Magellan RoadMate 1424-LM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Maps
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Navigate in style with the new, ultra-thin Magellan RoadMate 1424 GPS device with a 4.3-inch wide color touch screen and Lifetime MAPS. Premium features include: QuickSpell with SmartCity search; highway exit POI; spoken street name guidance; AAA TourBook and member Roadside Assistance; plus so many more.
Features
- Includes Lifetime Map Updates
- OneTouch favorites menu provides instant access to your personalized bookmarks of favorite places and searches
- Large, ultra-slim 4.3-inch color touch screen with maps of the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada
- AAA TourBook provides ratings and descriptions on AAA approved places to stay, play, dine, and save
- Spoken street name guidance lets you keep your eyes on the road Text To Speech
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 6 x 6 x 3 inches
- Weight: 1 pounds
Good product Low price
This is my second Magellan GPS. The map is very readable in all lighting conditions and the destination is easy to enter. The sound is not as good as the older unit I purchased three years ago, There is a “fuzzy” quality that I find somewhat anoying, and there is a volume inconsistancy in that the direction instruction is louder than the street name confirmation that follows each instruction. I have tryed to adjust the volume but louder or softer the descrepency remains.
Not so great
I’ve got this item, after reading nice reviews, as a competitor to my Garmin. Most of the things about this unit I did not like: “In half of mile” – it should be “two hundred feet”, beep instead of “turn right”, not knowing addresses in the area I’m living, boring display, way too “smart” address entering system. What is good: many more route options, compare to Garmin. In some way better route representation, louder sound.
Conclusion: I think I’ll return this unit, in a lot of cases it is useless in the area I’m living in. And it is not Cayman Island, just plain northern NJ.
for my son
so far, so good. my son likes it a lot, even though he just started using it. seems very sleek and responsive. seems like good quality. will let you know more in a couple of months
Find maps first!
If you live outside the U.S. considers there aren’t maps to this product in many countries of Latin America. Check if in your country there are maps available for this model.
Good price on unit, just takes some work to get up to date.
The 1424 is a good buy in refurbished form. I did find out that if you register it and activly seek to update the maps within 30 days, all you have to pay is $15 for shipping of the SD card, if you wait longer than that, they make you buy the upgrade and a 1 year subscription for $79. Bottom line is get it connected to your PC, get registered, and get it updated within 30 days. I was lucky, I got it all setup on the 29th day!
Excellent value
First, I owned a Magellan Maestro 3100, basic earlier generation unit. I much preferred the usability of the interface to the Garmin & Tom Tom equivalents. The Roadmate 1424 improves and addresses virtually all my annoyances with the older series.
Pros:
Acquires signal very fast
Recalculates routes so fast you barely notice (and it no longer announces “recalculating”, just does it).
Allows you to “insert” and immediately route to any POI or destination, then continue to original destination.
Shows graphic map and estimated time for all 4 routing ‘options’ making it much easier to select your choice (I’d prefer exact distance to estimated time, but it’s pretty good).
Routing is faster and shortest route now tends to avoid unpaved roads (I live in a rural area).
Has 2nd generation of their One Touch interface (2 screens worth of programmable icons)
Having applied their 2.20 firmware upgrade, it has never reset, frozen or gone into ‘calculating’ mode like some report on the 1440 & 1470.
Cons:
Position tends to lag 10-20 yards behind actual position, a problem the entire 14** series seems to have, Magellan is aware and a firmware upgrade to cure this is expected.
If you like to fiddle with different voices, forget it, no choices and no memory slot, but it already has the largest/newest POI file Magellan offers.
It’s just a GPS, doesn’t play music, doesn’t show vids, doesn’t bake pizza.
Don’t buy this
I bought the Magellan RoadMate 1424 for my daughter for Christmas 2009. We returned the first one in January because it had numerous issues. We exchanged it for the same model which still had some quirks but was much better. It is now frozen and won’t turn off. Even when she let the battery run down, the screen is still frozen on an error message. We’ve passed the return time limit for Amazon. I am very disappointed.
Magellan RoadMate 1424 Review
This is a great product. This is the second one purchased and all the drivers in the household love it.
