Customer Reviews

Magellan RoadMate 6000T 980874-01 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I have had the Magellan 6000T now for 2 months and I can't imagine traveling without it. I have traveled for 19 years and made more U-turns than I can shake a stick at.

This system has it all... Blue tooth, spoken street names, easy to navigate touch screen, extremely bright screen (automatically darkens at dusk).

This system gives you more heads up about upcoming turns than any other system on the market. For instance, it will let you of a turn two miles ahead, then one mile, then 0.5 mile. Then it has a 0.2 mile yellow bar graph that shrinks as you come to your turn.

I am very glad I got this system with the spoken street names. It gives you that much more information while you are in unfamiliar territory. The street name voice is a different voice from the turn by turn voice. The street name voice has more of an edge which helps you listen easier to the street name.

It has locked up about 4 times (what high tech electronic gadget never locks up) but it was easy to reboot the system.

One of the best features is the traffic alert. I was in Charlotte, NC which I was unfamiliar with driving during rush hour to the other side of town for a meeting. After I left the hotel, it was directing me turn by turn to the Interstate. While sitting at a red light, I happened to notice it flash "I-85 accident" and then it recalculated the route. I couldn't believe it when I got to the interstate, it had brought me to the entrance ramp just ahead of where all three lanes were blocked because of the wreck!!!!! I was very impressed!

It also gives you four options for choosing your route which is twice as many as any other system.

I did a lot of research looking at the Garmin systems and Tom Tom. I printed out at least half a ream of paper of specifications and customer comments. The more I looked at Magellan, the more I realized it was the best value. I'm sure Garmins are good and they will work, but the Magellan 6000T matched their highest priced Nuvi systems feature for feature and was significantly cheaper.

It is easily portable and easily attaches and detaches to the mount. In the rental cars, I can easily mount it on the windshield. I have never had a problem with the suction mount.

On my Chrysler 300 company car, I use the flat disk and mount the system on the dashboard with no problems.

I do not regret my purchase at all.

If you travel, you need to seriously look at getting a portable GPS system. I would strongly recommend the Magellan 6000T.

It will be analogous to life before and after a microwave.

I recently used my new 6000T to find my way around LA/Orange County. I would still be trying to escape from the swirling SoCal freeway labrinth back to the relative simplicity of San Francisco had I travelled without it. When I made the occasional error at multiple-choice freeway interchanges, it guided me back on route. It recalculated my route several times to avoid slow traffic -- very helpful in the LA basin where there are alternative freeway routes between most points and all of the freeways are monitored for traffic incidents and speed.

Some of the particularly useful features:
1. A straightforward, intuitive user interface.
2. Almost instantaneous route recalculation when the driver errs in following instructions or when slow traffic is detected.
3. A multi-mode map display that usually manages to portray complex maneuvers clearly, e.g. a sequence of exits.
4. Repetitive voice prompts that permit full attention to the road when traffic is hectic.
5. Complete redundancy of controls between the touchscreen and the peripheral control buttons -- very useful if the touchscreen becomes disabled (as may occur if you install the anti-glare protective screen available on the Magellan website).

What could be better:
1. The voice prompts seem to stop occasionally for no apparent reason.
2. The verbal and textual descriptions should correspond more closely to the text on freeway interchange and exit signage, particularly at the multiple-choice maneuvers.
3. The map isn't quite current -- recent major changes in San Francisco freeway access are not reflected.

A device like this makes driving complex freeway systems with which one is unfamiliar much safer and more efficient than paper maps studied and memorized in advance and supplemented with navigation notes or Mapquest directions, and the 6000T seems designed to maximize these benefits.

By supporting driver attention to traffic demands rather than navigational difficulties, this is an accessory that can save lives. Make sure your next vehicle has an electronic stability control system, and buy one of these.

Update as of 01/27/11 - I'm still using this GPS and I still like it, but not for much longer, I guess, as Magellan seems to have orphaned it: map updates are no longer available, although traffic subscription renewals are. Makes you wonder about those "lifetime" map and traffic options...

