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Product Reviews:
Magellan Crossover 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Road and Trail Navigator |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: A pleasant surprise
Comments: I purchased this GPS crossover skeptical of purchasing a used one. It was just like brand new and my son has been beside himself with the quality and features of this model. I would not have been able to purchase this item new. It made Christmas for me and my son. Thank you. |
Rating: 2 (out of 5)
Summary: OK until it broke
Comments: The great news is that the unit is small, portable, and has a decent battery life. The outdoor navigation feature (with basic topo maps) seems to work, however the method of saving tracks is awkward (rather than naming your track 1st, you need to remember to name it and stop writing to it after your hike).
I use it mainly for vehicle navigation, and it works reasonably well. It does sometimes come up with non-optimal routes (compared to Google, or my own knowledge), and the maps seem to be quite out of date. It gives directions as if all roads are straight (not true in New England), and in many cases going "straight" means turning, and "turn left" means go straight (because the road turns right). It also comes up with arbritrary "go straight" messages on the highway. Entering addresses is tedious. 1enters the city, then has a choice of all the states that the city occurs in - The idea that you are probably looking for close-by cities never occurred to anyone.
The bad news (for me at least) is that alalmost all exactly to the day I brought it (so it's out of warranty), the power socket broke off. I opened it up (since according to the website I am on my own for fixing it, and I can fix some things) and found that the power socket was top-mounted - I.E. the only thing holding it was a few blobs of solder - the lugs do not pass through the circuit board as they do for alalmost all e electronic thing I have looked at. Basically I am surprised it lasted as long as it did. The customer service website is a joy. To obtain a return authorization,1enters info, and then is prompted for the same info again and again!! |
Rating: 1 (out of 5)
Summary: Magellan GPS gets lost
Comments: About a year ago, I purchased a Magellan Crossover to help my wife get around town (her sense of direction is 90%+ wrong, really quite amazing). I also wanted to use it for kayaking. I though I had found a great unit from a reputable company.
The facts:
The Magellan GPS gets lost. It frequently goes schizophrenic. The little pink line which indicates where to go is correct, however the directions on screen or issued verbally are wrong. The Magellan GPS has repeatedly announced I need to make a u-turn when the destination is just ahead and the GPS shows my correct position, and the little pink line indicates I should go straight ahead.
So, I assumed the firware needed updating. I went to the Magellan website. I tried to download the firmware. No luck. Contacted tech support. No help. I looked on epinions.com... I am not the only1that has had trouble with Magellan, and I am quite experienced with computers, this was not a case of operator error.
I like way the Magellan GPS works, it has a nice set of features, lasts a long time on battery, and it has a pleasant voice, the GPS is suitably accurate... it just does not reliably give the right directions. The corporate support web site and tech support do not give the right directions either. This is a fatal flaw for this product.
It seems with Magellan and their products, you just can not get reliable directions.
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Rating: 1 (out of 5)
Summary: do not purchase
Comments: Magellan Customer service is the worst customer service I have ever dealt with. They offer a free 30 day map update since all of their products ship with out of date maps. This would be a great thing except it is in the fine print of their products and their customer support email address that their website list is the wrong address. I had to get through to their customer service by posting a bad review on their website. By the time they responded my unit was beyond the 30 day limit and they refused to give me the update. This is a bad business practice. Garmin has a 60 day guarantee which is posted directly on their website in plain view. |
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Summary: Finally a gps that does it both.
Comments: I had been waiting for a unit that would assist me in finding addresses, giving me turn by turn directions and then be usable for geocaching. I thought this was the one. However, the2features are not so well integrated. Works like all others for navigating the roads. however if you want to navigate the roads to get close to a geocache and then find it offroads, you must program a POI for driving and then program a Waypoint to find it. Not easy if you want to set up about 10 or more of them. And then Magellan has its own format so you can not just download them from the internet into your box, you must hand enter. Might want to wait and see if Garman comes up with something. Oh, your current position icon is so big, that it gets in your way when your are trying to find stuff in a 10-12 ft radius. And the stinking "approaching destination" pop-up will screw ya up too, it clears the goto. If only we could hack the firmware and fix these things!! |
