Magellan RoadMate 300 GPS Portable Navigator
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Magellan Roadmate300 980668-02 – Magellan 14 Channel GPS reciever- Windshield mount – Cigarette lighter adapter power cable- USB cable- Voice prompting- Turn-by-turn guidance- TrueView 3D navigation- Touch screen technology- Built-in 110MB memory for map data, including pre-loaded major road networks of North America (80MB available for detailed map upload)- Fully unlocked detailed map data CDs for North America- Magellan RoadMate Manager PC application (version 4.26 software)- SD card slot for detailed map download expandability- Basic user guide and reference manual on CD-ROM included- No access fees – AC power adapterMGROAD300
Features
- Simple, powerful and portable–the first vehicle navigation device for everyone
- Same user-friendly interface as Magellan RoadMate 700 and Hertz NeverLost system
- Major North American roads map preloaded into 128 MB internal storage, more map storage available via SD Card slot
- Turn-by-turn voice prompted guidance with automatic route recalculation
- No professional installation required; includes USB interface and cable
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 8 x 4 x 10 inches
- Weight: 1 pounds
Don’t buy
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 They offer a free 30 day map update since all of their products ship with out of date maps.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 good 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.
Got me to Cedar Point, great gps.. but OUTDATED!!!
I called Magellan about updating the maps, and they said this unit is going to be discontinued and it is impossible to update it. I’d have to trade it in for a new one. So they wanted me to pay $200 after trading this unit in. If you call Magellan and are stubborn enough, they should be able to work out sending you a free Maestro (which they are for me). Cause I bought the Roadmate 300 like last November and they are telling me it is getting discontinued already?!?!
So BUYER BEWARE… SAVE YOUR MONEY AND TIME- DON’T BUY THIS simply because its getting discontinued and maps can’t be upgraded from what I’m told! Spend an extra $60 from the used prices of this one and get a Maestro.. they seem to be great!
Not Worth the Money
I bought this for my husband a year and a half ago and have had nothing but problems. He travels for a living and needs it to go to his sales appointments. It failed on him several times and was replaced (with a refurbished model) by Magellan and that has failed several times also. Very frustrating when you are 20 miles past your turnoff and don’t know it because the GPS has frozen. We are currently looking for another to replace it and would not consider another Magellan, at any price.
Mgellan roadmate 760
Customer support is a joke, unless you speak Indian. You must also have about 3 hours free to hold while waiting to talk to someone you cant understand. One of the reviews I read told how to repair the wire that comes loose from the mother board. This also happened to mine. If it is that much of a problem they should repair the unit free because of a mfg. defect. They should modify the installation of this wire so that it works and does not come unglued. Stay away from Magellan. Extreamly poor service and manufacture.
Service should keep you away from all Magellan products
Stay away from Magellan all together. Bought the RoadMate 300 last Black Friday (Nov. 24, 2006). Pretty good unit for the price, had intermittent problems connecting to the satellite. Finally went. Called Magellan in August 2007, received a Return Authorization. They supposedly have a 14 day return policy. Well it is now almost November again and after numerous calls to Magellan still no GPS. They use outsourced phone representatives, so you can not be assured that they actually understand what you are saying and I have had a very hard time understanding them most times. After numerous promises that the replacement GPS is on the way and refusal to provide a tracking number as of today I got off the phone with them and started filing complaints with the BBB and the attorney general. Pay more and stay away from Magellan. They don’t care about you once they have your $$$.
High marks for the item / low marks for Magellan updates…
It has been about 3 years since the maps were updated and support cannot/will not give us an answer when or EVEN IF the maps will ever be updated. Its is a great value for the price but if you live in an area with lots of development you will likely find many areas that are not on the map!
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You get what you pay for
Bought it new for 300 on ebay, it did work well when it worked but unfortunatly, it did not always work. There would be times when it just would not turn on. Never had any problems with getting support from Magellan, but they did not know what to do either. Slow to find signal but good in holding it and recalculating when missed exit. Again, you get what you pay for and this unit is certaily not woth more then $300.
Bad with electronics or just a bad product?
I bought this unit in Sept. 05 and used it extensively till 2 days ago May 7, 07. WHY??? The stupid thing DIED. No power either from the cigarette lighter or AC outlet. I bought this when it first came out at $400 and it died 6 months after the warranty ran out. WHAT???
Usage wise, it is relatively easy to use only after a month of playing around. Not recommended for impatience people. It loses signal often and requires tremendous amount of time to get reconnected automatically. Recalculating rate is also slow. If the unit is turned off and moved about 1 mile away, it will not reconnect automatically. It does have a function to set the GPS position manually after searching though 5-6 menus and entering the exact address of the current location. If you’re lost then how are you suppose to know the address of where you are???
