benefiting from a very good attachment to the mount, yet the unit can be adjusted quickly and easily. You will not need to worry about the GPS moving during normal driving, either from the mount or the attachment. Entering destinations is very fast. As you begin to type a city, the Magellen begins to guess your destination. You do not have to change states, like on other units. If you want to go to, say, "Dearborn, Michigan," start by typing "dearb" it will fill out the rest, showing you "Dearborn, MI." It tries to auto complete the street, as well. Another feature of this unit is that as you type a destination, it removes letters from the keyboard, which makes entering the remaining data easy. It is also a little unnerving as it auto completes the names (as in, "how does it do that?"). For the mounts and the software alone, this is an extremely good unit. The default maps are much more up-to-date than I expected. Recent road additions (within the last year or so) in my area are reflected in this unit.

It is not without its issues, however. If you want to take advantage of map upgrades, or to add new maps and Points of Interest (POI), you will have to purchase a special USB cable ($15 list). If you want to get live traffic, that is also an additional cost for the vehicle adapter ($80 list). However, you do receive traffic updates for "life." While traveling, you will notice that the map "jumps." It may be to poor signal strength or a peculiarity in the software, but if you are really watching the travel indicator, you will see that it leaps ahead at times. Also, I noticed that street names pop in and out of the map as I was driving. The keyboard drives me crazy. I looked through all of the settings and could not discover how to change it from "ABCDEF" to "QWERTY." For a person that lives on a computer, it is very frustrating to have to type on an unfamiliar keyboard. Not having a way to change it to the way I want to type makes entering destinations "challenging." Finally, this unit takes a while to boot up. I think that it takes somewhere between 30-40 seconds to start up. And once it does boot up, you will want to wait for it to find a signal. Many is the time where I entered my destination, started on the trip, and waited for the GPS to get a signal and catch up to me.

For the price point, this is a very good portable GPS. Just be prepared to purchase additional cables to get the full features of this unit.

Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation devices were expensive luxury items only a few years ago. But with advancements in technology, these devices have become far more powerful and much less expensive these days. Because of these factors, GPS sales are on the rise, and the major GPS manufacturers are scurrying to cover all the bases and offer all of the desired features at attractive price points. While some of these devices also act as MP3 music players, show picture slideshows, and even offer Bluetooth connectivity with your cell phone, not all of us desire these frills or want to pay for things we really don't need. For those of us that just want a simple GPS navigation aid, to help us get to our intended destinations, and don't want to overwhelm our bank account to acquire such an item, Magellan offers the low cost RoadMate 1210; a no-frills pocket-size navigation device with a 3.5-inch color touch screen.

The Magellan RoadMate 1210 comes preloaded with maps and points of interest for the contiguous 48 United States, as well as Hawaii and Puerto Rico. It offers a OneTouch favorites menu, providing instant access to your favorite places and searches, and makes it easy to search for your favorite points of interest, such as a restaurant, hotel, store, etc. Entering your destination is easy with the touch screen keyboard, although it is NOT a standard QWERTY style keyboard like most of the higher end GPS devices offer. With Magellan's "QuickSpell with SmartCity search" feature, the device will simplify your address entry by auto-completing your address and city searches based on matches in its built-in database.

The 1210's accuracy is rated at 10-16 feet (3 to 5 meters), and the built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery will last from 2 to 3 hours, based on brightness setting of the display. The unit measures roughly 3.1" H x 3.7" W x 0.7" D, and weighs merely 4.9 oz. Of course the outer case is made of "high-impact" plastic, which is pretty common among most GPS devices manufactured today. The box contains the following: RoadMate 1210 GPS receiver, windshield mount, adhesive disc for dash mounting, vehicle power adapter, and a very basic user handbook. The handbook is more of a quick start guide, so if you want detailed information and instructions for this device you will need to download the full operator's manual from the Magellan website.