I started with handheld units many years ago, migrated to Streets and Trips and finally decided to get a unit suitable for driving without a co-pilot. My first unit was the garmin nuvi 350 but since it didn't support routes or waypoints I switched to the 6000T. I've been disappointed. The size, quality of the graphics, the voice and general ease of use (ergonomics) are inferior to the nuvi (e.g. moving the map by dragging is effectively impossible and painfully slow even when using the control pad). You need a dedicated (Windows only) program to update the unit since it doesn't emulate a usb mass storage device. Although the screen isn't any larger than the nuvi the unit is enormously larger and heavier. The screen brightness ranges from 100% to say 75%. Good in the daytime but right on the edge of too bright at night. The Bluetooth module finally paired with my phone but won't dial from the screen. The documentation is atrocious but that's typical.

My biggest complaint is the routing. The unit advertises routing with up to 20 waypoints (a multi-point route is called a "trip") but each waypoint is treated like a separate route and the unit stops routing and prompts you whether to proceed at each waypoint. Acceptable if you're stopping for a while but very annoying if you want to use the feature to give the unit hints about places to avoid. Also since it treats each leg of a "trip" separately you don't get an overall time or distance estimate but even though it treats each leg separately you can't set individual routing preferences.

By the way I consider picture viewers and mp3 players a waste of money and resources in a gps unit.

I can get used to the 6000T but for this kind of money one really shouldn't have to get used to something.

I don't really mean for this to sound like a rant but I'm amazed at the difference in perception your expectations will cause. I suppose I'm looking for something like a simplified version of Streets and Trips that costs less than a laptop and doesn't cost $100/year in map updates.

I have had my Magellan 6000T for about two weeks and now wonder why I didn't invest in a GPS Navigation system long ago. I'm glad I did wait as this system not only provides great advance voice notification of an upcoming turn or freeway entrance and which lane you need to be in in order to make your turn, but also provides a doorbell like tone about 50 feet before the turn along with the street names or freeway you are entering. I understand announcing street names is a feature that most units don't have.
I travel a lot around San Diego County making approximately 10 to 15 stops at businesses and residences throughout the day. I just plug in my next address and without even having to refer to my Thomas Guide, the system navigates me to my next location with more than enough warning to negotiate any turns and freeway transitions. It is by far the best tool I have invested in and makes my day so stress free. I no longer have to reach for my Thomas Guide and thumb from page to page to map out my next stop. I punch in the next address and let the 6000T take me to my next destination. I also don't have to drive and refer back to my map book multiple times while driving to locate the next cross street or freeway exit.
This unit provides from 2 mile to .5 mile notification for freeway exits and a bell tone at the point where you should be making the turn. On surface streets the system provides frequent voice prompts with street names and a bell tone at about 50 feet or more before your turn, plenty of time if you are paying attention. Also, should you miss a turn the system immediately recalculates your route and gets you back on track. A totally amazing tool.
The only improvement I would like to see in this system is that when the voice prompt announces your freeway on ramp is that it should give a direction on the freeway you should be expecting to travel. Such as enter I-15 Escondido Freeway north bound or south bound. It just prompts to enter I-15 Escondido Freeway, but to its credit the bell signal prompts a turn within about 50 feet of the on ramp, which is plenty of time to make the turn the system has routed. Again if you are paying attention this will not be a problem. In such case if I don't hear the bell signal I continue on until the bell signal is sounded, that is when I know for sure which direction to drive.
My only negative encounter I have had with the Magellan 6000T is when I called their customer service number for operation instructions the first day I used it. I called three times in an effort to talk to someone who I could understand. Each time I called I reached a different person. I asked each one to please speak slowly with their directions and advice, but to no avail I could not understand them. I found them to be totally useless and aggravating. I read the instruction again and figured out what I was doing wrong.
This unit is quite the stress reliever and well worth its cost, especially from Amazon. Great price.

First some background about me so you can judge how relevant my review is.

I'm male, 38, & travel a decent amount for work. My company rents with Hertz, so I was familiar with the Neverlost/Magellan system already. I just bought the unit before going on vacation to Arizona & decided to try it head-to-head against the "stock" Magellan unit in my Hertz rental.

