Customer Reviews

Magellan RoadMate 1424 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Although I have owned an in vehicle navigation product that was built-in to a car, this was my first time with an aftermarket navigation system. The navigation is excellent and satellite acquisition is quick. The display is good, but in the brightest sunlight is a bit challenging to see. This isn't necessarily a fault unique to this product.

Overall the most impressive thing about this unit is it's size and build quality. So compact yet with maps for the entire US and North America.

I think that it should have come with an in-home plug-in charger in addition to the in car charger, but that's my pet peeve.

One of the larger omissions (IMHO) was not stating on the box or in the literature that updating the software and maps in the navigation unit requires a Windows PC. It can NOT be updated via any Apple computers. Ouch!

Finally, I am told the map updates are around $80. Sounds steep, but considering what it takes to update a digital map of the entire US, a fairly cheap price. And frankly, unless you are driving somewhere that has brand new roads, you won't notice the difference. You could just wait and buy an entirely new unit every few years for not much more money. But I actually believe that it's a good idea to support the updating of the maps by purchasing an update.

The technical support I received (when I had a question about how to switch the map from 2D to a 3D view and back) was very competent, and surprised me considering the initial purchase price of the unit. Magellan seems to have good people and customer friendly policies.

First, I owned a Magellan Maestro 3100, basic earlier generation unit. I much preferred the usability of the interface to the Garmin & Tom Tom equivalents. The Roadmate 1424 improves and addresses virtually all my annoyances with the older series.

Pros:
Acquires signal very fast
Recalculates routes so fast you barely notice (and it no longer announces "recalculating", just does it).
Allows you to "insert" and immediately route to any POI or destination, then continue to original destination.
Shows graphic map and estimated time for all 4 routing 'options' making it much easier to select your choice (I'd prefer exact distance to estimated time, but it's pretty good).
Routing is faster and shortest route now tends to avoid unpaved roads (I live in a rural area).
Has 2nd generation of their One Touch interface (2 screens worth of programmable icons)
Having applied their 2.20 firmware upgrade, it has never reset, frozen or gone into 'calculating' mode like some report on the 1440 & 1470.

Cons:
Position tends to lag 10-20 yards behind actual position, a problem the entire 14** series seems to have, Magellan is aware and a firmware upgrade to cure this is expected.
If you like to fiddle with different voices, forget it, no choices and no memory slot, but it already has the largest/newest POI file Magellan offers.
It's just a GPS, doesn't play music, doesn't show vids, doesn't bake pizza.

This is my first GPS. It seems durable, I've dropped it a few times in the car and thrown it in my purse and it still works. Fortunately, it is easy to use, it did not come with a very thorough user's manual (more like a leaflet). I'm still learning some of its features, through trial and error. I like that it gives me audible instructions (2 mile advance notice) on what direction I'll be turning so I can make the lane shifts and there is a visual cue in upper left corner. I like that it accepts multiple destinations. All in all, I am very satisfied and since having it I have not been lost!

This product is a great buy. Very user friendly. The screen is wide enough to be viewed by both the driver and the front passenger.
We went to a complicated old neighborhood and the directions were perfect.

This is my third GPS and my first Magellan. It was calculated risk purchase on my part because of the way rating spread from best to worse. And after owning if for few months I could see why as I have experienced the best and not so best of this GPS.

The first hurdle is registering your GPS. How you go about obtaining free map update is not clearly explained. There is simplified one page instruction paper included that tells what you must do to get access to your free map update. You are to download and install the free Content Manager software (PC only. Sorry, no Mac) (The website is printed on the paper). Register your product with Content Manager. NOTE: Important to have your PN# ready. On mine, the PN# was located in a very small font, on the lower right corner of Lifetime Map Updates Included paper. You will follow the prompt of Content Manager and register your Magellan. After that you right click the Content Manager icon (not the shortcut) and click Check for Update Now and if goes well, the content manager software should show what latest map and firmware update you can download. If any other reviewers see error on my part then do please post correction.

I found the GPS easy to use and intuitive. When I first started using it I did notice the position lag that other reviewers have posted. However, the latest firmware update eliminated that issue completely. Once, the GPS froze on me. If that happens move the power button from on position to Reset position and keep it there until the GPS turns off.

