We bought this GPS for driving in New England. Anyone who has been there knows that road names and signs are often non-existent and/or can change without so much as a by-your-leave, so for our sanity we got the Magellan Maestro GPS.

The Good:

The features are very good, the on-screen buttons are a great size so that you don't "miss" trying to push them when driving (As a passenger, I should say. Don't get in a wreck pushing buttons while driving!). Entering addresses is easy as well as storing them. You can touch the screen when you're at a location and ask the unit to store the spot you're at. This is great if you don't know the actual address of where you are! The various map modes are nice (3D, top view) and the roads are up-to-date; the "night" mode blacks out the map color to reduce glare from the unit when driving after dark. The voice commands are great from the built in speaker, nice and clear! The menus work very well too, simple to navigate through to get where you want in the device. The AAA extras in there are nice if you have AAA membership, but you don't need to deal with it if you don't want to.

Another great feature is that if your unit loses GPS signal (say you go into a tunnel) it automatically throws up a screen showing graphical representations and distances of all turns coming up so you don't get lost or miss a ramp in the tunnel. This is a great feature.

The Bad:

POIs. I think this is a common complaint about all GPS units though. The ability to create your own is a real pain. When are the GPS manufacturers going to get a clue and include software that will let you create an "address book" on your computer with your own entries or pulled from something like Google Maps and then make it upload to the device? This is one of the worst features of the device and is essentially useless. You're better off entering the addresses you want stored in your device by hand at home and then saving them. You can select them on the road.

The Magellan also doesn't have Bluetooth, a MP3 player, or the traffic watch features of the Nuvi, but after using the Nuvi I found that these features aren't worth the price (plus you have to pay extra to unlock some of them!)

Why this device is our favorite compared to the Garmin Nuvi 6XX series:

Simple menus. The Nuvi has too many small buttons that are not easy to use when driving (as a passenger pushing the buttons), and there are too many menus to go through to get what you want. The Magellan only needs a few buttons to get anywhere in the device.

Clear Voice Instructions. The built in speaker is loud and the simulated voice is nice and clear. There have been several occasions where we've wondered what our Nuvi was trying to tell us (listen to how the Nuvi says "square" if you have the opportunity, it sounds like "sqayyelurrr"). The simulated voice isn't as good as the Magellan, and the built in speaker is nowhere near as good.

No unnecessary extras to clutter up the menu. There are all sorts of features to navigate through such as shopping and restaurants in the Nuvi. The Nuvi has better POIs than the Garmin, but how often on a road trip do you really need to look for shopping? All you need is gas stations and restaurants. If you're at home, enter the addresses of where you want to go before you get in the car. All done!

The Nuvi has bluteooth, an MP3 Player and traffic watch to name a few extras. Bluetooth is nice if you actually use it, but most phones that have bluetooth already have voice activated dialing already. The advantage of the Nuvi is that it can transmit the voice via FM to your car radio, but I can tell you from experience that the Nuvi's FM transmitter is so underpowered as to render it almost useless. Too faint and it allows outside interference in too easily. You could use a tape deck or headphone plug in adapter to your car stereo, but only if you have those features available in your car.

The MP3 Player only holds up to 1000 songs (something they don't tell you). The other problem is that unless you make playlists at home before you go, you're constantly playing DJ picking what you want to hear. Also, the MP3 screen has to be up when doing this so you can't see the map! It also takes 1-2 minutes to load the songs, and the GPS is frozen during this time. Not good if you want to know which way to turn out of a parking lot right away after powering the device up.

Traffic watch. Costs extra, and if you live where you're using this you already know when and where the traffic will be bad!

Worst feature compared to the Magellan: Loss of signal causes the device to "coast". It expects you to be at whatever turn is coming up next based on your speed at the time of signal loss. It doesn't tell you the next sequence of turns or distances like the Maestro, so if you get stuck in a traffic jam in a tunnel, too bad! We found this out the hard way.

I'd recommend the Magellan. Better, simpler features, great voice directions and costs less. A GPS for drivers.

