Magellan RoadMate 1440 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
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The newly redesigned Magellan RoadMate 1440 GPS device now boasts a 4.3-Inch color touch screen and ultrathin design, delivering powerful navigation in a compact package. This easy-to-use device gives you confidence while on the road with premium features including: AAA TourBook, highway lane assist, spoken street names, multi-destination routing, and pre-loaded maps of North America. Exclusive Magellan OneTouch personalized menu lets you easily bookmark favorite searches and destinations so you can access them anywhere you travel. Find your favorite café or restaurant in any city with a single touch. The oadMate 1440 device delivers your favorites at your fingertips.
Features
- Text to Speech Announces street names and directions at each turn
- Features a 4.3-Inch WQVGA color touch screen
- Highway lane assist helps you navigate the interstate
- Personalize OneTouch search icons with your favorite places
- Features AAA TourBook and Roadside Assistance menu
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 4 x 3 x 7 inches
- Weight: 4 pounds
Good basic GPS
We bought this at costco for a great price of 79.99. The 2010 Spring Map update was available for free with the 30 day map guarantee and was able to apply it as well. Overall a good basic GPS with lane guidance and voice prompts. The one touch menu and quick spell also are easy to use and find nearby POIs quickly.
Once it did show a longer route and I ignored it and went my way, it immediately recalculated and reduced the ETA by 10 minutes. Wonder what it was thinking??
Magellan seems to have stagnated on the apps front. Newer GPS units have cool features (Address Book, Sync with PC, Games, MP3 player etc) which should all be standard in the GPS. There just seems to be a confusing list of models to choose from, wonder if they can streamline and ship fewer models with better features built in.
Ok, but has flaws
Bought this after using a Garmin Streetpilot for a few years. Neither is really better than the other, but there are several important differences. It’s not really fair comparing a 3-year old Garmin to a new Magellan, but the Garmin was way more expensive, so it sort of balances out, I guess.
Pros:
It’s much faster than my Garmin. The Garmin was fast, but if you started it up indoors, it doesn’t catch the signal right when you go outside. So you had to make sure to go outside when you turn it on. Otherwise, it took about 5 minutes to catch the signal when you go outside.
Lane assist is awesome. If you want lane assist with a Garmin model, you’ll need to pay almost double what this one costs.
It’s thin and light. My Garmin was big and bulky.
The interface was fast and responsive. Typing the address was very fast.
You can bookmark a lot of locations, and select them with 2 touches (one touch to get to the menu, and then another touch to select the destination). My old garmin required several touches, and scrolling around a menu to find what I wanted.
The software is easily downloaded and installed. I was able to update the firmware on this thing within minutes.
searching for gas stations, restaurants… is a great feature. I tested it out briefly, and it was real easy to use.
Cons:
The line that shows your path is a light yellowish green, which sort of blends in with all the other yellow roads. The garmin had a dark purple line, which clearly stands out from the other yellow roads.
This thing must have a weak fuse, because it blew out after a few hours for me. I can’t turn it on anymore, and will be returning it. Not a huge issue, because I’m sure they’ll let me return it.
The dashboard mount on my Garmin had a swivel head. You attach it to your dashboard, and then swivel it any way you want. The dashboard mount on the Magellan didn’t have this. If you mounted it on your dashboard in an awkward angle, you’ll need to stop your car to remount the suction cup. This seems like a small thing, but it was real annoying.
No Blue-tooth. The Garmin had it.
This thing didn’t seem to charge with the a USB cable, which was kind of annoying. I had to charge it in my car.
It felt 2d and very top-down. The garmin had more of a 3-d “behind the car” view, which allowed me to see more of what was ahead of me.
My garmin had a volume wheel the right side. The magellan had it in the touchscreen, which made it harder to use. Having real buttons makes a difference, because you can feel it. No need to take your eyes off the road.
