Customer Reviews

Magellan RoadMate 3050T 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

See update at end..

I purchased this unit, the Magellan RoadMate 3050T, which is the 3000T, but with the receiver for Traffic-enabled info. For what I paid for this unit and the features it has, I believe it to be a very good deal.

The windshield suction cup mount works ok, but I wish it was a little stiffer. On bumpy roads the GPS can bounce up and down a little. With the unit mounted, the first time I tried to power it up I thought I got a bum unit. You have to hold the power on button for up to 15 seconds the first time, about 3 seconds after the first to have it spring to life. I think Magellan should state this right on the plastic protection sheet they have on the face of the unit. It would have saved me some startup anxiety.

Once I got it working it zeroed in on the satellites very quickly. In the windshield mount, the gps maintains an excellent signal. In fact, much better then my Garmin Maps 76S. Even with heavy over cast and in tree cover I have full signal bars on the upper right of the display.

Speaking display, this unit is very bright, even in full sun. In fact, at night, with the brightness turned all the way down, it is a little brighter then I really like.

The display makes use of a lot of icons. I had to breakout the manual to figure what some of them meant.

I am a stickler for wanting to know what direction I'm traveling. I planned to purchase the Garmin Streetpilot C550. I changed my mind after finding the Garmin does not display the normal compass heading on the main map display. The Magellan 3000T displays the heading full time in the map mode in the lower left corner. It uses the N, NE, E, SE, SW, W, NW headings.

A very good sounding lady gives voice directions. It is very clear, and volume level is also very good. This unit does not have the "text to speech". However, after using the Magellan 3000T, I really don't care that it doesn't speak the road name. What it will do is tell you when a turn is coming up and which direction you will need to turn and on the display it gives you the name of the street. The directions are clear and understandable leaving no doubt what you need to do. The maps are from Navteq. I feel Navteq is the best out there.

Update speed of this unit is very good. The display refreshes quickly and I never feel it is lagging behind. The route calculator waste no time as well. Most route calculations take less then 5 seconds to complete.

With the TrafficKit, this gps can find you a way around most traffic flow issues like slowdowns, accidents, construction, and other reasons. Around the metro Detroit area it seems to work pretty well. However, on a trip up north, it didn't work as well. I believe this to be more of an issue with the service provider then a problem with the gps. I'm sure with time this will improve. One detour it took me on saved us over an hour in stop and go traffic with just a few miles added to the distance. For one year of service it cost about $60. I don't like how the TrafficKit attaches to the gps. The cables end up going all over the place and the antenna for the receiver is long. Seems they could have come up with a better design. I ended up leave the antenna lying on the dash. It just looks messy.

The software that comes with the unit seems a little lame to me. You really can't do much with it. I wanted to be able to download the trip computer to my laptop. I have not found a way to do this. I'll be calling tech support to see if I'm missing something.

I have not tried the mp3 player or picture functions as I really don't care to have pictures on the unit. I'll try the mp3 in the near future.

For me, this unit is a keeper.

Pros: Easy to see, easy to use once I learned the system, pleasant command voice, easy to remove and install into its mount,you have a choice of using the touch screen or navigation buttons.

Cons: Power-on confusing the first time I used it, trafic receiver attachment messy, I had to upgrade the firmware to bring it up to date (no big deal though)

Update as of 12-20-06

Cons and Pro addition to date: Can't use the MP3 player at the same time as navigating. POI database is wrong for southern Florida areas. Items in the database not where the gps shows they are in the state of Florida. POI very good for Michigan. All in all I still like this unit and find it as good or better then other brands in the same price range on the market.

The traffic alert system works fine when it has a signal, but the info being fed to it is out of date/time and not many areas have reporting. This is a disappointment. I will not renew the subscription until I hear they have improved the service.

I previously owned a Magellan Roadmate 300 that required you to connect to a PC to upload maps and routes any time you wanted to travel to a different area. I finally became tired of that process and decided it was time to upgrade to a unit with all US road and POIs pre-loaded.

I researched mainly Magellan and Garmin (2620, NUVI 350, 360, 660) before deciding to purchased the Roadmate 3050T.

Main reasons for selecting the Roadmate: Value (Price vs. Features), POIs, Waypoint support to "force" a desired long-range route, existing familiarity with legacy Roadmate interface.

The display is excellent, clear, and bright. I'm having a little trouble getting used to the zoom buttons being located on top of the unit, but other than that I agree that from an ergonomic perspective the device is fairly easy to use.