I just bought it for fun. I was impressed how fast it find the way. I made wrong turns to test this unit, it re calculate very fast. I was going to buy one with text to voice(like make left turn on 1st street, not like left turn on 0.5 mile) but with is unit I don't need that expensive option. It give ding dong signal about 30 ft before I need to make turn, this is very important when you drive. Last Sunday I test this unit to find the way to my church, it find faster way that I didn't know before. I save 5 min. drive bec. of that. Size is big. people who intrested buy 7 in screen, forget it this is big enough and doesn't cover you sight to the road. It comes with case for this unit, ac power cord, and suction cup and the mounting adapter. I am very happy with it. I wish I could add business time on POI and my favorite locations. I bought it for $159.99.

I'm not a manuals kind of guy, and I have not yet needed it with this unit. The controls are intuitive, and the screen is big enough that even with my big hands I can add an address while driving. It would of course be better if it said street names instead of "left, in .5 miles" but the map is big enough that it's not a big deal. I bought in APril for 159 from amazon. Great deal. Recommended.

I've had the Magellan 4000 for about six weeks now. Although not needed on a daily basis, it has performed admirably when it was called into duty. I had no trouble getting it set up. The menu structure is intuitive and easy to navigate. It has been used around town and on a 400-mile journey and I have yet to experience a hiccup, either in terms of the stability of the unit's operation or in the directions I received. I especially liked the ability look in advance at services at exits along the way. In addition, I find the unit to be useful at night when traveling in areas that I am not real familiar with. During the day, navigation in less familiar areas is easy without a GPS. At night, however, it is very helpful to be able to track your progress and know distances to turns. Although I have no basis of comparison against other GPS models, I am very happy with the Magellan 4000 so far. It's a great product.

EXCELLENT UNIT.

1. I found that MAGELLAN has done nothing to get rid of glare during daytime hours and this is a MUST FIX situation. I had tried another person's TOMTOM ONE and NO GLARE. Having had the Magellan 760 in the past, I had the same problem.

2. The bell prompt that indicates exactly where the turn must be made occassionally comes too late to make the turn safely, unless you take eyes off the road to read the name of the street on the screen. ANOTHER MUST FIX SITUATION for safety.

ALL IN ALL, THE MAGELLAN MAESTRO 4000 IS AN EXCELLENT UNIT AND I RECOMMEND IT.

I have only been using this device for a few days, but have read the manual inside out and tested all the bells and whistles. I even did an update from the wesbite. That was the worst part yet. lol

So far - the device on right on target, and has proved seperior accuracy in showing me shortcuts that I would have never known. So far I am very impressed. As I said - the most difficult thing for me thus far was getting the update into the unit, but it finally did work. The other thing I am slightly confused about is the reasoning behind the SD/MMS card. When I was looking over instructions for the update - it said make sure you back up your address book to an SD card or the address book would have been erased. I went out and purchased card and backed up my address book as instructed...other than that - I am not sure I see a reason to even have a card in the unit. I know you are supposed to use it for some special features with POI, but when I put the CD in to check it out - I was totally at a loss for understanding ANYTHING. :(

If anyone can help - feel free to email me some advise here lbird64@comcast.net

So - all in all - I give this unit 4 stars for doing a great job with directions, shortcuts, and re-routing me when I want to go another way. I do not mind it not speaking street names in particular, and actually prefer the thing to talk less. It's distracting to have another "person" taking in the car with a 4 yr old in the back seat. I'd definitely rather be able to read it in large text right on the screen. Magellan was on the money there.

One note about the customer service - as I did see some negative comments about that. I called an 800# and they were pretty nice, but not SUPER helpful. I was getting an error with the downloading of the update, and the first guy said, "keep trying - your not getting the whole file...shut down your pc and start over", and basically rushed me off the line. The second time - the guy said that Magellan was updating the website, and I should try the download again Saturday...????? (This call was made today - on Thursday). Well.......I tried when I got home from work - on my own pc - and it was perfect and super fast. The site did appear to have a different design, so I believe the 2nd guy was telling the truth.

Recommended! Cool if you have AAA - get a free year warranty!

This is a great buy..... You can't beat the pricing on this one..... Don't listen to the other reviews...... Mine has never froze up like one of the reviews was saying... Must have been a factory defect... Which the 3 year factory warranty would have covered it anyway... If they would have just called them and sent it back I'm sure they would have replaced it.... I'm not sure if the other person who gave a review even knows how to correctly work theirs.... They said there wasn't many POI's and there is over 1 million POI's "points of interest" Like wineries and tourist hot spots..... Plus they update them regularly via satellite.... So ignore the bad reviews....... You will be pleased with this item.... The icons are so cool......

