Magellan RoadMate 6000T 980874-01 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator Review

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(More customer reviews)I have had the Magellan 6000T now for 2 months and I can't imagine traveling without it. I have traveled for 19 years and made more U-turns than I can shake a stick at.
This system has it all... Blue tooth, spoken street names, easy to navigate touch screen, extremely bright screen (automatically darkens at dusk).
This system gives you more heads up about upcoming turns than any other system on the market. For instance, it will let you of a turn two miles ahead, then one mile, then 0.5 mile. Then it has a 0.2 mile yellow bar graph that shrinks as you come to your turn.
I am very glad I got this system with the spoken street names. It gives you that much more information while you are in unfamiliar territory. The street name voice is a different voice from the turn by turn voice. The street name voice has more of an edge which helps you listen easier to the street name.
It has locked up about 4 times (what high tech electronic gadget never locks up) but it was easy to reboot the system.
One of the best features is the traffic alert. I was in Charlotte, NC which I was unfamiliar with driving during rush hour to the other side of town for a meeting. After I left the hotel, it was directing me turn by turn to the Interstate. While sitting at a red light, I happened to notice it flash "I-85 accident" and then it recalculated the route. I couldn't believe it when I got to the interstate, it had brought me to the entrance ramp just ahead of where all three lanes were blocked because of the wreck!!!!! I was very impressed!
It also gives you four options for choosing your route which is twice as many as any other system.
I did a lot of research looking at the Garmin systems and Tom Tom. I printed out at least half a ream of paper of specifications and customer comments. The more I looked at Magellan, the more I realized it was the best value. I'm sure Garmins are good and they will work, but the Magellan 6000T matched their highest priced Nuvi systems feature for feature and was significantly cheaper.
It is easily portable and easily attaches and detaches to the mount. In the rental cars, I can easily mount it on the windshield. I have never had a problem with the suction mount.
On my Chrysler 300 company car, I use the flat disk and mount the system on the dashboard with no problems.
I do not regret my purchase at all.
If you travel, you need to seriously look at getting a portable GPS system. I would strongly recommend the Magellan 6000T.
It will be analogous to life before and after a microwave.

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The Magellan RoadMate 6000T for North America is a remarkably versatile GPS navigation system. Equipped with viewing and entertainment options, cell phone connectivity, and of course navigational coverage for the United States, including Puerto Rico, and Canada, the 6000T meets most of your mobile needs. Loaded with a wide variety of options to help you plan daily commutes, vacation trips, and errands, the 6000T packs advanced technology in an easy-to-use unit to make your driving experience the best it can be.
Made to be user-friendly, the Magellan 6000T has a 3.5-inch touch sensitive screen that displays vibrant colors and sharp images. Simple menus and smart keys provide quick access to the 6000T's features, which include preloaded detailed maps, bird's eye 3D viewing to give you a clear sense of your surroundings, and over six million points of interest such as gas stations, restaurants, ATMs, airports, parks, historic sites, museums, and much more.
The 6000T lets you select up to 20 destinations and optimize the most direct route between them, as well as store your favorite locations for the trips you take frequently. You can also customize mapping selection with the 6000T, which lets you select routes based on driving time, distance, and traffic congestion, or exclude routes you prefer to avoid, such as toll roads. And with the Auto Re-route feature to guide you, the 6000T adjusts your course if you take a detour, so you be able to get back on track easily even if you miss a turn.
And because the 6000T is equipped with Bluetooth and a microphone, you'll be able to use it for hands-free calling with a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone. You can talk safely while you drive, as you keep up-to-date with what's going on at the office, catch up with friends and family, or give out arrival updates.
The 6000T fits easily into any vehicle without the need for special installation and works for you at any hour of the day. The auto night view feature adjusts brightness and contrast for easy viewing at night, and the voice guidance option provides friendly turn-by-turn instructions to get you to your destination. With SmartVolume adjusting the sound level of your system when you speed up or slow down, the 6000T makes sure that the directions you get are clear and easy to understand. And for the first three months after your purchase of the RoadMate 6000T, you'll have a free subscription to Magellan's LIVE traffic reports. With detailed, up-to-date traffic incident reports at your fingertips, you'll be able to find alternate routes and avoid traffic congestion created by accidents, road construction, special events, and more.
In addition to having the features that make it a first-class navigation system, the 6000T is also a music player and a picture viewer. Through the integrated speaker, the 6000T plays MP3 and WMA music files for your entertainment. And if you're outside your vehicle, you can also plug in a set of earphones to listen. (For safety reasons, please remember never to use earphones while driving.) The picture viewer is ideal for road trips with friends or family as well as for gatherings such as parties and picnics. Upload the pictures you've taken with your digital camera and you'll be able to share a slideshow with everyone right away.
Housed in a high-impact plastic case and able to operate in a temperature range of 14 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 to 60 degrees Celsius), the 6000T is versatile and durable enough to go wherever you want to go. At 8.64 ounces and measuring 4.8 x 3.8 x 1.4 inches, the navigation system is extremely portable. The update rate of once per second means the 6000T gives you the latest information, and the powerful 1350 mA rechargeable lithium ion battery provides up to four hours of continuous use. Multilingual options make the 6000T perfect for speakers of English, French, and Spanish.