This thing had some glare issues. My Garmin was so bright that glare wasn’t a factor. I few times, I could barely see the Magellan screen. I think this is related to the swivel-mount of the Garmin. if it gets too bright, I just swivelled the screen down a little to avoid the glare. You don’t have this on the Magellan mount.
There was no carrying case. Even a cheapy case would have been nice.
Worth the price
I purchased the 1440 unit last week for a trip to San Diego. I am generally pleased with its performance. Consumer Reports gave it a 68 ‘very good’ out of 73 rating. The cost more than made up for the $10/day the car rental agency would have charged me. In addition, the spring 2010 maps just came out, so you get a free map update for 30 days after purchase.
Even though the battery was initially dead, the unit worked as soon as I plugged it into the car adapter, and ran without fail for the rest of my trip. The unit came with a windshield mount, which is illegal in California (except for a narrow strip by the driver) and Minnesota so I purchased a bean bag mount which enabled me to have the unit conveniently centered on the dash of my rental car.
Pros:Bright 4.3″ displayVoice feature which pronounced the streets correctly, even Spanish streets.
The freeway lane feature is a lifesaver, especially in San Diego (10 lane freeways seem to be the norm). With this feature, you know well in advance which lane or lanes you should be in before actually coming upon them. Way to go, Magellan!
$80 cost at Costco (new), Amazon (refurbished).
2 year extended warranty with AAA membership.
Easy to use, intuitive buttons and commands.Friendly, efficient help desk (which helped me get the free map upgrade).
Cons:No 2D view, i.e., sparse road display, which is great while navigating but poor while trying to plot a course.
Occasional dropping of letters while entering data, even though the voice correctly pronounces the letter.
Won’t automatically switch to ‘night’ view.
No Europe maps (although their help desk told me they were coming soon).
Much better than the negative reviews would indicate
After reading the other reviews, I suspect the motivation of the negative reviewers, particularly the ones that sound like they were written by the Garmin sales staff. I have owed both a Magellan 1440 and a Garmin 1300T, and have no agenda other to share my honest opinion. The Magellan is in every way a far better product. It comes with a good windshield mount, and USB cable. Garmin has no included USB cable and the mount is junk. Both appear well made and have a good bright and clear display. Both have OK maps with a cartoon appearance but are acceptable for a car unit. Both have very limited internal battery life. Where the Magellan shines is in ease of use and interface. It comes with a multi-page clear and accurate user manual, vs. the Garmin useless one page quick start guide. The Magellan registration site instantly, automatically guides you through the download and installation of the latest free map upgrades. The Magellan touch screen is very easy to use and is error free. Selecting destinations, routes, route preferences, POI’s, etc is very simple and intuitive and can be done without the use of the manual. The unit powers up quickly with a single warning screen while the competing Garmin forces you through multiple tedious disclaimers to finally get the thing to boot. So far my only complaint about this product is that the battery will not charge from the USB cable, only from the car cord, or a not included AC adapter. A very valuable option for me would be to add the ability to select map orientation in any of the 4 cardinal directions instead of just N up or track up. That would allow the user to have a much greater view ahead when traveling other than east or west. I have not found any unit that will do this but it would be a very simple software fix for any current car GPS. Bottom line is that the Magellan 1400 series offers a very good value among the current car units offered, and I would be very suspicious of the trash talk in favor of some other manufacturers product.
remove the stress
We purchased this product after we were in San Francisco , heading for a conference and took a wrong turn .putting us behind schedule and possibly late for a meeting we had paid alot of money for. It took us some time to find our way back to where we were supposed to be. Since we purchased and are using the Magellan , we know that we will never get lost with the Magellan and if we do take a wrong turn the Magellan will get us back on track. We love it.
Best buy for the price & features
I bought Magellan RoadMate 1440 last December after some research. The features I looked for were highway lane assist signs, AAA TourBook, spoken street names and directions, 4.3-inch color touch screen, rechargeable battery, etc. Living in San Francisco, northern California, the AAA TourBook is handy.
I checked the Garmin models with the “highway lane assist signs” feature, the price was almost doubled. Jut for this feature, Magellan RoadMate 1440 was the best buy. I have been using it happily for five months.