As you can tell, I’m a little disappointed. The routing function does not allow routing with the shortest distance. It gives you 4 options for routing: “shortest time”, “avoid toll roads”, “least use of Freeways” and “most use of freeways”. The “shortest time” option will lead you around and about through freeways and surface streets and off of direct path just to get to the location a few minutes earlier and 5-6 miles more. Go figure??
The maps. This unit does NOT come with a preloaded map. It comes with a CD that you have to upload the map into the unit. If that’s not annoying enough, the internal memory is so small that you can only load 2 or 3 counties and not even the entire state let alone the nation. Magellan did offer a free SD map card, again, only of a particular region of the US (west, central, east) BLAHH.
THE GOOD: only when it works.
Directions are accurate to about 30 feet. Good Volume and voice directions. Points of Interests are easy to locate. It has an address book function to save previous addresses and favorite locations which is very useful. With the address book function, it also provides a list of your previous addresses/destinations which I found again very useful. The unit has another function to locate your position at anytime even at 80 MPH on the freeway. It provides a compass and can tell you your current speed.
All in all, this it not worth the money to buy.
Good device, but there are newer and better ones
When I first got this I programed it and then put it in the car. After half an hour it still hadn’t found me. I called customer service and they suggested turning it on and staying in one place until it found me. I did, and about 20 minutes it finally found me and then lost me. After trying everything, two weeks later I finally gave up. It had been a gift and I didn’t have a receipt, but Magellan sent me a replacement without any problem (great customer service!). The unit worked great. It did take a while to find me the first time, but has been doind pretty well since then. I’ve had this unit for a little over a year and haven’t had any major problems. I currently live in San Diego and will be moving to Colorado soon. That means that I’ll have to find the CD that came with the unit to add Colorado maps to my GPS, since it doesn’t come preloaded with maps (only major freeways), which will be a hassle. Also, this doesn’t come with that many points of interest. I do like that you can have an address book though and save your favorite places. Overall I’m happy with this GPS unit, but I’ve seen newer ones that cost less and have better features.
Product stopped working after 1 year, Magellan unresponsive–don’t purchase!
I loved this product when I got it as a Christmas gift, but my Roadmate 300 quit working 12 months after I received it. I called Magellen and was told that this product was “obsolete” and there wasn’t any recovery software for it. They also told me that I could pay $150 for a “replacement.” What a joke. Go with a Garmin or Tom Tom instead.
After you load it its good to go… forever!
This unit is easy to load. Place it in your car with the included suction cup and you are good to go! There is no need to reconnect it to your PC again! The address book feature is very nice. At this price, for a GPS, you cannot go wrong!
Buy a Garmin
The PC interface is cumbersome. The manual is vague and incomplete. Maps are outdated and often just incorrect. Support is poor to nonexistent. The unit stopped functioning completely in 18 months.
Better Get A Garmin
The device, when it works, is fairly impressive. The problem is when the unit doesn’t work, the support is nearly nonexistent. My Magellan Roadmate 300 NA was a Christmas gift from my wife. Fresh out of the box one of the Navigation Keys did not work. After more than a month with numerous not very helpful exchanges with their support services department, I finally received authorization to send the unit to Fort Worth Texas. After an additional two weeks, including some time where they were asking me for shipping and tracking information after I had already received delivery confirmation from the shipping service, The unit was returned to me with the original defect repaired but now with another key inoperative! They now will not answer my support requests.
Good device with outdated map
This is a good GPS system overall. It functions well for the basic travel guide with the very reasonable price.
THe problem for this unit is that the map is outdated. It is strange that it has the streets around our community which is about 2-year-old, but it does not have my street which is 7-year-old.
In general, in a established city (such as Houston inner city), it is good enough, but in the rapid-developing area (such as Houston suburb), the map might be too old.
Buyer Beware
This item works great. It is just obsolete. The maps are outdated and will not be updated by Magellan so if you live in a growing city like me your maps will not reflect any changes and there is no way to change it. Other than that the price is great and it works good with its limited capabilities.
Magellan RoadMate 300+
This GPS receiver has been great for me, although it takes some getting-used-to. First, unfold the antenna! It was taking forever to locate me until I relized the antenna should be lifted up. Second, use the windshield mount, fairly low. On most cars, this gets the GPS out from under the front edge of the auto roof, so that it can “see” the satellites. (I wonder if those two factors are responsible for some of the complaints I’m reading) Third, remember that anything highlighted in yellow is what will happen if you press “enter”, so use the touch screen to save numbers and street names when you have completed an entry. I live out in the country, 50-miles North of Dallas, and I’m amazed that all the small rural roads here are on the Magellan map. Incorrect directions occur extremely infrequently, but they can happen, so don’t follow the voice instructions blindly.