After using this device for a couple of weeks I had some real mixed feelings. I have tested and used several different GPS devices over the past few years, from many different manufacturers, so I have experienced everything from the most basic to some very feature rich models. The RoadMate 1210 is closer to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to included features. No bells and whistles here folks. The 1210 will get you there but it does so in modest style. Powering up the device and waiting for it to acquire satellites typically takes between 30 to 60 seconds, which can seem like an eternity when you are in a hurry. Entering addresses into the 1210 was a bit tedious, as I am so used to using a QWERTY style computer keyboard every day. Still, the auto-complete address feature worked nicely, usually requiring me to just start typing a few letters and it would discover the correct street name and/or city for me. Navigating with the 1210 was just as easy. The somewhat smallish 3.5" display is bright, colorful and easy to read. The voice commands are clear and easy to understand, with simple "turn left" or "turn right" type audible navigational direction. Since the 1210 does not include Text-to-Speech technology, this device will not read off street names. As with any GPS, this device will not always take you to your destination in the way you feel is most practical. But in the 12 test trips I made with the RoadMate 1210, it always got me to the correct location.

For the price I feel that the Magellan RoadMate 1210 is a pretty good buy. Although you can't expect the feature set normally found on higher priced models, Magellan still should have at least included the specific USB cable that is needed to hook the device up to your computer. This cable is needed for performing software and map updates, as well as adding more points of interest. When a cable is required to perform necessary updates to keep the item current, I think that cable should be included with the product. There is just no excuse for this exclusion. If you wish to take advantage of live traffic updates then Magellan makes you buy a special adapter, which lists for roughly eighty bucks. Ouch, that adapter costs nearly as much as the GPS device itself! Overall I think this particular model is aimed at those looking for their first GPS. While I prefer a larger LCD display, the 3.5" display of the RoadMate 1210 is adequate, provided you have it mounted fairly close to you. However, the lack of text-to-speech is a big issue for me. I don't like to have to take my eyes off the road to look for street names, and the majority of GPS navigation devices today include the text-to-speech feature, which announces the street names for you. This device will simply tell you things like "Turn left in 100 feet." Well what if you experience multiple cross streets in a busy city; which one are you supposed to turn left onto? Well for a few bucks more you can get a GPS that speaks the name of streets for you, and I would highly recommend that upgrade to everyone. For instance, the Magellan RoadMate 1220 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator is the next model up from the 1210, and it includes text-to-speech street name announcing for just a few extra dollars. While not a perfect 5 star product, the Magellan RoadMate 1210 is a decent performer and will help guide you to your destinations reliably.

This is a great value GPS that is almost identical to the Magellan 1220, which has TTS (Text To Speech), which reads off the road names for you. It's only a few dollars more, and it is well worth it.

That said this GPS is a great value/budget GPS. It is nearly the same as the Garmin 350 I purchased a few years ago.

-- Size/Mounting.
It's actually thinner/smaller than most of the GPS units out there. The downside is that you only get a relatively small screen, but for the majority of people out there, it's going to be good enough. It mounts on the windshield or on an adhesive pad you can apply to the dash. They work really well, although it would be nice if Magellan would have an option for a bean bag dash mount or something similiar.

-- Functionality
As far as mapping, routing, etc it works pretty well. A few times it would decide to send us in the wrong direction at the start of the route, after pushing past the initial wrong directions, it corrected itself. This may be a symptom of poor GPS signal and not waiting enough to let it acquire. If you completely don't know where you're going, this could be an issue for you.
The one annoying thing I found is the map on the screen is delayed slightly, like the GPS can't keep up. The notifications (sound/voice) are correct, so not sure what's going on.

-- Software
Magellan has some slick software. When you start putting in a town/city/etc, it will automatically remove the letters that aren't available, and will try to guess it for you, makes entering much easier. The one downside of this unit, is I couldn't easily find a way to see all the restaurants in the area, and filter. For instance I wanted to find an A&W, however i would just have to wait till it came into closeness, instead of being able to filter it and see the nearest one. There may be an obscure way to do this, I just haven't found it yet.