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Nokia 500 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator Review

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(More customer reviews)UPDATES:
I've updated the review dealing with the FM transmitter's signal quality as well as the clock being reset when using the bottom power switch and dialing from the unit when using BT speakerphone.
I recently purchased mine from another online vendor. This will be a long and fairly detailed review and in it I will clarify some issues that some people are having.
Powering up from standby works both under battery power mode or charging mode. All you need to do is hold down the top power button for about 2-3 seconds and let it go. To put it back into standby hold the top power button for the same amount of time. For everyday use, the top power button is very convenient and allows faster boot ups than using the bottom power switch which requires a pointed device to switch it on/off. Make note that if/when you use the BOTTOM power switch make sure you do not power off when the unit is in standby as it will reset the clock. Only power off when the unit is on and out of standby. This is only an issue with the BOTTOM power switch.
BT pairing only works on some phones not all phones...duh. There are different versions of BT as well as different BT profiles support so don't expect every phone to work with this Nokia 500. My LG CU500 pairs fine and the speaker phone works great, loud and clear. My contacts however would not upload since my phone does not support Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP) so I have to initiate calls using my handset's phonebook. You could direct dial calls using the touchpad if you already know the phone number. You could also save 9 speedial numbers into the "favorites". When receiving calls I can answer using the Nokia via the touchscreen. The BT speaker phone can use the built-in speaker or your car stereo via the FM transmitter. It works great with my car stereo, reception is loud and clear. There is some static every now and then but that's common with all FM transmitters. The FM transmitter works well while in the cradle or held in your hand using battery power, however, when using the car adapter it is very sensitive to the orientation of the WIRE so you'll have to move the wire around to get the best reception. I suspect this is the reason why some owners have little success with getting good reception since they do not realize this.
The FM transmitter works with music and videos stored on your SD card as well as the navigation voices. I did have a problem with the FM transmitter turning itself off after 1 min of inactivity during voice navigation usage, but I found an easy solution and that is to have an audio track play in the background in repeat mode which keeps the FM transmitter continuously on. If you prefer not to hear music play in the background during voice navigation then just turn down the volume using the front hard volume buttons. You could actually turn down the music volume all the way and the FM transmitter will still stay on. You do not have to go through the trouble of making a silent audio track that I'd suggested prior to finding this out. The voice navigation volume is independent of the music volume so it doesn't get turned down along with the music.
Keep in mind the Nokia does have a built-in speaker so the voices can playback through that instead of the car stereo if you don't want to fiddle around with the FM transmitter. Also note that if you have music playing in the background, the music volume automatically gets reduced so you could hear the voice navigation instructions when it kicks in.
The Nokia only comes with a car charger, but it can also be charged while connected to your computer's USB port. That means any USB charger will work. USB standard output voltage is 5V. At home I use an old Motorola USB cellphone charger, it's rated 5V and 550mA. The Nokia car adapter is rated 5V and 1A. It takes longer to charge with my Motorola charger because the current is about half of Nokia's car charger. Slow charging is better anyway since there's little risk of overcharging if you forget to unplug the charger after the battery has been fully charged.
The memory card that came with my unit is an official Nokia brand 2GB SD card NOT microSD or miniSD. The card is made by Sandisk. It comes with folders already created for MP3, VIDEOS, and PICTURES as well as CITIES for the maps. I copied all the files and folders from the 2GB card onto my 16GB card and it works without a problem. Music and videos play as expected, however it seems the videos have to be below a certain resolution and framerate. If the video's resolution is too high the playback will be choppy. I have to play around with encoding different videos to see what the optimum resolution/framerate is, however I did notice the 4 product demo videos that are included on the Nokia SD card are of the following specs.
Audio - AAC, Stereo, 44.1 kHz
Video - MPEG4 480×276 15 FPS
Bitrate - 768 kbps
I will try and see if I can make a video that runs at 25 FPS since 15 FPS is not very good IMO. The unit is capable of playing WMV at 30 FPS but that depends on the resolution. If I can get videos to play at 25 FPS at the screen's native resolution of 480x276 then it would be perfect. This Nokia is running Window CE Core 5.0 OS.
Finally if you want your battery to last longer just turn down the brightness or leave it in energy save mode where the screen dims after 30 secs. Doing that will allow the unit to last a couple of hours without needing to be plugged in.
The windshield mount is very high quality/sturdy and made in Germany. The suction cup is not your standard mill. You have to operate the lever when mounting/dismounting which is a good thing because it creates a very strong and reliable suction.
As far as the navigation is concerned, from my own usage it seems to work well. This is my first PND and I'm very happy with its performance. The Text To Speech voice navigation feature works great announcing street names etc. The user interface might be kinda confusing at first but once you memorize where everything is and have everything setup it does the job pretty effectively. Yes there are probably better user interfaces from other products but when you consider what you're getting overall at this low price, there's not much here to complain about.
For the little money that I paid for my unit, it's a great deal. It does what it's supposed to do with a nice big bright 4.3" widescreen and includes BT speaker phone capability and FM transmitter. The unit also supports many different audio and video formats. It also plays uncompressed lossless WAV files even though it doesn't list that file format in the official specs. The unit is very high quality and feels solid. The built-in nonreplaceable battery isn't a big deal because this will be mainly used in the car not carried around in my pocket. Regardless the battery will likely last a few years when used strictly as a portable which is the same as any iPod or iPhone. In a few years PNDs with the same features as this Nokia will be dirt cheap anyway so when my battery dies I could just buy a newer better unit and still be able to use the old unit in the car plugged into the cigarette lighter socket if I so choose.