There were a couple of surprises that I found about this unit compared to the Hertz unit.

1). This unit announces the upcoming street name - sometimes the Neverlost (ver III in this case) did not do that.

2). I could not get the Neverlost to locate Arizona 89 Alternate in Sedona. However, my 6000T found it immediately.

Now - one negative point. On the interstate the unit will pull up a detour hot-spot for you to touch if your speed is significantly below average. However, using the actual detour function itself is spotty & sometimes not very helpful. If you want to exclude a certain road from your route the recalculated route is sometimes rather convoluted & not always even close to being the most efficient way, so be warned.

Other than that - I love it. Anyone know a good size leater case to fit the unit itself (not including mount) in?

i've owned several previous roadmate gps sytems and the 6000T is definitely an improvement over the 700 and 800 series gps units. the startup time for the unit to acquire signal is orders of magnitude faster than the 700/800, which at times could take 10+ minutes. the maps are newer and contain more points of interest, which is to be expected. the directions are great and the voice prompts are mostly useful. the addition of a battery improves the reliability of the system. in the older models, if you stopped at a gas station to fill up the unit would reset when you turned off your car. this is no longer an issue.

to my surprise, however, many ui issues present in the 700/800 series are still present in the 6000T. the most significant is the slow response to buttons and the touchscreen. as an example, when entering a street, i can often punch in 2-3 characters before the any show on the screen, and definitely before the letter is spoken. i find i have to navigate the menus and enter information very slowly, and i think magellan could definitely improve response time by using a faster processor. one annoying side effect is that if you type a sequence of letters quickly, some letters will not be spoken. this causes confusion for me because i occasionally think i forgot to type the letter or letters.

the bluetooth and picture/mp3 playback are bells and whistles that i definitely wouldn't pay a premium for. the bluetooth allows you to use the magellan speaker and mic when talking on your cell phone. picture and mp3 playback is useless as you cannot operate the unit in gps mode while viewing pictures or listening to mp3s. i suggest you buy a video ipod instead =)

the voice prompts work the same way as in older models, with the addition of the ability to read street names. this works okay, except for freeways where it does not read the direction you should travel on the freeway!! this seems like an easy problem to fix, since the direction is present on the screen.

even though this is a newer product, the maps seem to be about 2 years out of date. the street where i live was added for a new housing development about 2 years ago and is not present according to their maps.

this problem has existed since the 700/800 series models. when the unit takes gps information and decides which road you're on, it seems to give higher preference to the road it wants you to drive on as part of the directions it has given. an example of this--a freeway splits and one path bends to the left and the other bends to the right. the directions want me to take the right split but that segment of the freeway is closed so i head to the left. even though these two paths diverge, the gps shows my car as travelling to the right for about 5-6 seconds until it corrects itself. the end result is that it takes a lot longer before the gps realizes you are deviating from the route it suggested. also, in some cases, you must manually re-route once you've deviated from the suggested path. i have yet to determine the circumstances under which this occurs, but i find it to be quite frustrating.

finally, you must be extremely patient with their technical support. unfortunately, this is one aspect of magellan products that has yet to see improvement. if you contact support via email, you'll likely get a response asking you to call technical support leaving you to wonder why they even accept support inquiries via email. their phone support is outsourced (no big surprise there), but what is frustrating is that magellan does not provide this company with any way to access account information. do not be surprised if a phone support rep asks you for your magellan login and password, as it is the only way for them to obtain information about your gps unit and subscriptions for traffic service. at times, it can also be difficult to understand the support reps but i found they were extremely patient with me even though i had to ask them to repeat information several times.

all that being said, it is a great product and would be even better if magellan would address some of the issues mentioned above and also by other users that have posted reviews.

We bought a Magellan 6000t and it started locking up right away. We had to reset every day loosing all info. Called Magellan after 30 days they won't send me a new one or return money. It locked up 10 times on the way to Florida and when it was working the touch screen would stop working. Tried to take me down countless oneway streets in Tampa. The worst electronic product and support of any product/company I have ever experienced. Wish I had bought a Garmin. I have two Garmin products on my boat and they have preformed flawlessly for years.

