Magellan Roadmate 800 (user reviews)

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With this post we’ll start a series of Gps devices reviews directly from users make use of them. We’ll search on line for you the best user reviews and we’ll post all in a single page for a best evaluation of the device without wast your time.

Today we begin with the new Magellan Roadmate 800. As reported in an old post, this devices has a 3.5′’ anti-glare TFT color touch screen display which shows the mapping screen clearly day or night. To the right of the screen are the quick keypad buttons that give easy access to many of the main functions required, including Menu, View, Locate, Mute.
The Roadmate 800 is the first GPS to include a Music Player and Picture Viewer. The 20GB of internal memory has space assigned to the user for downloading music (MP3 or WMV) and for loading pictures to be viewed through the Picture Viewer.

USER REVIEWS

Pros

I wanted something that I didn’t have to load maps on, that was portable and battery powered, that a decent sized screen, and that was the latest and greatest.

Well, the Magellan roadmate 800 definentaly fit the bill. The battery lasts a good while (my guess atleast 2 or 3 hours of use). It has some pretty nice features built in like the re-routing feature; if you get stuck on the freeway in traffic it re-routes you around it. The Garmins will only do this if you have an additional $250 antenna and subscription to their traffic service.

The detailed maps loaded on the 20GB harddrive is really nice. For an additional fee of like $200 you can unlock the already loaded European maps on the harddrive. Oh, and not to forget that you can load MP3’s and photo’s to a dedicated 4.5GB’s which is excellent. Unfortunately, you cannot listen to music or look at photos while the GPS is guiding you.

As with my previous GPS units, It takes an expected few moments to locate all satellites to start the process, but from that point on, it works fine. Many of the strange or inaccurate screen and touchscreen issues mentioned in other reviews have been addressed in the 1.04 firmware. The female voice is clear, and the maps are easy to follow. They have a nice 3D view (like factory NAV systems on many cars), and they have eliminated the duplication of street names on the same display. I really like the auto volume adjustment (based on speed) and the auto display coloring (based on ambient light). Most importantly, the maps seem to be very accurate, and the POI database is HUGE compared to other units I tested. Even the older Roadmate 500 and 700 series units have a much more limited POI database. They even show roads that have only recently been cleared for new developments to be built.
Overall, I rate this unit nearly perfect. It is battery operated as well for non-car usage, even if a bit bulky for that task. Keep in mind that the USER INTERFACE is probebly the most important detail when choosing a GPS for the car. I needed to find a GPS unit that can take limited input from me, while driving in a new city, late at night, on a unfamiliar road, at 70 miles an hour. Hence, cool features are less important than a well thought-out, "HERTZ Neverlost" like interface. I know anyone can use the interface on the RM800 right out of the box. No manual needed, no need to stop the car and figure out what to press next. The GUI is superb!

This item was easy to use out of the box. Many of the "complaints" I read in other reviews were not the case with me. Although there is very little in the way of instructions, I was able to figure out how to use the unit while waiting at a stop light. It worked wonderfully and I have used it to go to known locations to get a feel for the unit. When I went off the scheduled directions, the unit would re-route within seconds. The voice prompts, display, etc. make this easy to use. I wonder why they added the MP3 player and camera accessories; maybe they should add a (useless) toaster on the next model. Magellan should stick with what they do best (GPS system) rather than adding useless add-ons. Another plus is the rechargeable battery which allows you to load in addresses without having to be plugged into the car charger.

Cons

The GPS itself was only of mediocre quality. It was quite slow when re-routing most of the time. It also made some obvious mistakes trying to get me to my destination. I would leave it in the car at times when I was doing something. When I came out and fired up the device, it would start, but when it tried to calculate a route gave an error about the temperature being outside of operating parameters. It wasn’t even very cold out in Denver when it did that.
I’m a map junkie. One of my favorite things in a car is a road atlas. Thus, I switched the display on the device to have North always up, so it looked more like a map. Every time I switched to the alternate 3-D view and back again, however, it would reset that preference back to the default. Very frustrating.
Again, with the use of the GPS features, the touch screen sucked–big time. Never before have I felt like a giant among little people until I tried to actually touch something on the screen of this system. And try doing that while driving. The window mount means this thing is bouncing around waaaay too much to touch what you want on the screen while driving.

The 800 was supposed to be better but it was a complete disappointment. When I traveled to Massachusetts from New York, the 800 was giving me wrong directions all the way through and it wasn’t any better when I took it to work for a couple of days. If I would follow the 800, my trip would be over 50 miles longer and would take one hour more to get to the destination.
The photo viewer is poor quality. The mp3 player plays songs well but the biggest disadvantage of these two features is that you can’t use your gps while using these features.
What’s the point of using an mp3 player when it’s not working while you navigate.
Conclusion:for the price of $800 you can buy a nice 700 model, not 760 or 800 (both have no error correction). For the price of the 800 model, you could buy a 700 model, a separate mp3 player, and a photo viewer. And you will have a nice gps

Not what I was expecting for my first commercial GPS, very disappointed! (Experienced in jet GPS systems)
List of observed weaknesses:

1. Slow to acquire signal
2. Short battery life 30 minute max
3. Re-routing in known area is awful as the voice pesters you to turnaround when you know there is a shorter / better way
4. Can’t preload LAT/LONG on Computer–big disappointment
5. Can only select one waypoint at a time. Online description implies you can select multiple waypoints at the same time.
6. Routing via a street crossing / lat long not possible
7. Too bright at night and no external knob to adjust—have to go to software menu to adjust
8. Menus get stuck in do loop when selecting routing
9. Menu structure poorly designed
10. Poor documentation and included software for such an expensive device
11. Previewing routing on device is awkward
Bought this GPS for my wife and she loves its simplicity. I was expecting more fidelity for the money.

If you want add your personal Roadmate 800 review you can comment this post.

Magellan Roadmate 800 (user reviews)

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