My initial use of the 3050T has left a positive impression. The routing speed and "flyover" map displays are a big improvement over my old flat-map 300. There is a "locate" diplay that gives you lat/long, speed, altitude, and direction. The built in Li ion battery is Heaven-sent for in-home programming and short trips where you don't want to mess around with a power cord. I also look forward to taking it with me on my next airline flight (N.B.: some airlies allow you to use a handheld GPS in flight, but don't assume that yours does in today's security-conscious environment. CHECK WITH THE AIRLINE FIRST!!!)

Limited testing of "forced" local re-routes (wrong turns, missed turns, etc) has shown the unit to be very fast to calculate. The routes generally seem efficient. The POI database containing 6M points of interest is also much improved over the older and more limited database in my 300. Contrary to a previous reviewer's experience, I tried searching for several retail and restaurant locations and located all of them with ease. This is in the Atlanta metro area.

I have not experimented with the MP3 player functionality as it does not interest me and was not a factor in my purchase decision.

Keep in mind that "outdated" databases are a problem for the whole industry. It truly can take years for new roads, stores, etc to appear in GPS map databases. The simple fact is that even with my 3-year old 300 I rarely ran into problems where point-to-point routing was severely impacted by new or changed roads. The biggest problems I recall running into with the old 300 were missing a relocated exit in one state (I ended up rerouting through the next exit and backtracking a bit on local roads), and a relocated roadway in another (I just kept driving until for a little while until I was back on the "old" road, and everything went back to normal). In the worst case scenario where you get confused and don't know what to do, drive through the inaccuracy and you'll be re-routed to an existing and workable route.

I'll be leaving on a 2K mile round trip this weekend and will add my updated impressions, including function and use of the traffic feature, upon my return.

Initial conclusion: Great VALUE for the price paid.

First the positives - worked right out of the box and attached to the windshield with the suction arm. Great ergo and screen is bright and easy to follow. I really want to like this unit.

Negatives - maps are really out of date (Q3'05)! The Costco where I bought the unit doesn't exist according to the GPS - the nearest one is 6 miles away. Asked for the nearest Applebees and was told it is in Connecticut (I live in Washington) - there has to be one in Chicago?? Checked on the nearest Subway Sandwich place and it missed the 4 that are within 2 miles to send me 6 miles away. And so on - just terrible for a GPS system that is advertised as finding places. It did find the nearest McDonalds (but missed two others that are nearby). It has 2M POI but I don't really care about gas stations in Puerto Rico if I'm in the NW US.

And, to add further misery, if the GPS knows where I'm sitting, why do I have to key in the city I'm in before I can put an address in?? Shouldn't that be a default? Just a reflection of the overall mapping program - not ready for prime time.

I also have to question why music and picture display would be hyped up on this unit. The person that spends $500 for this unit is almost guaranteed to have a digital camera of some worth and an IPOD or MP3 player that does the job much better.

So the bottom line - decent unit with crappy maps. And I've read in other reviews that I might have to buy an updated map - which I would not do. Costco has a good return policy that I'll take advantage of.

We purchased this unit while on a family vacation to Seattle, Washignton. Stopped at a Costco in Oreogn, purchased the unit and had it giving us directions to our hotel before leaving the parking lot. While in the Seattle area we found ourselves navigating a very confusing freeway system with ease. It truly saved us from having a stressful trip!!! We highly recommend.

I used my RoadMate 3050T the day I received it for a business trip. It was easy to program and use. I left early as I usually do for business trips only to find out I didn't have to. It was not only a clear route, but I was also rerouted because of construction along the way. A great navigator. Glad I made the purchase.

Before purchasing the 3050T, I ran some others GPS devices thru their paces. I've had a Palm based system and a laptop based system, plus I bought a 2000T just prior to purchasing this one. The Palm based unit was accurate and had good maps, but I didn't like having to load which maps I might need prior to a trip; I just wanted to go. Plus the Palm system lacked enough horsepower for a quick re-route. The PC laptop system used the same CD based mapping software and had plenty of power for a re-route, plus having a 15 inch screen for map viewing was nice. The drawback was it really needed to be manned by a copilot and the bulk of the laptop and it's charging cables were a hassle. So I resigned myself to buy a purpose built GPS. A friend had a Garmin and I found the interface easy to use, but the price hard to swallow. My father has had a Magellan for years, so I first looked to the 2000T due to its price point. The 2000T was a nice unit and easy to install and use, but my big fingers often struggled pressing the screen based buttons, especially ones near the edge of the screen. I also struggled to touch only 1 button at times. So the 2000T was returned after only a day of trial and I looked to the 3050T, which has real buttons. I'm very happy with the 3050T. It's buttons are just what I needed. As with other reviewers, I wish the keyboard was qwerty, but it isn't a deal breaker for me. I actually like the interface on the 2000T a little better as items more often used are easier to get to, but if you desire real buttons the 3050T is the way to go. My problems with the 3050T have all been self-inflicted. The biggest being that I selected the wrong mapping area and the nearest Outback Steakhouse was 1600+ miles away... ...in Puerto Rico. As soon as I had figured out my error, all was well, but it required me to stop the car and go through the menus. It's not wise to attempt to configure or reconfigure your GPS at 75 mph on the freeway. The 3050T is much like other GPS units in that it really prefers using freeways and more established roads. It's for your own safety and keeps you closer to established POIs. Despite having routing options like "Most use of freeways", "Least use of freeways", "Shortest time" and "Shortest distance, I would still like one more, "The road less traveled" or maybe "Time is no issue". Sticking to the major thoroughfares is no way to experience the United States.