Since no one has designed and built the perfect GPS, you have to decide what features YOU really want and then go get the unit that most closely matches your preferences for the money you are willing to spend. For me, the Magellan 6000T is the best combination of features and price. What did I consider to be essential features?

1) A viewable display that gives me all the information I want.

I like how the Magellan displays all the key information for me. I like the satellite signal status in the upper right corner. I like the current road name displayed on top. I like the next road name displayed on the bottom. I like the distance to next turn on the bottom left. I like the time to destination on the bottom (some would prefer the display to show the actual time you will arrive, rather than the hours and minutes to arrival. In my mind, if you can't do the math, you shouldn't be driving...). I like the distance to destination on the bottom right. I like the easy toggle between 2D and 3D display (I leave it on 2D because it's easier to see the POI icons, and because maps are 2D and I'm used to looking at those) All of these are laid out logically to maximize screen use without seeming cluttered.

2. I like the redundant buttons in addition to the touchscreen.

Yes, you WILL accidentally press the Zoom buttons on top. It's just a matter of time. However, I prefer to keep the possible smudges off the screen and use the buttons, especially at night.

3. I like the ability to enter multiple destinations and have the unit optimize the trip.

For me, entering multiple destinations, especially from the address book, is easier than entering "waypoints" and having to start over again if you change your mind regarding a destination.

4. I like the Locate and Custom POI features.

5. I like the auto-dimming display and auto volume adjust at high speed features.

That said, there are some things that are annoying about the unit:

a. Magellan's tech support is in a sad state right now. Hopefully, now that a new owner has purchased the brand, they can improve in this area.

b. The menus are not as intuitive as they could be. The graphic icons could use some accompanying text to help describe what their function is in some cases.

c. The text-to-speech is good, but could be better (not too many choices available, no way to add your own).

d. It takes 10 seconds of holding the power button to activate the unit. I can understand wanting to make sure the unit is not turned off accidentally during use, but c'mon...

e. It takes 30-60 seconds to acquire your location and lock on to satellites from a cold start. It would be nice to be able to plug the unit into the cradle, start the car, program your destination and go without having to wait so long.

f. I wish it could learn a user's preferences. For example, when traveling from the SF Bay Area to Sacramento or Reno, when routing by shortest time it insists on taking me over 1 or 2 bridges (at $4 a pop). I'd rather drive east to I5 then head north to avoid the tolls. When I "override" the unit's route it insists on me taking a couple of exits to make a u-turn before it realizes I'm going my own way and recalculates the route. I guess toll roads are not the same thing to the unit as bridge tolls.

g. I wish we could update the maps more frequently. 3rd quarter 2005 Navteq data is good, but the maps and POI data should be no more than 6 months old. Where are the updates??

h. I really wish I could integrate my custom POIs into the main POI database. From what I can tell, only one database can be active at a time.

All in all, this unit works well for me. I like to fiddle with gadgets, so I don't mind reading a manual and having to take 3 or 4 steps to perform some tasks. This unit is probably not for the novice user. If you want to navigate somewhere in the fewest clicks possible, look at Garmin. Since I don't have the cash to buy a $2000 after-market unit, this gizmo does a great job for me. It got me to Tahoe and San Diego flawlessly and made the trip more interesting. I also felt confident that anytime I was in unfamiliar territory I could find my way out with confidence. Isn't that what you buy a GPS for?

I really like this unit. It's my first and only GPS, and already it has taken away a lot of the stress of a long cross-country drive. Its functionality is very good, and it even anticipates when you might take the wrong side when approaching a fork in the road and warns you not to, advising that you bear to the correct side. It has very detailed, accurate information, even on small lanes inside a shopping center, which has saved me a lot of time getting oriented on an unfamiliar location. I have not experienced any of the lockups or voice interruptions that others posting here reported.

