Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After first purchasing a Garmin, returning it and then purchasing this Magellan, I am finally PO’d enough to write an Amazon review. My Magellan GPS died three weeks after receiving it – the Magellan logo came up but, after booting up, the screen turned white with gray stripes. Thankfully, it died three rather than five weeks after receiving it. Aside from this, here are my observations about this Magellan, my previous Magellan, and my two Garmin experiences. (Spoiler alert: It is a crying shame that no one makes a passable GPS at this point in time). Previously, I had a Magellan and a Garmin, both about six years old. I vastly preferred the Magellan for two reasons. First, the Magellan had a much smarter address input program. I was prompted to enter the city first. The Magellan remembers the cities that I had used, so I only had to type in one or two letters before the correct option popped up. Once the city was selected, the program narrowed down the streets to those in the entered city, so I only had to type a couple of letters of the street name before the correct street name option popped up. Similarly for the street address number. Thus, I could enter the entire address with only a few keystrokes. The Garmin, on the other hand, required the city, the street name and the street number to be largely typed out. Since these screens are not easy to type on, it was far too arduous to enter the addresses on the Garmin. So right there, the Garmin was a non-starter. Secondly, the Garmin did not accurately track the distance to a given turn. It was habitually 400 to 150 feet short, depending on how fast I was driving. Furthermore, there is no ping or other noise to indicate the turn. This caused me to miss turns. Both my previous Magellan and the new, now dead Magellan were spot on in this regard, with a ping sounding immediately before the turn. When I lost my beloved old Magellan recently, I decided to try a Garmin, since it had much better Amazon user reviews and I assumed that Garmin would have made improvements in the intervening years in terms of address input programming and accuracy of turns. Sadly, I was disappointed in this regard. The Garmin still failed to provide a usable address input system and it was still inaccurate at indicating the distance to the turn and still failed to indicate the precise time of turn with a ping. So I returned the Garmin and bought this new Magellan. It was unfortunate that Garmin had not made the needed improvements in these two critical areas, since it had many positive features when compared with the Magellan. The build quality was far, far better than that of the new Magellan. The sound was better, and the maps were more up to date and accurate. For example, the new, now dead Magellan instructed me to “turn at the gas station” at the corner of the block that I live on. Now, when I bought my house in l989, someone in the neighborhood mentioned to me that once, long ago, there had been a gas station at the corner, but there sure as heck hasn’t been a gas station on that corner for 26 years at the very least. And that wasn’t the only long-defunct gas station landmark referred to by the vibrating, grating voice of the Magellan. The Magellan hadn’t heard about the local Home Depot which the six year old Garmin had listed in its points of interest. The new, now dead Magellan had a far worse build quality than my old Magellan or the Garmins. For example, the speakers in the new Magellan sounded as if they were blown – they had a horrible, tinny vibration. On top of that, the computer voice was harsh and unpleasant. Handling it, I got the impression that it might not last long, and it didn’t. In summary, six year old Magellan RoadMate 1470 that I bought from Amazon was a fine, sturdy, well built GPS that excelled in the two essential functions – it was quick and easy to enter addresses and it called the turns with accuracy and sounded a distinctive “ping” always a just a few feet before the turn. Neither the old nor the new Garmin performed these essential functions adequately. But tragically, the build quality of the new Magellan was far inferior, the speakers sounded blown, and it died after three weeks. Since I need a GPS, I will reluctantly try another, cheaper, stop-gap Magellan model and hope for the best, because of the smart address input program and the accurate turns. Hopefully, both companies will get their acts together soon.