was at some family party last weekend and during one chit-chat with other men someone said that GPS receivers are extremely cheap and it’s a lot of fun driving your car using it. “You’ll never get lost again!”
So I decided to do little research and review of GPS units in New York -- New Jersey area.
First, I went to RadioShack and bought cheapest model they had in stock there – Magellan Roadmate 1200. I took it out of nasty to open plastic packaging, thank God I saved it. Unit was half-charged and after one minute of warming up was ready to roll. Inside the box was GPS itself, useless CD Rom that opened Magellan GPS website once inserted into the computer. What a waste that was! Box also contained big and ugly arm to hold it on the windshield, car charger and one alcohol swab. No USB wire was included.
Driving using Magellan’s GPS was the only one thing I did not complain about. It has easy navigation and very accurate directions. I drove at night and Magellan RoadMate literally pulled me into driveways of few houses I entered. They had home address feature, so with one click of a button you would have directions to get back home. Recent address entered was there and spell-suggest feature was awesome.
Now after returning home, I plugged in the CD, there was no software included, plugged it into my PC using PSP USB wire I had laying around and it just displayed bunch of useless files and folders. I registered my device online hoping for some extras, downloads or anything. What a waste! I gave our my privacy for nothing, they now had my name and address associated with GPS number of my unit! I did not like that and decided to do hard reset on the Roadmate 1200. Some hidden button needed to be pressed, than blue menu popped where I clicked to reload, than reboot needed. Holly crap, it won’t start! The GPS just froze in loading screen and nothing moved. Shit, at least I still have the receipt and original packaging! I have officially broken another toy.
Best part, Magellan support. It doesn’t exist. Literally, there is no documentation for Roadmate 1200 GPS; unit came with no instructions inside the box, no information on Google. Only info that I found on how to do hard reset for Magellan Road Mate 1200 is to call their 1800 number and talk to tech support in India. I returned my GPS unit the next mourning. Staff at RadioShack was confused on why this happened but refunded with no hesitation. Always save the receipt!
Last night I went online and ordered TomTom ONE XL.S GPS with Bluetooth support but Dell hasn’t shipped it yet. I will write review about that one later, but from deep research I did you should only get GPS units from 2 companies – TomTom and Garmin. I did not like Garmin’s website so I sold to TomTom. That company was also the first GPS Company I heard advertising on TV for. They have a lot of resources on the website, downloads and stuff. I will write my review on Tom Tom ONE XL.S GPS later.
So I got myself new GPS receiver- TomTom ONE XL - S. Drove it around the area this weekend. My first impressions -- not bad at all, unit supports multiple languages, has huge 4:3 screen, have huge online support, downloads and all the good stuff. Few complains: if you set unit to chose fastest route for you, it goes all over the place! It showed me the worst routes ever. So I had to change the settings to always go the shortest distance. One more complain, really annoying one. When you arrive on a big road or street, it takes you directly to the house number. If you go somewhere on a small street -- house numbers is way off! I did not see this behaviour on Magellan Receiver, it always recognised house number precisely. Also, maps of US and Canada take most of 1Gig space that is included with GPS receiver. Extra SD card needed right away.