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Navigate on course and in touch with a great travelling companion offering a clear view, turn-by-turn instructions, handsfree calls, and in-car entertainment. Stay on course with turn-by-turn voice guidance combining Nokia Maps, an internal SiRF Star III GPS receiver, and integrated real-time traffic information in selected countries. Get a clear view with the intuitive Nokia interface, large 4.3" touch screen, 2D/3D maps, plus visual exit numbers and sign posts. Communicate with excellent Bluetooth handsfree functionality, and digital signal processing (DSP) for echo cancellation and noise reduction. Download your own phonebook, voice dial, and manage your calls from a compatible device. Take time out from your travel to enjoy music, movies, and photos with memory cards up to 16 GB. Or, listen to your tunes through your car stereo with the integrated FM transmitter.

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Netropa Intellinav SE 3.5" Portable GPS Navigation System Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased this unit for $199 in 2007 and the unit is easy to use and provides direct routes. My gripe is when I purchased the unit the my neighborhood and other new developments around the Austin area were not on the maps. What I mean by "new developments" is developments that had been in existence for at least 5 years. I contacted Customer Support several times and was assured that a map update would be coming in "6 months". Well, it's 2010 and there's no sign of a map update for this unit and now I'm seeing this unit being deeply discounted - I suppose the company is dumping the remaining units. I would avoid this unit and purchase something different.
UPDATE 4/4/2010
I've sense had issues with the unit not functioning correctly. I originally purchased this unit from HSN and paid $20 extra for an extended warranty, which I never do for electronics under $350. I contacted HSN last week and they said ship the unit back and they would refund my original purchase price.

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A combination of affordability and advanced features, Intellinav SE offers the best value in its class. Includes cradle, windshield mount, AC adapter, car charger and dashboard disc.

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