I like it!
I write this review with the warning that I just bought it today and drove around town with it (to known points), so I have limited experience with the device.
But I do like it. When you take an alternative route (e.g. you normally turn left out of your driveway but the GPS tells you to turn right), the GPS takes about 10 seconds to readjust to the “new” route, but will adjust nicely. Also on the order of “neighborhood” routes, it sometimes gives roundabout directions, possibly to avoid a stoplight (I’m not sure why), but if you take a look at the map you can see for yourself how to get out of the parking lot and across the street.
Signal strength is good where I am, in western Wisconsin. I get a strong signal even in my bedroom. It takes about 15 seconds to find one in the car.
The screen is nicely sensitive (moreso than the Garmin Nuvi) and the color scheme is easy on the eyes (I found the Garmin Nuvi’s colors friendly but bothersome). The controls are easy to navigate. No manual is needed though of course you are provided with one. The current firmware upgrade from Magellan is free and installs a QWERTY keyboard, which some users would prefer over the ABCDE keyboard.
The Point of Interest functions work well. Mind you, if you are looking for McDonald’s and you choose to type in the name, you need to type it in as exactly as possible. Typing “Mcdonalds” without the apostrophe will not yield results. Otherwise, the POI function under “Restaurants” can locate the nearest McDonald’s.
Touch-screen buttons are easy to use (moreso than the Nuvi), and one handy feature I love is the bell (or chime, or ring, your choice) that sounds when it’s immediately time to take a turn. So if you know you’re turning right in 0.5 miles and there are two streets 50 apart from each other, the bell will chime will enough accuracy to guide you to the right street (the text-to-speech will also pronounce the street names fairly well).
Overall, it’s just a neat and functional machine. I like it.
Great GPS
I have a Magellan RoadMate 1400 and wanted to get as a birthday gift for my son, a GPS. When I saw all that this one could do, I had to buy this for him. He is very happy with it. It makes getting around so easy. He travels a lot for his work & this makes it much easier for him. I love mine and wanted to purchase one like mine or a little better & this is it!! We both are very satisfied with Magellan.
Love it!
I do a lot of traveling, and take a portable GPS with me wherever I go, rather than paying a daily fee for one in the rental cars. I’ve had Magellan’s in the past, butmy kids eventually end up with them! So, I ordered a Garmin, for someting new. I had to return it because I couldn’t hear the commands clearly, or loudly enough. So, back to Magellan, and I couldn’t be happier! This is an updated model from my last one. It’s fast and reliable. Thin, and easy to mount with valco strips, which I prefer. I purchased the identical model for a birthday gift. It doesn’t have Blue Tooth, which is fine for me, and maybe that’s the major difference in price, but is seems inexpensive for all of the features that it has.
Great while it worked
We purchased this last minute before a trip to D.C. because the Garmin we had ordered online didn’t arrive in time. The Magellan was recommended by the sales guy at Best Buy. We didn’t have to time to hook it up or check it out before we left but ended up finding out it was so simple to use that figuring it out as we went along our trip was no problem at all. It delivered us everywhere we asked it to, the voice direction was clear and helpful, and the rest stop/gas/restaurant guide while on the freeway was awesome. We returned the Garmin without even comparing it because we were so satisified with how the Magellan performed on our trip. Before the Magellan, we had not owned a handheld GPS but did have navigation on our previous car.
While obviously not as convenient as the in-dash navigation system, the Magellan met/exceeded all of our expectations…up until last week. We have owned the 1440 since October, 2009. It had been used infrequently. I last used it locally for a trip to a friend’s house. We then left on a trip a few days later fully expecting to use it on our trip. We got it out while on the road only to find it completely powerless. Not even a flicker of power to the unit. It had worked completely find just 2 days prior, so we were at a loss to understand what had happened to it.
