Customer Reviews

Magellan RoadMate 2000 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This GPS system is fairly cheap and does most of the things you would want a GPS unit to do - get you from point A to point B. Basically, that's all I really wanted when I bought this unit and I am happy to say that it has been pretty successful in doing that. I had a little trouble at the start because it wouldn't lock-in my route and always had "Proceed to Route" on the screen even though I was already on the road and moving to my destination.

Having said that, this machine has a few annoying issues. First, it sometimes just restarts automatically and could leave you hanging if you have to turn or something. Second, it gets lost when you are surrounded by tall buildings. Hence, you have to be sure that you know the turn-by-turn directions prior to entering business districts, etc. Finally, it's "shortest time" route may not be the optimal route every time. I went on a trip to Milwaukee to Chicago and the GPS took me through rural Northwestern Illinois, which increased the travel time home from 2 hours to 3 hours. I don't know what happened there, but be sure to check the route before you embark on a long trip (I learned this lesosn the hard way).

For city driving, I think this unit is fine. It has gotten me to most places without any real issues. It's also cheap, which is good for reluctant first-time buyers. After you get a GPS unit though, you will surely ask yourself why you didn't get one any sooner.

I bought this GPS device in the black Friday's sale from Best Buy. I drove about 200 miles with it. This is my experience.

Pros:

1. Small size. The device is quite small. The 3.5-inch screen occupies most of the face. It's only as deep as a cigarette package. The portability is nice.

2. Ease of use. There is only one button on the side of the device. User's input is all through the touch screen. There is a product manual. But the only time you need to read the manual is about how to unlock the device the very first time you use it. After that, everything is intuitive and user friendly.

3. Receiver chip. It uses SiRFstar III receiver chip, the latest microcontroller chip from the world's largest GPS chip manufacture. This chip is used by other GPS devices, which can be 3 times as expensive as Magellan RoadMate 2000. Since the receiver chip is the single most important factor determining a GPS's positioning capability. Compared with other GPS devices, there shouldn't be complaints on the accuracy and signal acquiring speed since they are all using the the same chip.

Cons:

1. Random crash. It happened twice to me since I bought it and drove with it. The first time, I was in the middle of some operation on the screen. The second time, it just crashed when I made a sharp turn on a simple local road. When it crashes, it will reboot automatically and resume the route in totally 4 or 5 seconds. There is really no influence on using it unless you need the direction right at that time. However, this can be annoying.

2. Failure to direct on the go. Today my friend drove me from my home to a nearby airport. I turned on the GPS while we were on the road. It acquired signals in 3 to 4 minutes (reasonable for a cold start) and calculated the right directions. However, it consistently asked me to "proceed to the route", which means to the GPS device I wasn't on the right route to the destination although we were driving precisely on the freeway suggested by the GPS. As a result, it wouldn't give us any turning guidance, although I could see the arrow moving on the correct highway. I am not sure what caused the issue. And I will try later to see if I could duplicate it. But this is a quite serious flaw because when it happens, the GPS device is totally useless except that it shows where you are. I really hope they can release a firmware update to fix this as soon as possible.

3. Crude interface. The interface seems to me quite crude. The color scheme is harsh and lines are jagged. Although it doesn't affect the usage at all, I hope it can be more appalling to people's eyes.

In general, I'd say this is an OK GPS device. On the hardware side, there are really no much complaints. But on the software side, there are some serious things to be ironed out. I only wish they can release the updates soon to fix the problems before I can recommend this device without any reservation.

This is my second GPS unit. The first one I used was the VZ Navigator on my cell phone. Compared to my cell phone GPS, this one is seriously lacking in built-in points of interest. There are no listings for businesses such as movie theaters or drug stores. It lists symphonies and repertory theaters, but no cinemas - go figure.

A more serious problem is that it seems to take forever to calculate your route, even after it acquires satellite triangulation. Sometimes it takes over a minute to calculate your route. Then when it does, the screen just says "Go to route." I don't know what that means except that it doesn't start giving directions right away even after it spends a minute or so calculating your route.

The display is excellent. And when it finally finds your route it works well. It did reboot spontaneously a couple of times, which was annoying. I'm considering returning it, but I'll try technical support first.

