Magellan RoadMate 300 Vehicle GPS with Voice Prompting

Magellan RoadMate 300 Vehicle GPS with Voice Prompting
Average customer rating:

High marks for the item / low marks for Magellan updates...

You get what you pay for

Bad with electronics or just a bad product?

Good device, but there are newer and better ones

Product stopped working after 1 year, Magellan unresponsive--don't purchase!

Magellan RoadMate 300 Vehicle GPS with Voice Prompting

Manufacturer: Magellan
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

Vehicle GPS | GPS & Navigation | Categories | Electronics | In-Dash Vehicle GPS (Installed) | Motorcycle GPS | On-Dash GPS
All GPS | GPS & Navigation | Categories | Electronics
Travel GPS | GPS & Navigation | Categories | Electronics
Vehicle GPS Systems | Navigation Systems | Car Electronics | Categories | Electronics
GPS & Navigation | Refurbished & Used | Special Features | Electronics Features | Electronics
Vehicular GPS | Magellan | Brands | Electronics Features | Electronics
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Product 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

ASIN: B0002Y22VE

Amazon.com Product Description

Building on the success of the RoadMate 500 and 700, Magellan's RoadMate 300 is a powerful GPS navigational tool that can easily guide you on your next automotive adventure. The system makes navigation easy and fun, with friendly voice prompting, preloaded maps of major North American roads, turn-by-turn guidance, and the latest touchscreen technology--all at a great price.

Features
The RoadMate 300 is billed as the first vehicle navigation device made for everyone, but that doesn't mean Magellan has scrimped on features. Designed from top to bottom for simplicity and ease of use, its user interface is the same as that found in the Hertz NeverLost system and the RoadMate 700.

Quickly locate amenities and points of interest along your route.

It uses powerful, 14-channel GPS positioning that's accurate to within three meters thanks to Magellan's TrueFix technology. Turn-by-turn voice prompts guide you on your way and automatically recalculate your route when you get off track, while intelligent routing lets you plan a trip based on shortest travel time, most or least use of freeways, or avoidance of tolls.

Meanwhile, the locate feature displays your current location and allows you to save it to the address book. Finally, you can select destinations by entering an address or intersection, selecting an address from the address book, touching a point on the map, or by choosing from more than 1.7 million points of interest like airports, gas stations, and restaurants. All of these features make the RoadMate 300 a snap to use right out of the box.

Design
Weighing in at just under nine ounces and with an integrated GPS antenna, the RoadMate 300 is compact and portable. The tough, rubberized exterior is built for abuse, while the 3.5-inch TFT color touchscreen makes address entry easy--no need for an awkward stylus. The intuitive keypad is backlit and highly visible, night or day. A headphone jack lets you catch the next turn command in a car full of noisy kids.

Connectivity and Expansion

You can also choose a map view, or the maneuver list.

While maps of major North American roads--including those in Hawaii and Puerto Rico--are stored in the unit's 128 MB of internal memory, you can add more detailed maps of specific areas to your available internal memory or through the SecureDigital card expansion slot (SD card not included). Using your Windows PC and a USB connection, the RoadMate 300 can be loaded with predefined routes from included trip-planning software, or you can load addresses from your Outlook contact list for easy mapping of the locations of clients, coworkers, and friends. You can also play back and view data from trips you've already taken, or have the unit speak in one of six languages in addition to American English: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, or British English.

What's in the Box
The Magellan RoadMate 300 unit with integrated GPS antenna, PC software, a quick-start guide, a basic reference guide, a complete manual on CD, a USB cable, a cigarette-lighter adapter, and a windshield mount.

Product Description

Magellan RoadMate 300 GPS Receiver offers complete, yet simple vehicle navigation with turn-by-turn multiple destination guidance, friendly voice prompting and the latest touch screen technology.

Customer Reviews:

High marks for the item / low marks for Magellan updates..........2007-07-03

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!

[...]

You get what you pay for.......2007-06-05

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?.......2007-05-09

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.......2007-04-20

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!.......2007-04-06

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.

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