Magellan RoadMate 800 Portable GPS Navigator Description:
Thales Navigation is one of the world’s leading innovators of global satellite positioning, navigation, and guidance equipment with operations throughout the U.S. and Europe. Known for its popular Magellan , MLR, Ashtech , and DSNP brands, Thales Navigation offers a broad range of navigation and positioning solutions for consumers and professional customers around the world. Now streamlining its portfolio of brands to maximize marketing resources, Thales Navigation will offer all of its consumer products under the Magellan brand and all of its professional solutions under the Thales Navigation brand.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #7811 in Consumer Electronics
- Brand: Magellan
- Model: RoadMate 800
- Dimensions: 3.00″ h x 1.00″ w x 7.00″ l, 4.00 pounds
- Native resolution: 320 x 240
Features
- 4.3″ WQVGA color touch screen
- Auto NightView and auto re-route
- Holds over 6 million points of interest, one million custom POIs, and 200 personal addresses for quick reference
- Includes bird’s-eye, 3-D viewing, multi-destination Route Optimization, Voice Guidance and Trip Planner features
- Only 10.8 ounces in weight and 3.15 x 1.55 x 6.26-inches (W x D x L) in dimension
Reviews:
Great GPS system
I purchased this unit a few weeks ago after researching quite a few options. The navigation portion of the unit is outstanding. The screen is very bright. The 3D view is way cool. It takes only 30 seconds or so normally for the unit to acquire your location. It routes very well. Has loads of features. The screen is very readable. It autoshifts from daytime to nighttime view. Both look great. The voice comments are excellent. It comes with an MP3 player and a picture viewer also, but that is NOT why you would buy this unit. You would purchase it because it is a great navagation system. The mp3 and picture viewer are just little extras. They work just fine. The unit is very portable and can easily be switched between cars. It can also be used outside the car with its built in rechargable battery. The only complaint I have so far is that the windshield mount, while quite sturdy, still allows the unit to vibrate around a bit. Also, the manual is, as usual with some of these products, lacking in some important details. When mounting the unit, I would suggest you have the bottom of the mounting bracket touching your dashboard to reduce the vibration. This helped quite a bit. Lots and lots of points of interest built into the unit. It is incredibly easy to start using this unit. Take it out of the box and attach the windshild mount and off you go. Highly recommended as a GPS navitagion system. It is the same price as the Magellan 760, but with additional features. While it is more expensive than the Megallan 700, it has numerous additional features including 3D viewing and many more Points of Interest. I think it is worth the extra $$$$ for this.
RoadMate 800: Yes and No
I bought this unit specifically to navigate around New England during a 10 day vacation. I agree that the display brightness is terrific, the voice queues are great, and the unit is easy to figure out without reference to documentation. The mounting bracket works well and holds fast. While it took several minutes to initialize in Southern California, when I turned the unit on in Boston it immediately updated. It’s wonderfull to have all the US (and more) in a handheld, battery operated device with 4.5 GB to spare.
This RoadMate takes some time (10 to 20 seconds) to detect a user course change and seems to get confused occasionally about what direction the vehicle is moving by asking for one U turn and then another to compensate. It annoyingly broke a 100+ mile stretch of I84 into multiple segments with instructions to “keep right” or “keep left” when all one needed to do was stay on the same road. I agree that it makes little sense have a built-in an MP3 player that cannot be used while the system is navigating.
Most annoying were errors in the database. The problem seems to be that there are lots of updated entries — along with the original entries. The very first place I tried was Legal Sea Foods, which I entered as Legal Seafoods. It gave me one location — in Florida. When I corrected the spelling, it gave me two addresses for the closest one: One right, one wrong. When I tried Jimmy’s of Savin Rock in CT, it gave me two identical street addresses, one in North Haven (wrong) and one in West Haven (right).
I couldn’t find any mechanism to return to a listing found in the address book without having to enter all the search data a second time. It would be nice if it queued the last few dozen search results.
I’m a little spoiled by the nav system in my Prius that always knows where the car is and almost instantly updates the route if I deviate from instruction.
On the third day of the trip, the unit hung up and I could never get it to run past the second splash screen despite reseting and even letting the batteries run down over night. I called the manufacturer and was connected to India Tech Support (very friendly, but totally useless). The unit is going back, but I might get another. The jury is out.
800 vs 760
I have been doing a lot of research to decide between 760 and 800. It turns out that 800 comes with features that I cannot use while driving, such as MP3 and picture viewer. It does come with battery which I think is good to have.
The main difference that 760 has and 800 doesn’t is 760 announce the name of street that you turn into. This is a absolutely must have feature in my view. I bought 760 in Feb, 2006 and have been loving it ever since.