I bought this unit for my wife and we received it this week. It works great. When I registered the unit on line I found that Magellan's website showed there were software updates for this unit (Roadmate 2000). I downloaded the update and after some difficulty I was able to perform the upgrade. I then found that the voice prompts no longer worked. I logged back onto their webpage and found that the firmware upgrade had been removed due to a technical issue they are working on to correct. I verified all of my settings and finally called Magellan support. The support group was hard to understand (they are located in India) and were unable to help me. I asked if this was a problem related to the upgrade since the voice prompts worked fine before the upgrade and they would not say. They asked that I upgrade the unit again (although the screen showing the firmware and OS versions showed the new version numbers) but by this time I was low on battery charge and could not perform the upgrade. This unit did not ship with an A/C adapter. I asked if there was a way to backout the upgrade and he (Tom) informed me there was not. I asked the tech again if this was a known issue and what other issues I might experience with this "upgrade" and after some time on hold he once again was evasive and would not answer my questions. I asked for a supervisor and after some more time on hold he told me one would call me back within 24 - 48 hours. I was not happy with this and said that was unacceptable to which he put me on hold some more after I told him I thought 1 to 2 hours is more along my expectations. He came back and said a supervisor would call me back in an hour. It is well over an hour and no call so far. I tried their Corp office and was routed by an ARU back to India. I called their Corp office again and after attempting the dial by name directory got to a receptionist named Marti who would not connect me to management. She said she would send me to Quality Assurance and they could escalate to management if necessary. I spent about 15 minutes on hold and was finally disconnected. I love the Magellan GPS units and I have three (Blazer 12, Explorist 210 and the Roadmate 2000) and each time I have had to call tech support I am very disappointed. I have to say I will not recommend their products to anyone else since I am really getting the impression they are disconnected with their client base and provide at least some answers.

To be fair Tom (tech support) did say the updated firmware will be out within a weeks time. However, until then I have a nice map on a video device with no audible prompts whatsoever. If my wife was not already used to the unit I would pay 100 bucks more and get something by another manufacturer.

In summary be careful with firmware upgrades and don't expect good customer service if you need Magellan's help.

I bought the Roadmate 2000 and at first it was great. I was able to obtain a satellite fix in about 1 minute out of the box. On my first trip there were no maps, just the street I was on. I tried playing with the zoom and nothing helped. After about 1 hour, the unit spontaneously rebooted itself and asked me if I wanted to continue my route. After that all seemed well and the mapping worked fine. However about once every hour or so the unit would reboot again. I tried calling support but there was a total failure of communication. What they would say made no sense and after 15 minutes of frustration, I hung up and returned the unit.

Amazon replaced the unit, but the new unit would not get a satellite fix at all. Another call to the Magellan support desk was worthless. They kept apologizing and repeating whatever I said (I presume the support person was in India). They suggested that it could take 15 minutes to get a lock every time I started the unit. That is insane. The second unit went back as well.

While the first unit was working it did a great job routing and rerouting as I missed a turn. My only complaint was that if you are "on a route" but not a highway, you have to cancel your route to use the POI locater. In other words, if you are going some place that doesn't take you on a highway and you decide to look for a MCDonalds, you must cancel your current route to navigate to McDonalds instead of just adding it to your itinarary. Bad idea.

Did I say that Magellan customer support is worthless?

THis GPS is excellent and this solves the purpose of GPS and navigates excellent. Point of Interest and its menu is excellently designed so that you can see the customize POI like american food, mexican food etc. U can see the POI on the screen itself on direction menu and just touch it and it will show you what kind of POI it is.
I recommend this GPS for all users unless you have big bucks to spend for luxury items.

I purchased the RoadMate four weeks ago. I have used it daily in areas where I don't know the streets. The map database is filled with errors, missing streets, and incorrectly named streets. The database seems to be fine if the streets have been there for more than 7 years. The rest is hit-or-miss, mostly miss.
If you zoom out from the lowest scale, the unit often doesn't display the street names where you can read them, or only displays them for a moment. It also requires you to know the city that you are in to select the street. It does not offer suggestions, or a search by street.
I contacted Magellan for help with all the errors in the maps. They said tough, we don't offer an update and have no plans to do so.
If you have to know where your going, CHOOSE ANOTHER UNIT! Make sure it has easily updated maps at no cost or low cost.
Avoid the RoadMate!!!!

Good overall, but it needs to have the more current street info. Roads built 3 years ago don't show up. Occationally makes you drive in a longer route when picking the shortest time route. Also, Points of interest needs to be better refined, if you choose POI info around exit it can give info 70 miles away (not too helpful). However, I have learned to rely on it. It always seems to get you at your desired destination.

My unit worked fine for a year until I loaded the upgrade to get the new streets etc.
It then would freeze up lose the signal and leave me stranded. I added an outside the car antenna and that didn't help. I call tech and got India I could not understand the person. They then asked I pay another $99 to get the latest upgrade. I had just paid $99 in December 2006 but was told that did not cover the new needed upgrade which will cause the unit not to freeze up. Stay away from Magellan...buy another brand.

purchased this GPS and had to return it just one week later because it would freeze up and would also just start to reset itself over and over.

received a new one and a just over a month later after doing the magellan update for this system i lost all audio functions. called customer support (which is a joke in itself) and was told that my issue was being sent up to another tier af service and i would receive a call within an hour. no call and it is now going on 7 hours....something tells me i wont be geting a call back.

plan on calling corporate to complain becasue i do not want this unit and would not recommend it to anyone.