I called customer service from the road. My call was answered promptly by a tech after a few quick selections from the main menu. The customer service rep was attentive. You could tell he was repeating back to me everything I said to him to make sure he got all of the info into his system. He offered to send me a new car power adapter to make sure that wasn’t the problem. That didn’t do us any good in the moment, so we had to stop and buy a map of Kentucky. When we got back home, as promised, there was a new power cord in the mail. Unfortunately, it didn’t fix the problem. I have since called customer service 3 more times. Each time I have had my call answered promptly, and each rep has been very attentive, if not a little robotic – you can tell they are following very specific guidelines in responding to calls which isn’t a bad thing, although I might appreciate a little more of an individualized approach.
As another review that I saw stated, I too was offered a refurbished comparable unit that would be sent upon receipt of the defective unit. I find that to be lacking and have sinced wondered where all of these refurbished units come from. I would hope they don’t have a stockpile of defective units that get sent back to be fixed, but obviously they do. Since the warranty of my original unit will be honored for the full year even for the refurbished unit, I’m not overly concerned. I will just be sure to use the refurbished unit a lot when I get it to make sure it is free from defect. Hopefully the power issue was just a fluke. If I have problems with the next unit I receive, I will be more likely to question Magellan reliability overall. A last note, I questioned customer service about having to pay to ship my unit back. I was offered a shipping label that could be emailed, but when I didn’t receive it and called customer service back, they said they don’t normally pay for the shipping. That is also lacking in the service department, but they did end up sending me a label since it had been previously offered to me, even if it shouldn’t have been!
Don’t buy this GPS
I am an experienced gps user with multiple units in airplanes and cars. I bought a Magellan RoadMate 1440 gps to use in another vehicle after reading good reviews on the Amazon web site.
I bought the unit in mid-February 2010 and didn’t get a chance to use if for a couple of weeks. When I finally got it out of the box and fired it up, I was impressed with it’s size and ease of operation. I went on a long trip and programmed my destination. After a couple of hours of travel the unit shut down and rebooted itself. I had to reprogram the destination and after a while it suddenly went off, even though the pwer was still connected.
I thought it must be a fluke and gave it another several chances, but it just kep rebooting and/or shutting down. I called Magellan and waited for tech support for about half an hour. When they finally picked up, they went through all kinds of gyrations for an apparently defective unit.
I finally convinced them that the unit was indeed defective, and they wanted to send me a factory reconditioned unit to replace the brand new unit I’d just bought. I told them this was not acceptable and requested a supervisor. After another half an hour they finally agreed to send me a new one, but not before switching me to another operator. I then had to go over the whole process again to get a new unit shipped to me. I also had to give them my credit card before they would send out the new unit.
I hope they are honorable enough to actually send me out a new unit. I guess I have learned my lesson and will buy another Garmin unit the next time, even though I’ll have to spend more. Magellan could learn some lessons from Garmin support. In my experience, Garmin bends over backwards to make their customers happy.
alright
This unit had its problems it had me going in circles for forty minutes. I had to cancel destination and start all over. The unit placed destination on wrong of street constancely in Virginia but in Ohio it was fine.
Magellan 1440
Just bought this GPS and plugged it in and was immediately able to use it. It is so easy that the mannual is tiny. The smart spelling feature is great and I live out in the boondocks but the data is very good with all the small roads labeled. I recommend this to anyone new to GPS, even though I have been using them for years.
faulty supporting data base
i purchased the roadmate gps when living in california. we used it crosscountry on our move to florida. it worked well. nice display adequate audio we were happy campers. on our arrival in florida we attempted to use the gps to find target dept stores. it told me there was one 21 miles from my house. it didnt know there was one 11 miles away in the biggest shopping center in port charlotte. we asked for an olive garden restaurant and gave a specific street address in the same shopping center as target. it took us to car dealer in punta gorda fl. 15 miles out of the way.