I BOUGHT THIS AFTER CONSUMER REPORTS RATED THIS ONE THE BEST. WE USED IT A COUPLE OF TIMES AND IT WORKS AS ADVERTISED. IT IS PRETTY EASY TO SET UP AND USE. I HAVE NOT PUT IT THROUGH ALL OF ITS PACES WITH THE TRAFFIC KIT BUT THE PART I HAVE USED SO FAR HAS DONE OK. I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYONE LOOKING FOR A GPS. SYSTEM. THE AMAZON DEALER I PURCHASED THIS FROM WAS VERY HELPFULL AND FAST SERVICE IN DELIVERY. MARK

I rarely give out a 5*, the Magellan 3050T does every thing it promises. It is a bit slow when you first turn it on and it has difficulty locating the satellites inside buildings or under a "heavy" cover/shade. Once it gets going, the signals are strong and re-routing is quick. Although it does not have TTS (text to speech), the verbal guidance is good and I kind of prefer it over TTS because I won't be distracted to look for street signs. Warning on turn is more than adequate and the maps (for California at least) are up-to-date. The only weakness is the extremely sensitive "zoom" switches. A very slight touch would trigger them. Battery life is only about 2 hours. The screen resolution is NOT adequate for photo viewing but more than good enougn for maps. Overall, it is an excellent GPS, easy to use, accurate, fast and bright. We enjoy using it tremendously both in the vehicle as well as in the streets.

We use our RoadMate 3050T on our motorcycle, attached to the handlebars with a "Ram" mount designed to hold the Roadmate. I didn't really trust it at first because the RoadMate cradle was just plastic but after over 7000 miles of bumps it seems as secure as when we first put it on. Ram mounts are great and they make them for cars as well, something you might consider if you can't use the suction cup mounting setup included with the 3050T.


I upgraded the firmware on our 3050T to version 3.11 and will probably upgrade to the new maps when they come out in September of '07. I do not use the traffic kit as we don't travel most of the cities covered by that service.

It seems that on cloudy days the unit has more trouble , depending on number of trees in the area, it may take a long time to setup - this is important because some times, especially on cloudy days our 3050T seems to freeze up, we may be miles down the road and realize this and need to turn it off and back on again to get things going again. This did mess us up one time because we missed the turn off we needed because it was froze up. We seem to have more problems with it in the first half hour or so, many times it freezes up a few miles down the road and after rebooting it is ok again.

It seems to get us to our destination, but not always the best way. I also loaded a personal POI file of all the Harley dealers and it lets us know when we are withing 1 mile of any dealer. If you are in a parking lot it is more difficult to see which way to go - it will say "proceed to route" - now this may be easily seen with good eyes, but I need to stop and put on reading glasses to read the smaller details. Many times I "proceeded to route" to find I started out wrong and had to make a U turn. Once underway it seems OK. Yes, it does annoy you with "make a U turn" when you don't turn where it planned, but in the end it recalculates and finds another way - I set mine up for 2 miles for a detour.

With the exception of very bright direct sunlight, I can usually see the maps pretty easily and the screen does bring up a big arrow to let you know ahead of time a turn is near- I don't use the split screen and the arrow fill the entire display with the name of the road almost big enough for me to read without my reading glasses.

In congested areas , such as cloverleafs with several ways to go it seems to be off a little on when to turn, you really need to pay attention to the road signs at that point.

Overall, I like it, use it every time we ride providing it isn't raining hard enough to make it wet.Many times it has gotten us out of areas we were in that were new and strange and we had no idea where we were going. Likewise many times I was able to use the maps to find a way around traffic congestion.

I got the 3050T for Christmas and it worked great right out of the box. However, after I upgraded the software I had a lot of difficulty connecting to GPS satellites and then it suddenly stopped connecting. I worked with tech support one time and got the unit working again. Then I had a problem on a weekend and there wasn't any support available but I used the same technique and could not get the unit to function again. I returned the unit to Costco, hoping to make an exchange, but they no longer had the units in stock. I saw a few other units had been returned to Costco. Did anyone else have any problem connecting with GPS satellites?