Amazon.com Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description While you’re navigating your way to your next destination, there’s no reason you can’t entertain yourself along the way. The Magellan RoadMate 800 Multimedia GPS Travel Companion lets you do exactly that. With a built-in MP3 player and photo viewer, along with Magellan’s leading GPS navigation system, there’s nothing quite like the Roadmate 800 for your next road trip.
3D map screen display. View larger. |
Turn-by-turn directions. View larger. |
Store, organize, and play all your favorite MP3s. View larger. |
The Magellan RoadMate 800 packs GPS navigation, MP3 playback, digital photo viewing and more into one powerful travel companion device. View larger. |
Music and Photos On-the-Go
With 4.5 gigabytes of available internal memory, the Roadmate 800 will make sure you never run out of tunes. The Magellan Music Manager Tools software lets you simply transfer your .MP3 and .WMA files from your computer to the unit, or you have the option of inserting a Secure Digital (SD) or MMC card containing your digital files. Either way, you’ll have enough tunes to take you from L.A. to N.Y. and back. The Roadmate 800 lets you easily browse your music, create playlists (for MP3 files only), and adjust the sound to your personal liking with a digital equalizer. The Roadmate 800’s large 3.5-inch color display will also give you the resolution you need to enjoy your favorite digital photos. Simply transfer your files directly into the memory, or plug in your SD or MMC card, and sit back and enjoy.
Magellan Navigation
Of course, the RoadMate 800’s main purpose is to make sure you get to where you need to go. To get started, simply select a destination and your RoadMate 800 GPS navigation system will take it from there. By matching letters to the available destinations, Magellan’s QuickSpell address entry feature makes it easy and quick to enter destination addresses. An internal address book also stores up to 200 personal or business destinations for quick reference.
Advanced, state-of-art navigation software automatically calculates the most direct route and recalculates it whenever you take a detour or make additional stops. Routing options enable you to choose the best route for you, whether you want the shortest time or shortest distance, or whether you want to stay on or off the freeway. The RoadMate 800 lets you customize every trip exactly as you want. A unique SmartDetour feature will even automatically route around stopped freeway traffic.
Built-in detailed street maps and over six million pre-loaded points of interest make it easy to find the nearest restaurant, gas station, ATM, airport and more. A simple touch-screen menu lets you easily choose a location by category or sub-category. So if you want to find the nearest Chinese restaurant, or the nearest movie theater for the kids, just touch the screen. It has never been easier or more fun to get around town or take cross-country trips.
With detailed maps of all 50 United States, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Canada, you can travel the continent with no need to download new data. A single seamless database built in to the hard drive contains all major city streets as well as federal, state and county roads and highways. And if traveling abroad is in your plans, this GPS system comes pre-loaded with detailed maps of 27 European countries that can be unlocked for a fee.
When you want a clearer view of your route, simply touch the 3D map icon. This will get both a three-dimensional representation, as well as a bird’s-eye view, allowing you to clearly see cross streets and helping you to prepare for upcoming turns. If that’s not enough, a turn-by-turn voice and visual guidance feature tells you exactly when to make the next turn, and to confirm the voice instructions, the automatic map zooms in to show your turn and switches to TrueView 3D so that you’ll be sure not to miss your turn. These automatic functions make the RoadMate 800 one of the most useful navigation aids you’ll ever experience.
If you’ve got a trip with multiple destinations lined up, the RoadMate 800 can optimize your travel plans. Use the Trip Planner feature to enter addresses or select points of interest (POI) before leave. You can choose the order of each destination, or you can let the Multi-destination Route Optimization system calculate the quickest route between each point from your present location. The feature also allows you to add and subtract destinations as you go, and you can save your trip to repeat the same route again.
When you’re traveling at night, the displayed map on the RoadMate 800 switches to night view at sundown, and back to day view in the morning. This means that you’ll always have a clear view of where you’re headed. With SmartVolume, the unit’s volume automatically increases at speeds over 45 MPH, which means that voice and audio prompts are always at the right level for maximum clarity.
Best of all, the RoadMate 800 is easy to install and is completely portable. You can choose from a selection of mounting accessories, and there’s no complicated wiring required. You simply plug in the power cord and you’re ready to go. A built-in rechargeable battery lets you take the unit where ever you need to go, and when you want to transfer it to another vehicle, you simply unplug it from one car and plug it into another. It’s that simple. At a mere 10.8 ounces in weight and 3.15 x 1.55 x 6.26-inches (W x D x L) in dimension, the RoadMate 800 is meant to be taken wherever your travel plans require.
What’s in the Box
Magellan RoadMate 800, AC adapter, battery, headphones, user’s manual, and warranty.
