Customer Reviews

Magellan RoadMate 800 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

I purchased this unit a few weeks ago after researching quite a few options. The navigation portion of the unit is outstanding. The screen is very bright. The 3D view is way cool. It takes only 30 seconds or so normally for the unit to acquire your location. It routes very well. Has loads of features. The screen is very readable. It autoshifts from daytime to nighttime view. Both look great. The voice comments are excellent. It comes with an MP3 player and a picture viewer also, but that is NOT why you would buy this unit. You would purchase it because it is a great navagation system. The mp3 and picture viewer are just little extras. They work just fine. The unit is very portable and can easily be switched between cars. It can also be used outside the car with its built in rechargable battery. The only complaint I have so far is that the windshield mount, while quite sturdy, still allows the unit to vibrate around a bit. Also, the manual is, as usual with some of these products, lacking in some important details. When mounting the unit, I would suggest you have the bottom of the mounting bracket touching your dashboard to reduce the vibration. This helped quite a bit. Lots and lots of points of interest built into the unit. It is incredibly easy to start using this unit. Take it out of the box and attach the windshild mount and off you go. Highly recommended as a GPS navitagion system. It is the same price as the Magellan 760, but with additional features. While it is more expensive than the Megallan 700, it has numerous additional features including 3D viewing and many more Points of Interest. I think it is worth the extra $$$$ for this.

I bought this unit specifically to navigate around New England during a 10 day vacation. I agree that the display brightness is terrific, the voice queues are great, and the unit is easy to figure out without reference to documentation. The mounting bracket works well and holds fast. While it took several minutes to initialize in Southern California, when I turned the unit on in Boston it immediately updated. It's wonderfull to have all the US (and more) in a handheld, battery operated device with 4.5 GB to spare.

This RoadMate takes some time (10 to 20 seconds) to detect a user course change and seems to get confused occasionally about what direction the vehicle is moving by asking for one U turn and then another to compensate. It annoyingly broke a 100+ mile stretch of I84 into multiple segments with instructions to "keep right" or "keep left" when all one needed to do was stay on the same road. I agree that it makes little sense have a built-in an MP3 player that cannot be used while the system is navigating.

Most annoying were errors in the database. The problem seems to be that there are lots of updated entries -- along with the original entries. The very first place I tried was Legal Sea Foods, which I entered as Legal Seafoods. It gave me one location -- in Florida. When I corrected the spelling, it gave me two addresses for the closest one: One right, one wrong. When I tried Jimmy's of Savin Rock in CT, it gave me two identical street addresses, one in North Haven (wrong) and one in West Haven (right).

I couldn't find any mechanism to return to a listing found in the address book without having to enter all the search data a second time. It would be nice if it queued the last few dozen search results.

I'm a little spoiled by the nav system in my Prius that always knows where the car is and almost instantly updates the route if I deviate from instruction.

On the third day of the trip, the unit hung up and I could never get it to run past the second splash screen despite reseting and even letting the batteries run down over night. I called the manufacturer and was connected to India Tech Support (very friendly, but totally useless). The unit is going back, but I might get another. The jury is out.

I have been doing a lot of research to decide between 760 and 800. It turns out that 800 comes with features that I cannot use while driving, such as MP3 and picture viewer. It does come with battery which I think is good to have.
The main difference that 760 has and 800 doesn't is 760 announce the name of street that you turn into. This is a absolutely must have feature in my view. I bought 760 in Feb, 2006 and have been loving it ever since.

I test drove 3 GPS models. The Garmin Street Pilot C340, Magellan Roadmate 360 and now the Megallen Roadmate 800. I'm pretty satisfied with the 800. My second choice would have been the roadmate 360. I bought this GPS for it's GPS qualities, NOT for the MP3 or Photo viewing feature.

One HUGE difference I noticed in this model is the POI's in one word, amazing! Almost every POI I looked up was in there. The 800's build quality is very nice. The GPS has a nice feel. Buttons are dramatically improved on this model versus the 360.

You would expect that anyway. At $[...] price tag, being top dollar for a GPS of this nature. The only real complaint I have so far with the unit it's self, is that I have to keep the radio off in order to hear the voice commands. I.e. it does not turn up very loud.

The 800 boasts a self adjusting volume control, however my experience is that if you don't leave the volume turned up all the way, you will not be able to hear it. We actually purchased two 800's at the same time. My friend that purchased her's with me does not share that complaint however.

She suggested a hearing aid (grin)

My ears get tested every year and to the best of my knowledge I have normal hearing. My car too is a late model Mercedes, so the road noise is pretty suppressed. The voice commands would be useless in perhaps a large truck and for sure in a convertible.

The internal battery is nice, but it will only last about an hour or so when you're running the GPS portion. I have no idea as to the battery life during MP3 mode. One advantage to the Garman's battery was it's 5 hour plus battery life. You did not have keep the Garmin plugged into a dangling cigarette lighter plug if you were on a short trip.

As for tech support? Pretty bad! Magellan is very difficult to get hold of. I personally feel that Magellan should provide a quicker higher quality level of customer support for Roadmate 800 owners, that are spending top dollar for their GPS

But back to the product, I would recommend this GPS. I found that using the text to voice feature on the Garmin product was novel, but I found myself looking for street signs, instead of the road.

The feature I love with the Magellan is that the screen displays a bar type countdown feature before your next turn. Much like the bar graph you would see on a PC when your uploading files.

The bar starts out bright yellow and turns to black as you approach your turn. You also get a pleasant chime that gives you ample warning that yes! The next intersection is where you are to turn.