I purchased the unit right before Holloween. Within the last month, I've found a lot of routing errors. "Fastest time" takes me to some pretty wacky places, including highways that don't even connect to where I'm trying to go.

It would tell me to follow a road (which is completely straight) and then tell me to turn around.

POI are not updated and I can't tell you how many times I tried one and it was closed for a long time.

I loaded all of the updates and so on to make sure my unit is optimal.

I decided because everyone says how great theirs is to call customer service when it tried to take me up a one way street.

I could not understand this Indian. I also know he couldn't understand me. Instead of trouble shooting my unit, he proceded to plot routes on his computer. When I asked him how this helps my problems, he ignored me. He asked for streets where a particular problem occured and streets that connected to it. Okay...If I knew all this information, including connecting streets, Why would I need the GPS to get to where I'm going??!!!! When I asked to speak to his supervisor, he told me "no" because there was only one on today and that he was busy. I said he wasn't helping me and I don't mind waiting on hold. He told me that my calling them was very expensive and he didn't want me on hold. I told him it wasn't my fault he's in India, and that I would hold. He hung up on me!!!

This unit is worthless, and if followed could get me killed quite often. I want it fixed, or I want my money back! Outsourcing is not the answer for customer service. I can't believe after spending $400, they can't provide better CS. What good is a product that you can never get service with?!!!

I have not owned the Lowrance iWay 250C, Magellan Maestro 4000, and Garmin nüvi 200W. I began with the Lowrance 250 but unfortunately it was stolen and I was forced to replace the unit. I bought the Magellan 4000 but returned it in a short period to purchase the Garmin 200W. In an attempt to summarize my thought on these units, I'll summarize my observations in a 'pro / con' format.

As a summary of the following, I was extremely impressed with the Lowrance iWay 250C's dependability and price. The Garmin Nuvi 200W has good navigation tools and a clear, large display. Finally, the Magellan 4000 was built in a quality manner but lacked basic navigational functionality.

Lowrance iWay 250C -

Pros:

1) Fantastic routing sequences. This unit has great navigational features and never misguided me at any time.

2) Can add personalized POIs with symbols using street address.

3) GREAT price for a solid unit.

4) Voice and sound quality excellent.

5) Overall very dependable unit with intelligent navigation and outstanding value.

Cons:

1) Slow to locate signal.

2) Small 3.5 inch screen.

Magellan Maestro 4000

Pros:

1) Audible chime to signify upcoming turns.

2) Large 4.3 inch screen.

3) Extremely solid construction with MANY accessories included (AC charger, etc).

4) Large touchscreen buttons which allow for easy control.

5) Voice and sound quality excellent.

6) Clear display of menu funtions and user friendly.

Cons:

1) Hard to read maps and poor general map display. Most roads are displayed very small and the map background colors are poorly selected.

2) Poor selection of routing preferences.

3) Adding personal POIs requires separate interface using latitude/longitude only. It is impossible to add personal POIs with the simple use of street address.

4) Several times this unit provided routes which were incorrect. Most errors occurred due to its inability to know that road medians have turning lanes.

Garmin nüvi 200W

Pros:

1) Can add personal POIs with symbols using street addresses.

2) Clear and large display.

3) Large touchscreen buttons which allow for easy control.

4) Clear menus displayed with intuitive and user friendly functions.

5) Overall good unit with clean navigational tools and ease of use.

Cons:

1) Power connection in rear of unit can be frustrating to plug/unplug.

2) No AC charger included.

3) It is not possible to display the remaining trip mileage as the route is being displayed. The estimated time of arrival is shown but switching this to the remaining mileage is not possible.

4) Some routing has been incorrect. These errors seem to occur due to its inability to know that road medians have turning lanes.

5) Very short device for windshield mounting.

Easily programmable. I have all my customers' addresses programmed into the memory for my sales calls. Accurate 99% of the time.

Very user-friendly, indispensable. Price was at least $50 less than any other site, I ordered it Friday night and it was at my house on Monday morning.