my point is they sell you a gps and then tell you they resell the database from some one else. they are not responsible for database errors. you cannot go to the tractor supply store in port charlotte because Kings highway ( a 4 lane road with divider) doesnt exist. you cant add
anything if the street address is not in the database. ie the olive garden rest. is at 1335 tamiami trail. those addresses below 1400 dont exist in port charlotte in the roadmate. it sends you to punta gorda where there is a 1335 tamiami trail, but its a used car lot.
i have spoken with tech support and down loaded a new software. it did not do anything. be very wary of where you intend to use this roadmate. you cant modify the database if your road is not there. if your address is out of range (olive garden) you are out of luck. they referred me to a website for the database supplier so i could suggest corrections. a nightmare is all I can say regarding that.
there has been no recent update to the charlotte county area in many years. most stores and restaurants just dont exist in the database. there is a KFC on tamiami trail and kings highway.
you will never find it with roadmate because the street number is lower than what they think the street numbers are. it is out of range
in short the unit is nice in california but is useless in southwest florida. I use the phone book to find things now..not what i spent money on the gps for.
Not user friendly at all
I purchased the Roadmate 1440 to replace a TomTom XXL-540 S that we had purchased a couple weeks previously. The TomTom had great features and did everything very well, except for getting you to your destination. The Magellan is the opposite. It is difficult to program a destination. We tried to set a destination of Lake Yellowstone Lodge and there was simply no way we could find to enter it into the unit. It’s not in a city, has no address or zip code and the 1440 does not accept GPS coordinates as an input dor a destination. That’s just silly in my book.
You can order an owners manual for about $5 if you want one. Rediculous! Online help was less than satisfactory, they answered about 1/3 of my email questions. Software for connecting the unit to the computer did nothing once installed, one claiming the unit wasn’t connected when the other saw it fine.
It will go in the pile of useless stuff with the TomTom. I’m going to go try a Garmin next. My hot tip of the day would be to buy old fashion paper maps.
Great little helper
I was led to this model from Consumer Reports who rated it a best buy. It lives up to its name as a very reliable and helpful devise. Why spend more?
Very nice GPS
We are very pleased Magellan RoadMate 1440 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator It was delivered just a few days after I ordered it from Amazon, using free shipping. It was very easy to use. Almost as soon as it was turned on the name of our road appeared on the bottom of the screen. Within a few minutes it displayed the distance we were from the two adjoining cross roads. We used it right away and it directed us to an out of the way destination with no problem.
Recommended
Best GPS in the $130 range
I bought this and an extra traffic antenna (was on sale on Amazon for $40). For that, I have a pretty good GPS and the life-time traffic service.
The freeway guidance is a nice feature to have. Very easy to understand.
There’s no Bluetooth feature on this GPS. Well, that’s not a big deal. I also have a 4250, but it can never automatically connect the phone everytime the car is started. Also, the volume seems to be capped at 60%. So…..trust me, you’re not missing much.
The bracket is totally redesigned, which is a bummer. I have the AC vent mount clip I bought for 4250 and 300, and now I have to buy one that’s designed for 1440. MAgellan should be sticking with a universal mount for all Magellan products.
The reception is super good. I’ve been travelling with it for 2 months now, and 90% of the chance I can get reception in the hotel room, meaning I can get the next day’s trip planned.
The traffic service…..well, I really don’t bump into too much traffic, but there’s once that it does prompt me to take a detour to avoid traffic, so I guess it’s working as designed.
Overall, for $130, this GPS is pretty good. I still remember I bought the Roadmate 300 with $250.
First GPS
This was my first GPS. It took us right to the front door of our destination a hundred miles away. It is tricky though if you have a general idea where you are going and it shows something different on the screen for a while. I think this was a 2009 model but it did not have the new road that has been in since 2007. You may have to upgrade the system. Ebay has upgrades fairly reasonable.
Does exactly what it promises
After checking Consumer Reports, I chose this model because in addition to normal GPS functions, it also incorporates voice prompted directions, what lane to be in and rerouting when a turn is missed. All these were very important to me and it does excellent job with those. I would have liked to have traffic info but I notice that’s available for an additional cost. Am very happy with this product.