I hope this was of some help.

I purchased this primarily for the GPS - not the MP3 or Photo features, so I am not reviewing those. I am upgrading from using my laptop/garmin GPS. This Magellan is great! The setup was simple - I also checked the firmware version and notice there was an upgrade on Magellans website, so I preformed that as well - simple and fast - it fixes a lot of glitches (none that I expierenced). The voice commands are great - and not quite like some reviewers are stating. I have a 2006 Civic Si - which is not the quietest car inside - and I can have my stereo on, sunroof open, traveling about 60mph, and hear all the voice commmands perfectly. I am in the process of ordering a mount fro Arkon to move the unit from my windshild to my center console with the use of an external antenna from Magellan. The windshield mount vibrates quite a bit - even in my 2005 Odyssey, which is a very smooth ride. I was a little nervous when I ordered it because I live in a new neighborhood and my street in not yet on MapQuest, MS Streets, or most of the other very popular mapping softwares - but it IS on the Magellan - and it took me directly to my home the first time I tried it. I would recommend this to ANYONE!!!

The 800 is built tough with a flashy exterior that likes up with blue buttons to make it easy to see at night. It is all the the Hertz Neverlost is, well, almost. Unlike the lesser cousins like the 760, this new 800 gives you a battery, memory slot, and tunes-on-the-go in exchange for no longer supporting the SayWhere text-to-speech technology that reads you the name of the street you are going to turn on! This was a product differentiator for us, and for this reason, and only this reason, we had to return the product. We even went to www.magellangps.com and used their comparison feature. SayWhere wasn't mentioned. Silly us for assuming Magellan would never delete a feature when launching a new top-of-the-line unit. What is Magellan thinking by deleting the one feature that makes sure you don't drive into a mall entrance, a driveway, or the wrong side street at a complex intersection (by reading you the street name so you can be sure you understood the direction)? We are getting the 760 instead, because, really the GPS unit is the best on the market...

I bought this GPS unit for my wife as we live in a bit more rural of an area and it is easy to get lost if you make a wrong turn. I have a Mercedes COMAND GPS system (OEM) and the majority of the roads in my area are not displayed (rather, it just has a blank screen and says "Off Road"). This is not so with the Magellan, with every rural road we come across already in the system. The best feature I think is the Points of Interest. I think it was smart of them to put subcategories in, especially for restaurants (it's easy to find the nearest Seafood, Japenese, Mexican, etc. restaurants with just a push of the button). It also has grocery stores, ATMs programmed in (which the Mercedes unit doesn't). The only upside of my OEM GPS is it has the integrated look in the console and voice prompts use my car speakers rather than the built in speaker of the Magellan. Still, would rather have this in my car anyday.

One of my friends visited my house from Las Vegas and told me that he had Magellan 300 and it was very useful in getting him to the destination. I found a sale price for Magellan 800 and bought it. So far I am very pleased with the purchase.

I was comparing 800 and 760. I was thinking the Text feature and louder voice of 760 would be very nice. But the features like 'Rechargable Battery' and 'MP3 player' functionality are very tempting in 800. I loaded most of my mp3 collection in the unit. It is very handy when you are going through familiar roads or in a long freeway.

When you enter the street number, be sure that it has taken the exact number you have given. Sometimes it will assume a number if it could not find a match. You can verify this by looking at the 'View' button.

It is said that Windscreen mounting is illegal in California and some other states. I still see many drivers using Windscreen mount, but I was a bit reluctant to use it. I ordered the Magellan Roadmate Dash Mount through Amazon. Though the dashboard was not given as compatible with Magellan 800, I could easily use the two upper screws to Mount the 800 and it was very sturdy.

As long as it does not break, I think it is a very good Buy for the money spent.

I love the unit. I purchased the Road Mate 800 with the Li-Ion battery. I didn't plan on using the MP3 or picture viewer features but I decided to buy this model only because it came with a battery. This helps with programming or if you're at a hotel and don't want it plugged in. The kit came with everything you need to get started, wall charger, car charger, suction cup windshield mount, and the unit. I Love it. The only thing is that the lower model (760) will actually say the road name when it's telling you to turn. The 800 model only says turn now or turn ahead, but not turn on rogers street, etc. This is OK as the unit still works great and the street you have to turn on is displayed on the unit before you turn anyway. I performed a flash upgrade when I first got it which was easy and fast. That's about it, I love the model, I've used it over a thousand miles already as I drive a lot. It even finds roads that my friends' brand new truck won't find. i Love it and I'm 100% happy with my purchase!

I received a Magellan Roadmate 800 for Mother's day. It was great fun learning to use it. Two weeks after Mother's Day, I used it for an out of town business trip. It broke in the middle of Charleston at 11 PM, and left me stranded. I called customer service when I got home. Spoke to Doris in India. Very nice, said I would get a new one in 7-10 days. Never got it. Called Doris again. She kept me on the phone for 40 minutes, and checked everything. Apologized and said I would get a new one in 7-10 days. Never got it. Called Doris again. She said I would get a new one in 7-10 days. Never got it. Emailed to Magellan service. No reply. Wrote a long letter to them. No reply. No new GPS either.
Finally I took it back to the store where my husband bought it, explained what happened and they refunded my money. Bought a Tom Tom. I never got the new Magellan, and never heard from them either. It has been 5 months.
Customer service is the worse I have ever encountered. When people ask me what brand to buy, I steer them away from this company. I may have gotten a "lemon" but the company should have taken care of me. Outsourcing customer service to India didn't improve things.