Driving Around in Circles!!!!
I bought this for my husband who, in typical male fashion, never would ask for directions. Now he uses it for going everywhere, even to the corner store. I find it generally accurate but sometimes a bit confusing on the north and south directions ie; if you want to enter a highway going south but have to turn to the north to do so, Magellan says to turn north instead of just saying “right turn in xxx feet”. We’ve both learned to listen for the bell signifying a turn. Looking forward to using it on our cross country next summer.
My Comments regarding the GPS I recently purchased from Amazon.
I have used the GPS (Magellan Roadmate 1424) once since I received it and it did well; however, it would be better if there was a choice of male or female voices.
John (Tom)
Excellent overall But
Been using this unit for about 2 weeks. It works very well over all but needs a bit of fine tuning. When approaching side roads or streets there seems to be a lag of about 20 feet (perhaps a slightly slow CPU), making it possible to miss a turn in a crowded intersection.
Also there is no voice that says “re-computing”(as with my daughter’s Garmin) when deviating from the instructed route while in directions mode.
Otherwise an excellent unit in every way and preferred over the Garmin 205W.
Will update in about 1 month.
RoadMate1424
This is my first GPS. It seems durable, I’ve dropped it a few times in the car and thrown it in my purse and it still works. Fortunately, it is easy to use, it did not come with a very thorough user’s manual (more like a leaflet). I’m still learning some of its features, through trial and error. I like that it gives me audible instructions (2 mile advance notice) on what direction I’ll be turning so I can make the lane shifts and there is a visual cue in upper left corner. I like that it accepts multiple destinations. All in all, I am very satisfied and since having it I have not been lost!
Good Nav
Although I have owned an in vehicle navigation product that was built-in to a car, this was my first time with an aftermarket navigation system. The navigation is excellent and satellite acquisition is quick. The display is good, but in the brightest sunlight is a bit challenging to see. This isn’t necessarily a fault unique to this product.
Overall the most impressive thing about this unit is it’s size and build quality. So compact yet with maps for the entire US and North America.
I think that it should have come with an in-home plug-in charger in addition to the in car charger, but that’s my pet peeve.
One of the larger omissions (IMHO) was not stating on the box or in the literature that updating the software and maps in the navigation unit requires a Windows PC. It can NOT be updated via any Apple computers. Ouch!
Finally, I am told the map updates are around $80. Sounds steep, but considering what it takes to update a digital map of the entire US, a fairly cheap price. And frankly, unless you are driving somewhere that has brand new roads, you won’t notice the difference. You could just wait and buy an entirely new unit every few years for not much more money. But I actually believe that it’s a good idea to support the updating of the maps by purchasing an update.
The technical support I received (when I had a question about how to switch the map from 2D to a 3D view and back) was very competent, and surprised me considering the initial purchase price of the unit. Magellan seems to have good people and customer friendly policies.
Works great for me
This Nav is perfect for me. It’s easy to use, gives clear directions and gets me to where I want to go.
It doesn’t have a lot of fancy stuff, but I don’t need that.
If you’re looking for a simple GPS Nav….this one is perfect.
This is a BOMB!!
This piece costs $229.99 original price on Magellan website.
I did all research on Amazon and eBay, between Magellan and Garmin. Finally I decided to buy this unit, $99.99 a piece – great deal! Magellan Roadmate 1424 is brand new on the market, “Date first available at Amazon.com: October 1, 2009″ means you have new map – no need to pay extra money to get new map update. There are not many people out there know about this unit, that’s why Amazon brought down the price of this unit. This unit has Navteq map which is supposed to be very accurate. I was thinking about getting Magellan Roadmate 1440 because of lane asssist, but I came up with “lane assist is no need”. You can see the direction on a GPS and signs on the road which is keep-an-eye-on-the-road.
Customer service of Magellan is not as good as Garmin’s, so I decided to buy 3 year warranty from SquareTrade.
Great buy!
This product is a great buy. Very user friendly. The screen is wide enough to be viewed by both the driver and the front passenger.
We went to a complicated old neighborhood and the directions were perfect.