Customer Reviews

Magellan Roadmate 2200T GPS System

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Let's start: I have had the Magellan 700 for about 2 years, so I'am very familiar with GPS units and it's quirks. Have taken the 700 on many trips including Hawaii, California, Wisconsin, Las Vegas Nevada, Indiana, IL. The heavy gadget worked awesome for those 2 years and still does. It gave us the freedom to drive in any city, ANYWHERE, with the uptmost confidence. So when these smaller units went down in price I figure why not. I purchased both at the same time, and tested each in the car together, as well as, separately. I figured I had ample time to return one or the other.

The Break Down Pros and Cons of each:

Garmin NUVI 350
PROS
1) Small, light weight, thin. Can fit into wife's tinest purse or suit jacket. Smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Good for night out... don't want to leave in car when you valet.
2) Graphics are much nicer and more detailed. 3D view is very clear.
3) POI listing is very comprehensive.
4) Interface is simple, easy input.
5) Windsheild bracket is small also.
6) Says street names and directions in complete sentences. Ex. turn left on north clark ave. NOT "turn left in 1 mile - North Clark ave"
7) Very fast signal pick up, EVEN indoors. Under 1 min out of the box.
8) Re-route is fast if you miss a street.

Cons:
1) Too small for elderly people to manipulate easily (my parents are 70 years old)

2) No initial routing choices - it defaults to shortest time which may take you on highways. My wife hates driving on highways if possible. Excluding highways/tollways or other roadway types is a separate menu as a preference. Can not exclude specific streets from route. If it can I couldn't figure it out.

3) Requires a more tech saavy person to take advantage of it's "extra" features.

4) Routing queues are quick and does NOT give you ample time to turn sometimes, esp. if you have to lane change in faster traffic. The Nuvi will say your next manuver but if you look at the screen there is no indication which way unless it's close enough to show on the map. EX: If you had to turn right in 5 miles, it tells you this, BUT it might not show that on the screen yet until you get close enough (about 1 mile away). This is not a problem, but it does make you check the screen often if you didn't pay attention to the vocal instruction. I could probably get used to this, BUT imagine my wife or 70 year old parents on the highway trying to lane change to the left or right. You have to keep listening to the vocal queues, I don't want to do this because driving is more visual activity than anything else and I don't want to stop talking to my passengers when critical directions are being said. This IS my BIGGEST GRIPE. If you don't understand what I mean just take a look at the screen shot of each on Amazon. Are you looking at them? Ok...

The Nuvi white arrow will not show until youre close... it says 200m, but if you were 3 miles away it won't show that arrow. If you missed what it said because your baby was crying in the back YOU will have no idea if your next move will be right,left or straight until your closer, sometimes too close..forcing you to cut over faster than you want to or miss the turn all together. It also only says the the directions twice before the manuver. Once when your close, then once when you turn.

The Magellan 2200T has that yellow arrow on the green background in the bottom left hand corner, that is there no matter if your 10 miles or 0.1 miles away. If you missed the vocal instruction, you look at the screen once and you will know you need to turn right or left or straight or whatever in x amount of miles. And it will continously remind you, and it will ding. Plenty of times it reminds you at to 'turn left in 2 miles, turn left in 1 mile and then it will say "approaching left turn in 0.2 miles" and then you know it's time to turn.

5) The voice is more on the digitized-robot like side than human.
6) Tends to be more geared to a more tech saavy generation x'er than my parents.
7) the 2D view is not as good as the 3d view.

The Magellan 2200T - The unit I eventually kept.

Pros:
1) Simple to use, almost made for total non-tech users.

2) Routing is simple, easy to understand with ample visual queues and vocal queues with a two toned dings. The voice is more life-like than Garmin. You can mute this unit if you had to and still tell all you need to know from the screen in plenty of time to make your move. Also it's eay to tell what street your ON and what street youre going to.

3) Initial 4 routing choices: Shortest time, Shortest distance, most use of freeways and LEAST use of freeways.

4) When slowed down in traffic on a highway <15mph it will pop an icon on the screen which will re-route you automatically around the traffic, if you choose to. All you have to do is touch the pop-up icon.

5) 2D view is superb, it's like looking at regular map but moving an icon of your car (yellow triangle) on it. This was great for my parents who just couldn't get used to a 3d map. I hate 3D maps as well, it distorts the perception of distance. The 3d map is much like looking at something on the horizon, you can't tell how far it really is. If you look down at something from a 2D perspective it's must easier to tell. The unit defaults to a 3D map, so you have to manually switch it the 2D map option with Split-Screen TrueView which makes it even easier to tell when you turn and where to turn. The split screen is only aviable on 2D map options and only pops when the turn is approaching. Thereafter, the map returns to a full screen.

