Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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199 of 201 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Crossover crosses over pretty well, June 26, 2007
One the whole, I like my M. Crossover. Generally speaking, it does everything I need it for in regard to GPS. I do not use mine for the audio or visual playback and do not care about those functions. To date, I have done nothing with the computer software either and cannot vouch for that aspect.
The best features to me were in having a GPS unit that I could use to plot courses in the car and yet have a GPS that would work well for hiking. I have driven all over north Texas with the unit and had it mark my travels in both the road mode and outdoor (hiking/contour map) mode. I have not used it in the Marine mode. With just a few exceptions, it has had all the roads I have been on. The exceptions were a couple of very small roads in the middle of nowhere and roads in a brand new development. No surprise. Strangely, it had some dirt roads that I would not have expected. So that was really handy.
In the outdoor mode, I have plotted various key points and had it track my progress, both while driving and while hiking. It has done this all relatively well.
Before I go further, let me say that if I lost this unit, I would not hesitate in getting another. However, it is not a perfect unit and has some shortcomings that are a bit of a bother, but not fatal at all. It has been my experience that all GPS units seem to have various shortcomings, often varying depending on the type of intended use of the unit. I do think the Crossover, with its shortcomings, does enough of the cross over functions to cover my needs sufficiently well and I do not currently see any other units on the market that match it in such versatility.
I have run the unit on battery (most of the time) and while charging in the car. I have charged it with the 120v outlet charger as well. They promise 8 hours of run time and so far I have run as much as 6 on full screen brightness and not run out of power. The 8 hour estimate seems good.
On my recreational property, I have plotted the locations of the property corners, gates, and other specific locations. Subsequent return trips have the show very good match between my previous plots and locations, to just a few feet, well within the unit's specifications. It performs consistently well in this regard, as it should.
The shortcomings...
In the 150+ hours of use with probably 80 or 90 start-ups, I have had it fail to properly boot 4 times. This necessitated the use of the reset switch on the side and after resetting, the unit booted fine.
The green rubber ring around the unit is to help absorb shock if dropped and it probably does help to some extent (I have dropped it once). However, it is prone to slip off when carried in a pocket or pack during periods of lots of motion and the grippy aspect of the rubber can make it hard to extract the unit from a snug pocket if one wants the rubber ring remaining on the unit.
The on screen controls vary with the mode that it is in and as such, the features I like in one mode are not in the same place in the other mode and that can be a bit annoying if you go between modes on a regular basis. This is especially true of the brightness function that is onscreen on the map page in the outdoor mode but not in the car mode.
You can't plot points in the car mode, but if you are in the car mode, the map does not show the icons for gas/food etc. that it does in the outdoor mode. That seemed a bit counter-intuitive.
I have medium-sized guy fingers and sometimes find that I have not been able to precisely press an onscreen button properly. Maybe I need more practice or smaller fingers.
Even on the brightest setting and while out in the sunlight, it can be hard to see the image on the screen. As long as sun is not shining directly on the screen in the car, it does well enough.
As with all GPS units I have used or experienced in the past, letting the GPS decide your route from point A to B should not mean that the traveler should blindly accept the route as the best option, even with the various choices given (fastest, shortest, most use of freeways, etc.). It will get you from point A to B, but what it asserts is the best route may actually be much less than optimal.
I don't know of any other way to charge the unit other than with the accessories provided. You can't take the unit on a 2 day hike and use it all the time without running down the battery and you can't change out the battery. It would be nice if there was a separate battery pack that could be jacked in or a solar charger. Otherwise, the unit is somewhat limited to either sporadic use on multi-day hikes or day hiking because of the battery limitation.
Lastly, while it can track something like 14 satellites, it can lose track of them as well. While hiking in Big Bend with the mountains, signals came and went a lot. It was a bit annoying. No doubt this will happen with other units as well, but the access to 14 didn't seem to make it keep track any more often or continually than with other GPS units I have used.
As I noted above, I would buy this unit again if I had to replace the current unit. I harped on the shortcomings because if you have read Magellan's promo for the Crossover, then you know what it can do and it has been my experience that it pretty well does what is claimed. I only point out the shortcomings such that other potential buyers can make a better informed decision.
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79 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It gets me there... but..., March 6, 2007
It has gotten me to where I wanted or needed to go. That said, however, I've had one main difficulty. It has locked up on me several times now. This has happened when I was programming the unit, and/or when I had just turned on the unit. It has not locked up on me during a trip. I turned the unit off and then back on, only for it to do it again and again. I discovered that you have to move the reset switch to off, and then back to on. That seems to do it. If you were actively tracking something (using the outdoor topo features) at the time that it locked up, you will lose your trip information (speed, length of trip, time of trip). Of course, having a brand new unit lock up is not acceptable. When it doesn't lock up, it gets me to my destination. If you drive off the course it tells you 'calculating route' almost immediately and tells you what to do next. POI's (points of interest): I don't know where they get the data for these, but some of it is really old. The first place I told it to find me was my local gas stations. The first one on the list is one that's been closed and long gone for a minimum of 10 years. A brewpub it took me to had changed owners and names over a year-and-a-half ago, although it got me to the address where it was!
This is my first GPS and it's 'fun'. And, it's very intuitive. I was able to figure out most everything without having to get to reading or checking out the manual. That's really good in my book, because I'm a 'manual reader'. The voice is female and pretty easy to hear (vehicle navigation only has the voice). It has a headphones jack which I connected to the 'aux in' of my audio system in the car, and so get the voice through the car speakers.
I still much prefer printed maps to a GPS. But, there's a lot to be said for a device that's your navigator, when you are driving somewhere alone. If it didn't have the locking up problem, I'd rate it 4 stars. And, if the POI's were more current (I don't know if they ever even upgrade/revise these), I'd rate it 5 stars.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally Just What I wanted, March 25, 2007
I've had a magellan map 330 for forever, and I wanted a color screen, a gps that stayed on the road (not 100 feet or more off the road)and annouced directions. I've used the magellans in rental cars, and was happy with their capabilty. The crossver meets my expectations, and its great to have all the maps as part of the cost. I am planning to buy the enhanced topo maps, because I use the unit for hiking as well. About 8 hours of battery time. My only issue is why do I need a gps to play music or show pictures. Magellan stick to what you know.
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