— November 13, 2007
We’ve been big fans of Magellan’s Maestro line since it came out in early 2006. The Maestro interface is incredibly easy to use, even for those who are not completely comfortable with electronics. At the same time, Magellan was ahead of the industry with useful innovations like multi-destination routing and pre-loaded reviews for points of interest like hotels and restaurants (from AAA). With it’s 3200 and 4200 series, Magellan has improved the Maestro line giving them a SirfStar III chipset that provides super-fast. satellite lock and making them thinner. In fact, at .7 inches, these are — at the time of this writing (November 2007), the thinnest portable GPS navigators available. Distingushing between [Read More...]
Buy Magellan Maestro 4210 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator at Amazon
I got a 4210 2 weeks ago. Used to have a Roadmate 760 before. 4210 is very quick to run on and get satellite reception. Extremely easy user interface - my 10 year old daughter got it without any instructions. Display is wide, bright and excellent in day light as well as at night. Very compact and easy to carry in a pocket. Will work in pedestrian mode as well - really neat and a nice feature over my previous bulky unit. It has AAA assistance but not detailed information on AAA sites. Does not announce street names like Roadmate 760 did (but I don’t care for that feature - it is annoying). Lacks bluetooth connectivity. I have not found any accuracy problems. Bottomline - a pretty good unit.
I’ve been using various types of GPS units over the last nine years and the Magellan 4210 is my latest model. I first purchased the 3250 but only used it for about a week before switching to the 4210. The major differences between the two are the voice recognition commands, the bluetooth connectivity, and live traffic compatibility. The voice recognition on the 3250 did not work very well as it was very finicky in recognizing any commands. The car had to be as quiet as possible, no radio. The bluetooth feature worked well enough but callers on the other end said calls sounded strange. Traffic is not an issue in my locale so this feature wasn’t going to be used. Once I saw the 4210 was on sale locally for less, I made the switch and I’m very satisfied with the 4210. All the features function very well and I don’t miss anything from the 3250. The larger screen is a must-have.
I also spent some time with a TomTom XL One recently and prefer the 4210. I like the flow of the menus better and find the Magellan easier to use. I especially like the ability to find a restaurant by type of cuisine, something you can’t do with all other GPS units.
Another plus for the 4210 is its size. Very compact and easy to carry around if you don’t want to leave it in the car.
I didn’t use to be a fan of Magellan products but this unit has swayed me. I’ve even bought the same model for a gift to a family member.
I had a Magellan Roadmate 800, which I really liked. Magellan’s Map Upgrade wiped the hard drive clean. After spending several days on the phone with their Indian Tech Support, a supervisor gave me an RA number to ship it to Houston, where they would reinstall the original maps and the upgrade. Needless to say, that went badly as Magellan’s Non-existant Customer/Technical support lost the unit. They finally agreed to ship me the new Maestro 4210. The 4210 does connect to the satellites quicker than the 800 but is not as accurate. My home address is about 3 miles away from where the 4210 says it is… The position hops back and forth between the road I’m driving and any parallel roads nearby - and it always tries to reroute me when it thinks I’m on a different road. Problems I did not have with the 800. Only ATMs POI’s show up on the map as I am driving. And only the female voice is available. The maps on the 4210 still show streets that have been gone for 7 or 8 years - and I know that Tom Tom’s maps are accurate in this regard. I wish I had bought a Garmin or a Tom Tom.