6) Signal acquistion is much faster than it's older cousins ex. roadmate 700, 800. This unit though not as fast as Garmin in signal pickup, but picked up a signal in about 2 minutes out of the box, <1 min after that EVEN indooors! There's is a quick way to tell if it's actively trying to pick up signals too, by touching a satellite icon on the top right of screen.

7) Easy to exclude a particular street from your route. I did not know how to do this on the Nuvi if it could be done at all???

CONS:

1) It's not as small or thin as the NUVI, it's about the size of older palm pilot or a man's overstuffed wallet. It's a little heavier too.

2) The bracket is not small. But this is ok for my folks who had a harder time with the smaller bracket.

3) I have heard Magellan customer service is not the best out there. I have had no issues with the 2200T OR my older Magellan roadmate 700. But it does take a long time to speak to someone.

4) Forget the POI, it's old and not updated. It's practically useless its seems to be ONLY useful in finding airports and other major landmarks. But try to find the nearest fast food place, and you may not have the closest one, or get there and it's non-extistant.

5) Re-route is not as fast as Garmin, although it is quicker now than in it's older models.

All in all it came down to the routing, and how easy it was for my wife and parents to use. The other junk like MP3 player and photo viewer I don't care about because that isn't what I bought it for. IN the end the routing instructions and the info at a glance on the screen did it for me. I wanted so much to like the NUVI, because it was small, cool and more "hip", but the better navigational tool was the Magellan and it is what I would feel more at ease with on vacation where I have NO clue where anything is. Think about it, your in a rental car, a new city, and you have to pay attention to your safe driving and your family than your GPS instrcutions. Ask yourself if that's important to you, then decide. GPS units are NOT perfect or accurate 100% of the time. I don't care what brand it is. It is a tool to help guide you, any one of these units WILL get you there eventually, and it will surely get you back home. The Magellan requires a less tech saavy individual than the NUVI. I could probably use both, but my wife, or my 70 year old parents would much rather have the 2200T.

Overview
The Magellan 2200T is a compact model in the Roadmate series. If you are familiar with other Roadmate models you will instantly be at home with the primary color theme with boxy icons of the GUI. Although very similar in look, the 2200 has many subtle GUI changes from earlier models (like the 300 series) that enhance performance. It features a 3.5 inch touch screen that controls most functions. Like other Roadmates, the screen is very bright giving it an advantage over other brands in bright sunlight. Other unique properties include the fact that it is weather resistant and has an exceptionally long battery life (8 hour is listed on the box). These later facts could make it practical to use out of the car.

Routing
The reason that anyone buys a GPS unit is routing. You put in an address and the unit guides you there. Magellan's big break into the US market was by putting "Never Lost" systems into Hertz rentals, so it had to develop a system that could be used by someone without reading a 100 page manual. These characteristics have carried through to their consumer products.

Imputing an address is very simple and improved from the earlier 300 series. With the older series (which I have) I often felt that adding an address was like playing Sudoku. Which combination of letters would give me the address that I knew was inside the unit? The 2200T has some simple changes (like asking for a city first) that has made this process much easier and more efficient. For instance, I no longer have to dig through a dozen "River Roads" to find the right one. In conclusion: entering addresses is a snap!

Magellans always ask your route preference (shortest time, most use of expressways, least use of expressways, etc.) every time you ask it to plot a route. I never realize what a huge advantage this was until I used units from other brands which typically require you to change routing methods by digging around in menus. For instance, if you are traveling through a big city during rush hour you may want to avoid an expressway (which is routed when you pick "shortest time").

Roadmates are very good at giving your multiple, clear, auditory and visual indicators of your next maneuver. I have used other units (the Mio brand) where I couldn't even figure out what the maneuver icon was telling me (it looked like a letter from the Klingon alphabet). This has never happened using Magellan units (and I have used them for years). Roadmates will also tell you what side of the street your address is on, surprisingly, this is not a universal practice among all brands.

The 2200T has "text-to-speech" or TTS. This means that the unit will say something like: "Turn right in 500 feet, Washington Street" instead of "Turn right in 500 feet." Professional reviewers think TTS is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Personally, I think that it is nice, but the old audio cues worked fine too. Anyway, the 2200 has this feature.

In addition you get a number of routing enhancements in the 2200T. It is easy to exclude a part of a calculated route (perhaps you know the road is under construction). The 2200T will also sense and then signal you when you are traveling too slowly on an expressway. By pressing a button or two the unit will "detour" you off that expressway for the number of miles you prefer. The unit will also allow you to plan a trip that has up to 20 different destinations and it will then route you between those destinations. This feature could be useful for a delivery driver who needs to drop off at multiple sites.