I live in San Francisco Bay Area and unlike other reviewers I have been pretty satisfied with how it performed. One feature I wasn't aware of but it is there is when you hit traffic jam an icon will pop up which if you press it will give alternative direction away from the jam. I was used to GPS announcing "recalculating" whenever I miss a turn but after a while I got used to Magellan just calculating revised direction without the announcement.

I guess buying GPS is almost a gamble when you think about it. You rely on other reviewer's experience to help you make the best possible choice but you may still end up with a dud. I am very happy with this purchase.

Buying a GPS was a daunting task. I was contemplating purchasing one for quite sometime but kept going back and forth on whether its worth it. The main issue was I wrongly assumed that you needed a higher end GPS to get a quality experience, but I would not use it enough to spend the money. If I was going to buy a GPS, I felt it was important enough to spend the bucks on a high end model.

I settled for this one being persuaded on it being a goldbox deal at a decent price and for the lifetime maps. I concluded that I would not use the GPS frequent enough to warrant purchasing a high end GPS model, and the lifetime maps costs between $60-90 for any company. I did not want my product outdated for months or years to come and did not think I would use the GPS often enough to want to purchase the lifetime maps for other units, so this perfectly satisfied my needs.

Well after using it significantly, the Magellan Roadmate 1424 is awesome.
The Pros:
-VERY QUICK IN TYPING YOUR DESTINATION. Sorry for the caps, but it is just amazingly good at narrowing down and auto-filling your destination. It will literally eliminate thousands of street possibilities, and just narrow down to actual street names within the city for you to choose. IT ONLY TAKES SECONDS to type your destination.
-Acquires signal fast
-The map on the GPS unit has a realistic look that I much prefer over the cartoony Garmin and TomToms.
-Great customer support
-Magellans software is very easy to use. It does all the work for you in fetching and installing updates.
-Product is loud and will tell you outloud the street names accurately. I was surprised on how well the unit was pronouncing some street names.
-After extensive use in a busy city, the GPS unit was very accurate in getting me around.

CON-
The update software for Magellan does not support MACs. Hopefully, they are working on that.

I honestly could not find any major faults. Than again, I am not a GPS enthusiast but am perfectly happy with my purchase. This product proved to me that you don't always have to spend the money to buy the best.

This piece costs $229.99 original price on Magellan website.
I did all research on Amazon and eBay, between Magellan and Garmin. Finally I decided to buy this unit, $99.99 a piece - great deal! Magellan Roadmate 1424 is brand new on the market, "Date first available at Amazon.com: October 1, 2009" means you have new map - no need to pay extra money to get new map update. There are not many people out there know about this unit, that's why Amazon brought down the price of this unit. This unit has Navteq map which is supposed to be very accurate. I was thinking about getting Magellan Roadmate 1440 because of lane asssist, but I came up with "lane assist is no need". You can see the direction on a GPS and signs on the road which is keep-an-eye-on-the-road.
Customer service of Magellan is not as good as Garmin's, so I decided to buy 3 year warranty from SquareTrade.

The 1424 is a good buy in refurbished form. I did find out that if you register it and activly seek to update the maps within 30 days, all you have to pay is $15 for shipping of the SD card, if you wait longer than that, they make you buy the upgrade and a 1 year subscription for $79. Bottom line is get it connected to your PC, get registered, and get it updated within 30 days. I was lucky, I got it all setup on the 29th day!

Good price, great feature having lifetime maps. BUT it is so cheaply made it makes you want to cry. The On/Off/Reset switch is the only external button, and it feels like it will break after one use. The power is via a tiny Micro USB jack so wobbly it doesn't stay in well, and not even an LED to let you know the thing is charging. Features are nice and useable, but my unit kept jumping back to the "Turn List" page all by itself, and then after 4 months it busted. It just stopped seeing satellites, nothing at all. It is on it's way back under warranty, but I wouldn't buy another. Oh and customer service was as we have been trained to expect, a 20 minute wait to be told some nonsense, spent 2 hrs updating Software, but of course that did nothing. The unit has to be repaired.

This is my second Magellan GPS. The map is very readable in all lighting conditions and the destination is easy to enter. The sound is not as good as the older unit I purchased three years ago, There is a "fuzzy" quality that I find somewhat anoying, and there is a volume inconsistancy in that the direction instruction is louder than the street name confirmation that follows each instruction. I have tryed to adjust the volume but louder or softer the descrepency remains.