Magellan Maestro 3100 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator Review
October 14th, 2009
Magellan Maestro 3100 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator Review from Jim Tykal scm consultant. Everything you need in an auto GPS, I’m a long time TomTom user, and I bought this GPS for my wife because it is small, simple, and inexpensive. We’ve been very pleased! The SIRF star III GPS chipset is incredible! It was able to lock onto 8 satellites from INDOORS! My TomTom GPS receiver is lucky to find 4 signals in the backyard with a clear sky. The NAVTEQ maps used by Magellan are much more accurate in the U.S. than the outdated TeleAtlas maps in my TomTom. I used both devices to search for 5 random addresses from my address book — all of which are at least 5 years old. The Magellan found them all flawlessly — even those with re-mapped zip codes in mid-2006! The TomTom found 1 of the 5, got me close to a second, and didn’t have a clue about the street names in the other three. (Incidentally, TomTom won’t provide me with a map update because they dropped support for my device, which is only 3 years old!)
The Magellan Maestro 3100 doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that the more expensive devices have, but it does GPS navigation as well as anything I’ve tried — and I’ve tried most of them out there. I didn’t buy a GPS to be an MP3 player and a picture viewer — I already have an iPod for that. Any my car stereo has Bluetooth, so I didn’t need hands-free phone capability. Why pay for features if you don’t want/need them?
The only disappointment in the 3100 is the Points of Interest database. It only has 750,000 entries, whereas other competing (albeit more expensive) devices have several million. Still, it was able to find gas stations, ATMs, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores — all the important stuff — with no trouble. So I can’t find campgrounds and beaches — big deal! I usually don’t get a spontaneous urge to go camping while I’m driving around anyway…
A previous reviewer mentioned the SD slot. Currently, it is used only to backup and restore your Address Book, Favorites, etc. Maybe a future firmware release will provide additional functionality…
Other nice features include trip planning with multiple stops; an address book where you can enter custom names,addresses, AND phone numbers; a Favorites list; a dedicated “home” button; detour planning; etc, etc.
There is also a great “where am I?” feature that with a single button push will display your precise location — street, nearest intersections, lat/long coordinates, etc. This could be very useful if you need to summon emergency help.
All in all, this newly released (April 2007) GPS device should definitely be on your shopping list if you’re looking for basic, low cost navigation.
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