GadGets

Very good GPS for geting you from point A to B. Great price. Fast shipping.
Rating: 4 / 5

This GPS is great and the Amazon price was unbeatable. It also gives names of hotels and restaurants at upcoming exits. Very user friendly. I would definitely recommend.
Rating: 5 / 5

This is my fifth GPS unit and by far my favorite. I’ve owned a Mio {which I liked), a Garmin (which I hated) a Tom Tom (which was just okay) and a Magellan 4250 (which was an elegant but had minor flaws). I gave that one to my son who was going off to college.

Of them all, the Magellan was my favorite so I endeavored to buy another one. This one had all the features I was looking for and offered the free travel alerts (which was the deal maker). By the way, for those who complain about the miniscule advertising (only when using the service)…that’s what pays for the service folks. You can always swallow your self righteous indignation and pay a monthly subscription fee or pay twice as much for another unit. Anyway pluses are a very fast and robust signal capturing and keeping capability (only tunnels defeat it), a bright and complete map, very loud speaker (I’ll get to that later), excellent POI’s, the free traffic alerts (which have saved me many hours of cursing, complaining and frustration), lane assist (a godsend when traveling through NYC), chimes that announce turns, AAA and it by far plans the best routes of any receiver. It gets you there faster and more efficiently than any I’ve experienced. My daughter goes to college in New York and I’ve visited her frequently for three years (I live in Massaachusetts). and the 1445T gets you there 15 minutes faster than any of the others. It also has the features you should expect…announces street names, a bright screen, good looks, automatic day/night settings, compact and effective windshield mounting bracket, intuitive controls, etc.

A couple niggling complaints…a very loud speaker, but at it’s highest level, the speaker gets overloaded and the words distort a bit, although you can still understand them. But it’s really too loud at that setting and there’s no distortion at the next lower setting. Also all of the information you need (MPH, ETA, direction, time of day, miles remaining) and some you don’t (elevation??) are available, but you have to scroll through them to get to the one you want. I’ve seen better displays, but this unit has all of the important bases covered brilliantly. A solid five stars.

Rating: 5 / 5

Likes:

1. Lane assist

2. Map works fine. Greater LA and San Diego.

Don’t like:

Speaker. The sound is rather muffled. My previous Garmin uses better speaker.

Don’t use much:

Traffic link, only used once, it works but don’t use it again.

Conclusion:

Direction/Map works. I think this is the most important in buying GPS, right?

I’d like to give it 4 stars instead of 5 because of the speaker. But after awhile I got used to the speaker. Although I still think whoever decides on putting that speaker should be transferred to other department..haha..
Rating: 5 / 5

I purchased the Magellan 1445T to replace a Garmin 265wt The Garmin turned out to be a very disappointing purchase. It failed to find the first address entry and it also was not able to display the streets immediately surrounding this address either. Both of these actions, it turned out, were available on my old 2007 TomTom One with original maps

In addition, the Garmin selected torturous routes between Seattle and my house on Whidbey Island. It also ignored my request for freeway use. This behavior just finally drove me crazy. Especially since my old TomTom One managed this trip without any issues and useful freeway lane assistance. I have to say, however, that the display and menu structure on the Garmin is the best I have yet seen and used on a GPS.

The Magellan 1445T had a decent display, a deep complicated but very useful menu structure, and outstanding POI’s. Unfortunately, the Magellan display was always behind the actual position of the car by 60 to 120 feet, even when stopped. Magellan’s support was very good, their attitude was always constructive, timely and helpful.

Magellan sent me a replacement unit which improved on the above lag issue. But, after updating the unit with new maps and firmware, the display was now running one to three seconds behind actual position. Three seconds behind on the Freeways at 65 mph is bad news and lane assistance was made useless. I suspect the processor in this model just wasn’t up to handling the new maps along with traffic data.

While I really liked much about the displays and features offered by both the Garmin and Magellan, the units both failed in handling the basics: current maps, reasonable routing, and reliable freeway lane assistance. This trade off between features and GPS’s basic function seem to be reported way to often in GPS reviews.

Too bad that I sold my old 2006 model TomTom One with its small and only fair display, no features to speak off, but good maps, great routing, and dependable lane assistance. Maybe the next one will work!

I’ve ordered a TomTom XL 335TM hoping that the basics don’t come in second on this model? The reviews do look good so far.

Rating: 2 / 5