Review on Magellan Maestro 3250 3 5 Inch Navigator by Matthew Henderson

I caught this unit at Revain when the price dropped so I got a pretty good discount on the unit. I gave the device a four star rating based on the price I paid and further on a value for money basis compared to pure performance. Here's a critical bug I noticed. The device didn't provide the best route for the trip we just made from Dallas to Denver. The unit wanted to send us through Salina, Kansas, which would have made the journey quite long. This was the "fastest route" provided by the unit. I chose the quickest route going through Amarillo, Texas and it took the device about 5 miles to redirect to this outbound route. Returning through Pueblo, Colorado, it took the squad about 10 miles to route back along this route. Even if not all are the same. On the way back, the unit took us through Amarillo differently than on the way back. It seemed a little strange. The best thing about the device is POI. We did quite a bit of sightseeing in Colorado and there was only one attraction that wasn't in the subdivision (Helen Hunt Falls). For that we knew Seven Falls was nearby and it was in the POI database. Compare this to the old Garmin unit we had and it would have been quite a bit of manual address entry. There was even an abandoned German restaurant in Colorado Springs in the POI database and we were able to get there. Too bad when we got there it was closed for a month while people went on holiday. We had another strange incident with the unit while driving where they ordered us to exit the interstate and then come back. It was a random occurrence but not confidence inspiring. This should not be confused with the feature the device has: if there is a fork in the freeway, it will indicate the direction you need to stay on the current freeway (this is a good feature to make sure you stay on the right track). don't take the wrong exit). since the unit definitely told us to back out on this case. When we were at CO, we loved the voice commands. The Where Am I command was great for checking the elevation we were at at any given point. Even my son got into it. Sometimes we would hear "Magellan" from the back seat and then "Where am I" so he could see the details. The voice commands aren't perfect, but they're pretty nifty. There is a problem. If you are on a route, you cannot search for nearby restaurants while Magellan is on the route. Saying the voice command "Magellan" will not give you the option to select the nearest restaurant on your route. Conclusion - I think our trip to Colorado Springs, where we've never proven ourselves, has value for a very large POI database. We didn't have to waste time manually entering POIs or addresses. They were there, so all we had to do was select them. As the one who would have to type those addresses, it was worth it. The search function is good and I didn't find it too difficult to search for POIs and then select them. He even had obscure POIs like Uwe's in Colorado Springs and Sushi Den in Denver. For longer trips, do your own research before setting off on your best itineraries. Don't think that the fastest route offered by the device is really the fastest route. The algorithm the department uses appears to believe that freeways are always the quickest route, which may or may not be the case. Once you embark on the best route you've found, the device seems to adjust after 5-10 miles. The final point is that the rating is value-weighted by the price paid. If I paid retail it would be a 3 star device at best. However, if you can get the device for under $175-$170, I don't think you will be disappointed. You may want to pay above that range and address some of GPS's shortcomings if you have a high value for a large POI database.