-- Upgrades
I only have mac's, and Magellan doesn't support them as of yet. Either way it doesn't appear as there are any updates available for this device currently, so it's not a big deal. You can access the POI's you add, and a few other things, as the GPS mounts when you add it.

Overall for the price this works very well, it essentially gives you the functionality for about half the price it would have cost you two years ago, in a tidier package, worth it (but pay a few more bucks for the TTS 1220).

This GPS is an okay unit and will get you where you want to go eventually but not always the quickest/best route. I live in rural Alabama and don't require the use of a GPS often but when I did attempt to use this GPS it has several problems.
It took a very long time to connect to the sattelite upon start-up. I tried several times to save my home address only to find out that this unit doesn't recognize the 911 addresses that have been in place for over 5 years. I had to use the sattelite coordinates settings for my home. My TomTom One immediately recognized our 911 addresses and even recognizes National Forest Road Numbers. I contacted Magellan to bring this problem to their attention and was basically informed that their mapping system is different and they have no plans to update and to continue using my TomTom. What kind of company tells you to continue using another product? Customer Service was rude and provided no help.

I attemped to use the GPS to go to several known addresses using quickest route and the GPS directions were not accurate and actually added miles to my route.

For a basic beginner GPS this is okay but I still prefer my TomTom and will continue to use it.

I am enjoying this Magellan RoadMate. In the past I have had or still have a TomTom 100 and a Garmin Nuvi 350.
Using this Magellan RoadMate is a piece of cake in comparison. As soon as I turned it on, my car's location was on the screen in an instant. No waiting for 30 seconds or more for the satellite to find me.
The One-Touch screen worked perfectly for me. Just one touch..no punching! ;-) I touched the screen to enter my home info...the city, street, so on and it all came up within seconds and that's how long it took to enter.
I also like the fact the the voice is clear and there is plenty of notice before you make a turn and there is a doorbell or ringing when you should be making the turn.
I purposly made a a few wrong turns to see how long it would take to recalculate the route. My older models would miss a few turns before the voice told me what to do next...this one, the doorbell rings instantly almost...the next block. For me, one who is in a constant state of "lostness", this is a true blessing ;-)
The size is also a bonus for me. Since I am often out of town visiting friends, I usually take my GPS when I run in the mornings. Yes, my sense of direction is so bad, that I get lost within yards from my starting point. This fits in my small pack and I can run as far as I like, touch the screen to return to the starting point and wella, I'm like everyone else now..no fear.
LOVE this GPS...No complaints at all from me.

It's a GPS and a darn good one at that. Some reviewers seem to think that because it does not have bells and whistle features that it won't get to from one point to another. It does. My unit was a factory refurbished item that came from Amazon BUT it was not a refurb. It was brand new. Maybe I lucked out but nevertheless the 1210 was used the first day and it worked flawlessly. I got the map upgrade for free and because I am a AAA member, the warranty was extended to two (2) years - paid for it with the AMEX card so I also got an additional year's warranty.

Refurb. pricing (but a new unit) / 3 years of warranty / free map upgrade = my best deal of 2010.

I purchased the item for my firend as a gift. and she told me recently the item arrived broken, it seriously sucks

What a sweet light weight little tiny user friendly GPS. Wow, I like this thing. The pictures really don't do this device justice, it's small, it's thin, it's light weight, and the screen is very readable. Definately fits in a pocket.

The really simple review - this is the home version of NeverLost, with some pretty significant upgrades and a way better user interface. You go to Hertz, rent a car, they give you a little bonus - NeverLost in your car - you get in, there's this ugly device on a stalk with a really awful looking click wheel, multiple arrow toggle switch, and an absolutely hideous voice and click noises (I still have nightmares from those sounds). In the early versions, this was a pretty basic GPS program, put you more or less on a map moving; tried to do some dots on a screen with a moving road; and gave you directions - turn left in 0.5 miles, turn left, ding ding.