Magellan units have a little function called "locate." By pressing a button the unit gives you your location, simple, but really useful. On an expressway it will tell you the next exit. On a rural road it lets you know what town (township) you are in. It will also approximate an actual address. Great if you need roadside assistance!

I thought that all of the Roadmates used the same routing engine but the 2200T seems calculate things a bit differently. When choosing "least use of highways" other units tend to go for the major streets where the 2200T will sometimes pick smaller (but perfectly acceptable) streets. This is more to my preference. The 2200T will get you where you want to go.

Points of Interest (POIs)
Routing is the most important function of a GPS unit, but POIs are important too. Combining the POI database with GPS capabilities can tell you (for instance) where the closest gas station is.

Roadmates not only give you the distance to a POI but also the direction. It may be easier to go to a grocery store 20 miles ahead than to backtrack 10 miles behind. Surprisingly not all brands of GPS units give you this directional information (they just give distance).

The 2200T has a relatively small POI data base of 1.5 million. This will give you access to core POIs (gas stations, hotels, restaurants, ATMs, car services) and quite a few other categories (grocery stores, shopping malls, police stations, schools and many others). Still, at this small size categories that could be useful to travelers are missing (like campgrounds, pharmacies and cinemas).

All POI data bases (and I have used many) are incomplete and inaccurate. With that said, they are still useful. I tested the 2200T by searching various categories at my home location. Generally I found that it did list most (but not all) gas stations, restaurants and the like. Unfortunately, I found that the data base also had a lot of old data in it. When looking under grocery stores it listed one that had closed 15 years earlier. A major shopping mall had changed its name at least 5 years ago, but it was listed under the old name. I name searched for "Target" and it said that the closes one was in a different state despite the fact that I have two of them less than 10 minutes away from my house.

The 2200T has a category called "Exit POIs" which I have not seen in other brands. This is a very useful and clever feature. When you are traveling on an expressway it will search for core POIs and list them per exit(s). For instance it may say that the next exit is 20 miles ahead and there are gas stations and restaurants close to that exit. Touch the appropriate icon and you will get (for instance) the names of the restaurants.

You can also add custom POIs to the 2200T using an easy to use (and provided) program from Magellan. Using this program not only allows you to make your own POI data bases but to also convert the many that are available on the internet. In this way you can beef up your built-in POIs. There seems to be an endless supply of POI data bases that range from Target store locations to drive-in theater locations. The PC software has several data fields, but only the "name" field shows up on the GPS unit. This is unfortunate as there is space for at least one other data field which could provide additional info like a phone number. A simple firmware update could easily fix this problem. You can also set alarms to custom data bases. For instance, an alarm could sound when you enter a school speed zone.

Fluff and Stuff
GPS units are basically little computers and like any computer they are running an OS under the GPS program. This fact makes it easy (and cheap) to add little "value added" applets that may make a unit seem more desirable.

The 2200T features a basic MP3 player and a photo viewer. Personally, I can't see using my GPS unit to look at photos or listen to MP3s.

The 2200T is also "traffic upgradeable" which is a cool idea "in concept." You can buy a traffic receiver for the 2200T (not cheap) and it will send data to your unit. It will then alert you to bad traffic conditions and help you plan an alternative route around it. It is a great idea that is not quite ready for prime time. Only about 50 major cities have these traffic broadcasts and only on major highways. The function may be great if you do a lot of center city driving but it is certainly not very useful in the suburbs (unless you constantly drive into the center city) or outside these major markets. In addition, you have to pay a yearly subscription fee. At this point in time a good old traffic report on the radio serves much the same purpose and it is FREE.

The 2200T can be upgraded to also be used outside the car (adding topo maps). It then become a multi-purpose unit for both car navigation and outdoor activities like hiking. The problem is, I can't find the "upgrade" software anywhere, including the Magellan web site. If is was reasonably priced the upgrade may be a nice bonus. However, the serious adventurer would probably opt for a dedicated outdoor GPS device which would offer more specific features and a smaller size.

In conclusion: The 2200T is a basic GPS unit with some added features. It (like other Roadmates) does a fantastic job at routing to destinations. It is very easy to use and includes many convenience features not found on some other competitors (always asking for routing choices, telling you what side of the street an address is on, exit POIs, etc). Although still useful, it is a shame that it has a limited and aging POI data base. This is partially remedied by the ability to add custom data bases but again hampered by the inability to view a second data field on the unit (for data like a phone number). Other add-ons, like the traffic receiver, may be desirable to subgroups of users. You can now get the 2200T as a refurb for about $200. At this price point it is a great value and recommended.

This was a refurbished product, but, in fine condition and have used it in another state and works fine. Don't like the idea that it does not come with a wall charger as it should, but, overall I like it very much.