Serious bug in onboard software
So I bought this from Radio Shack’s Black Friday sale today. After just a couple hours, I ran into a serious bug without any effort on my part. When I finished one route and was ready to try another one, I touched “Select Address” on the main screen. Prompted to “enter street name,” I proceeded to entering the first few letters (the unit features an auto-fill feature). But after just the 2nd letter, I was greeted with an error pop-up:”Street name error, blah blah blah,” basically telling me no street started with the first two letters (“sm” for “Smith”) in the entire region of Northeast! This is just bull. My heart sank. I backed out to the root screen and touched “Select Address” again. This time I was going to type in one of the destinations I had already tried earlier. Well, after just one letter (“f” for “Fruit”), the error came up! I was just upset.
After restarting the unit at least half a dozen times, the error suddenly went away. I think I’ll call tech support to find out what’s going on. Meanwhile, I plan to return this thing to Radio Shack tomorrow for a full refund. (Good thing I didn’t clip the UPC for rebate yet.)
I have the 300R+ model which is supposed to be totally integrated with all North American maps. The software is a pain to use, to say the least. I’ve tried a lot of GPS systems and this is by far one of the worst (probably still better than this FineDrive [name??] I tried before).
Stay away.
a great unit for the price
I bought the Magellan 300R+ at Radio Shack for $199 after rebate and I love it, although it isn’t perfect. Here are a few things to consider:
1. The unit will take some time to find a satellite, up to 10 minutes in some cases. Make sure you have the antenna folded up.
2. Select only the areas that you travel in frequently. If you select several areas during the setup process, it takes longer to “find itself”.
3. Remember that the windshield mount will be a red flag for thieves. Fortunately, the 300R+ can fit in your pocket so you don’t have to leave it in the car. I bought a different mount on eBay that sits in my car cup holder. It is easier to remove and the unit still works fine.
4. Voice prompts for turns are clear, but the final prompt will be right at the point you need to turn. You can get used to it. When you miss a turn, it will recalculate a new route in a few seconds, which is pretty nice.
I know people that own much more expensive units that do the same thing as the Magellan 300, they take you from point A to point B. For $199, you can’t go wrong.
Worst GPS ever! Horrible customer service.
I must start my rant by saying the only way that this trashy piece of pittyfully designed equipment has a rating of 4.5 stars is because the company wrote the reviews desguised as happy shoppers. This is my third GPS unit and the second one that I have hated. My first was the first miowalker a pda/gps. It was incredible to say the least!! Just over 400 dollars it was perfect it connected to the sattelite no matter where I was in under a minute, even if I was moving around town. It had a battery so I could take it with me on foot, and was a fully functioning pda. Then, cause I live in L.A., my car got broken into and it was stolen. So I decide to “upgrade” by purchasing a more expensive unit from a more recognizable name “Magellan.” The only reason I switched was the gps was a little glitchy. I blamed that on all the pda features that I didn’t need, boy was I wrong. The magellan arrived from amazon two months after I ordered it, and then cancelled the order. The download process was relatively complicated compared to my mio, and of course I had to purchase a seperate sd card (which at the time was an extra expense). So here are the problems with the unit.
a) It works for a few weeks and then stops finding you. The only way to fix this is to reformat the machine with your computer. This process takes a long time, and is not convenient if you are on a road trip. When it stops finding you what I mean is it takes 15-25 minutes to locate you if you are sitting still and if you move, it might take an hour or never. Compared to my Mio’s one minute you should be dettered yet.
b) The way it finds addresses is so annoying, without a phone book you will be completely lost. I was recently in montreal canada looking for a hotel on a street the hotel claimed was called demaisenneuve. So I typed it into my gps and it said not found. I was annoyed because this is a major downtownstreet in a major downtown area. So in an attempt to outsmart the system I physically dragged the curser over montreal and manually found the street. It took about half an hour sitting in my car wasting gas and time. I found the street. This thing was less like hal and more like shallow hal when it came it A.I. Wanna know why the machine couldn’t find the street. Cause the streets real name was boulevard de maisenneuve. I mean are you serious. Are you telling me that couldn’t pop up as an option. My mio would have had me half way to my poutine by the time this thing even knew I had a heartbeat.
3.Megellan dousn’t care. I called them to complain. They told me, to reformat. I did and it worked. The funny thing is they told me, rudely, that it is normal to take 15min to connect. Well you know what, who the hell needs 15 minutes to find something. You are better off taking mapquest or a map and finding it yourself. Mio’s policy is better, it should take under a minute.
Trust me, this product is bull, the software is confusing and poor, the hardware is not up to par and is over priced.
Only purchase if you like being lost and then looking stupid as you tell your friends “dont worry I got a GPS.” When half an hour later they are twiddling their thumbs in the middle of southern america while duelling banjo’s is heard from a nearby farm.
Magellen should go to hell.
Map updates, customer service HAHAHAHA
The maps are old, an customer service is clueless. The website is worthless also. The product works, but the old information constantly makes you travel out of the way before you get to your location. I for one will try another brand.