So what is the 1210 - it's that same guts, the hideous key click sound, the ding ding at turn point, the same female voice telling you to turn (or make a U-Turn), and the fancy schmasy smart typing (there's nothing too smart about this - it's an old hold back from arrowing over to get to a key, basically letters disappear that you can't use like you type a Q, the only letter possible is U, so only U is available to touch). What's way better - there's no awful multi-arrow toggle switch (touch screen replaces that), no hideous click wheel, the maps are now sumptuous with detail and colors, the zooming feature near a turn works so much better, and you can disable all those horrible sounds (no more ding ding; you have 4 other choices or none).

Those not familiar with NeverLost - this is a great inexpensive, very fast, small GPS. It's just about one of the best introductory GPS's you can imagine. The screen size is just about right. The touch screen is super responsive. Commands execute very fast. Redraws of the maps are speedy. The user interface is more or less intuitive, you don't have to read the manual for a week to understand how to use this.

My frame of reference is three GPS's - a very old Garmin eMap (basically you on a moving map and as the crow flies directions - not terribly useful in the end); a Garmin Nuvi 670 (bluetooth, Europe/North America, MP3, Jpeg....widescreen, first generation fold out antenna Nuvi - it ran eight hundred dollars new); and a 6 month old Garmin Nuvi 765T (similar to the 670, but I had to buy the Europe map; and the antenna is not a fold out). All that to say, I know GPS's very well, I've used them for a long time, and I tend to go very high end with this stuff.

Complaints about this RoadMate - not many. I find myself hunting for functions in the menus. Wait, was the more highway versus shortest route in the little circle arrow menu, or the Menu menu, or the Local Options menu? In the end, it's actually in the crossed screw driver / open end wrench menu, and you click on Navigation Preferences. On the subject of tweaking the route method - there's only four options - fastest, shortest, Most FWY, or Least FWY (no pedestrian - for walkers - or off road - for airplanes or off road drivers, does a as the crow flies route). If you already have a route in action, changing this option does not update the route. You have to cancel the navigation (to do that you touch Menu then the little orange triangle with the red circle line no entry european street sign thing). Then you have to touch the orange go to arrow, touch the Previous icon, select your last destination, and then the route will update. It's all kind of counterintuitive and seems like useless steps.

There seems to be a lot of options for customizing the important display things, like display POI's (Points Of Interest, like restaurants, gas stations, police stations...), change the clicking sounds, volume is easy to get to, etc. But you cannot change the voice - you better like this female voice, because that's the only one possible. Screen brightness is kind of buried.

What's in the box - not much thank you very much. The GPS. A glue on more or less permanent shiny plastic dashboard suction cup dish. A sparse manual, warranty information (1 year by the way). A really crummy looking window suction cup mount. And a 12V to mini-USB cigarette lighter adapter. I'm not a very big fan of the mounting hardware. I'm sure the window suction cup will last a decent amount of time, it's all plastic (100%, no metal anywhere), you cannot detach the suction cup from the GPS grabber. The GPS grabber is a strange little affair, a T shapped slot that a tab deal slides into. You have to insert the grabber before you connect the power cord. There isn't anything terribly positive about the connection between these two parts. Maybe I'm just very used to Garmin's mounting system to like this one.

The power connector is a standard digital camera type USB mini connector. You probably have 100 of them around your house. I would guess about any usb adapter will charge this thing.

Map accuracy. Well here's where things get a bit strange. This is seemingly a brand new unit (although the GPS forums on a particular website show this model available for the past 2 or 3 years). Magellan says, no updates available for maps yet. Sadly, POI's around my house - there's a restaurant that closed a year ago; another that changed owners / name two years ago. So the POI's are at least 2 years old, if not more. The base map is newer than one year old. There is a highway extension that went in and was completed a year ago, and that extension is on this maps. So good for Magellan, good base maps up to date. Shame on Magellan for outdated POI's!