Some areas for improvement: I do not find the user interface particularly intuitive, kind of odd for a unit of this price and after years of experience designing GPS systems. You can't operate it effectively right out of the box, but have to study the manual and experiment with the interface a lot to learn it. And it's ridiculous for there not to be a printed manual with the product. It also failed to warn me about a long traffic jam on one of the main roads I commute on every day (George Washington Memorial Parkway between the Capital Beltway I-495 and the bridges to Washington DC, and this could be a show-stopper -- it was one of the reasons I bought a GPS. I'm just starting to understand that the traffic alert system is not monolithic but there are different services and sources that are hooked into different GPS products. An executive at one of the other sources told me that his service would have caught that traffic problem while the one connected to this Magellan unit did not. It might still be a show-stopper; if I can't get resolution on this I might exchange it for a different brand product that does get me the information I need. It could also be that my system is not configured properly, although it does indicate that the traffic system is receiving a strong signal.

In the process of setting it up and registering the product on the Magellan web site, their site was down, forcing me to register it offline with the intervention of the Magellan support staff. I found this experience mixed. It took several iterations to get it going. And the product serial number stamped on the back of the unit turned out not to be in their data base and it was different from the serial number in the unit's firmware; I had to painfully retrieve that number, read it to the Magellan technical support person, and get it registered. All of this took up a lot more time and effort than I was interested in devoting. I still don't know if the traffic alerting function is working properly. It should not be this challenging.

I've also found that the mounting options are making it difficult to mount the unit in a way that I need, although I do not necessarily fault the product for this. I drive a Honda Odyssey minivan, and I wear bifocals. The windshield mount works well enough, but since the windshield of a mini-van is farther from the driver's face than in a regular car, the unit is too far from my eyes to read clearly using my bifocals, and too close to read clearly using the upper lenses in my glasses. I found myself tilting my body forward and tilting my head up to read the thing. Extensive searching on the Internet has not yielded a windshield suction mounted gooseneck long enough to bring the unit within range of my bifocals. The only location that could be feasible for me is to mount it on top of the steering column, and I haven't found a mounting bracket so far that can do this, so I have to take it to the installation department at Best Buy to see if they can do it. Even if successful, this will block my view of the speedometer.

Also Amazon's handling of the delivery had a succession of severe but avoidable faults, and as a result the unit got to me almost a week after I originally put the order in with a next-day delivery, too late to get comfortable with it prior to departing on a long trip in the car. I've bought a lot of items from Amazon and was pleased with their delivery process and its performance, but this was one of those delivery nightmares where everything went wrong for me. Amazon was not particularly helpful in correcting their own mistakes or offering suitable compensation for my trouble and aggravation.

I purchased this unit when it first became available. I was a little disappointed to learn the map loaded into the unit was already 1 year out of date (3rd Q of 2005). Overall, the unit performs well and is relatively easy to use. The volume is not bad, but if you have a noisier car, the road noise could easily drown out the sound. My chief complaint is the bluetooth functionality. My first unit would not initialize the bluetooth function after the unit restarted from sleep mode probably about 75% of the time. I would have to put it back in sleep mode and restart. That worked about 50% of the the time (sometimes it would take more than 1 try). If that didn't work, I would have to completely reboot the unit and that would take a few minutes to restart. Tech support was unaware of this issue and replaced my unit. The first replacement lasted 24 hours and the speaker failed. The second replacement unit was DOA. The third replacement seems to work better with the bluetooth starting up about 90% of the time. The other 10% requires putting the unit in sleep or standby mode and then restarting. That usually works without having to reboot. My main reason for choosing a bluetooth capable GPS was to use this as a speakerphone in the car. The sound quality is not great (better hearing the other person than they can hear me through the mic). Perhaps it is my phone since my model is reported on thier tech support site as having volume issues with the GPS unit. I can say that the tech support was very good in working through the problems with all of the replacement units. Overall, I like this unit and it has some great features. I have not used other GPS units, but was sold on Magellan after renting a car from Hertz that was equipped with one. I looked at the Nuvi, but for the money, this is a better deal, but if you really plan on using the Bluetooth part, you may want to do more comparisons.