One huge ginormous failing of this unit - NO CANADA! Why oh why they didn't make this an NA device is beyond me. So you northerners, you are SOL on getting around Canada. The major cities, like Toronto and Mississaugua, are called out on a big black expanse. Unfortunately, you cannot find them as a destination. So, oh well, no Canada.

Pocektable, fast, customizable... it just plain old does the job you want, navigate you where you want to go.

Oh, by the way, ignore all the nonsense about strange routings. Basically Google, Magellan, TomTom and Garmin all use the same algorithms for getting you where you want to go. Many times those are not the routes you would take living in the area. But if you did the math, you'd discover that those routings actually are the fastest to get where you want to go (assuming the stop lights aren't long, or there aren't too many stop signs, or it's not a long wait to turn left...). Honestly, you have to use some common sense with these devices, and not be their slave or robot.

When I offered to review this item, I knew that it was one of the low-end units from Magellan and so I didn't hold it to terribly high standards. I am accustomed to using my Garmin Nuvi 775, which admittely costs a lot more than this one. I did compare the two but can't really fault this Magellan model for not measuring up to that Nuvi.

I can fault it for not measuring up to other units (some from Magellan) that cost about the same.

Destinations are entered with a keyboard in alphabetic order (there is no option to change to QWERTY). The GPS did a good job of guessing and filling in entries from its memory so that it usually wasn't necessary to type in the full street name. There is an extensive POI database and there are options to display the POI's based on type (E.G. restaurants, gas stations, etc). The screen can get pretty busy if you choose them all but it will show them.

I tried traveling to several POI's and was satisfied with the routing it gave, though I did find one wonky POI in the database. I asked the unit to take me to the nearest Burger King restaurant, which I knew for a fact was just a few blocks away. It took me on a roundabout route via expressway and then led me to the middle of an office/apartment complex and proudly announced 'You have arrived!'. This location was (1) not all that far from where I started, so I don't know why I had to get on the expressway instead of just driving a few blocks...and (2) nowhere near a restaurant of any kind. This may just be a fluke since other POI searches seemed to work just fine.

I did have a bit of a problem with the navigational display. My Nuvi (and other units I've tried) will display information on upcoming intersections, even if I am not actually going anyplace specific (when there is no route in progress in the unit). I like being able to see which cross streets are coming up...but this unit simply displayed the name of the street I was actually driving on (well duh, I *knew* that already) instead of telling me the names of streets coming up ahead.

The voice directions are clear and easily understood, but there is no pronunciation of the actual street names, it merely says 'Turn left' or 'Turn right', accompanied by a pleasant 'bong' sound. Frankly, if I were looking at purchasing this unit, I'd probably choose the Magellan 1220 instead. It costs only about 10 dollars more and includes the nice street name voice announcement.

All in all this is a good basic GPS. If you need directions, it will definitely get you where you need to go. The POI's are nice. I just feel that there are other units for about the same price that have some really nice-to-have features.

I purchased this as a refurbished unit (not from amazon) for about $53. Upon receiving it, I tested it out, and it was horrendous. The main reason why I would not recommend this product is the fact that it took somewhere around 20 minutes to get a signal and route my destination. 20 minutes? Really? And I tried it multiple times. When I compared this to my 4 year old Garmin Streetpilot C340, the Garmin is a star. Finds the route, easy to use, no problems.

Some of you may say, it's like that because I bought refurbished. They why is Magellan selling non-functional refurb units? Bad business plan. On top of that when I called the retailer and told them I wanted a full refund, they said they'd give me $10 store credit if I kept it. Wonderful. They now want to pay me to keep this useless GPS.

So all in all, AVOID this product and spend some good money on a Garmin or TomTom.