Magellan RoadMate 1210 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 comments

1. 

   Mynana on October 14, 2009 at 1:41 pm

   I have several GPS because I hate taking out of one car and putting into another. This is a great way to travel. In my work, I go to different parts of state and this little machine gets me there when I have no idea where I am going. I do like the larger screen when I’m in the bigger cities but this is really nice as far as the voice. It is clear and you can understand everything it says.

2. 

   PT Cruiser on October 14, 2009 at 4:40 pm

   Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R27CXBL4TVHYAN I didn’t expect to be so happy with this GPS. I also have the Magellan RoadMate 1470 4.7-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator which I like very much but from the descriptions I read about this one it sounded like this would be a major step down. It isn’t. This is a great little GPS for this price range.

   First of all, come clarifications. As of the time of posting the size description on Amazon says: 7 x 3.7 x 3.1 inches ; 4.9 pounds. I’m not sure if that’s the size of the box it came in or what but the actual unit is about a half inch thick, not 7 inches. And it weighs 4-1/4 oz according to my postage scale. So it’s small enough to fit into your pocket. I thought I’d have a tough time reading the screen of such a small unit after the Magellan 1470 that is 4.7 inches wide, but I can see it perfectly well, no problem at all. The other thing is that when I read the description and it said no text to speech or on Magellan’s site when it said no SayWhere support that it meant that there would be no voice support at all. All that it means is that instead of saying “Turn left in .4 miles on Main St.” it just says “Turn left in .4 miles.”
   
   It still gives you plenty of warning and if you’re entering a freeway it tells you whether the entrance is on the right or the left. Actually, when trying it out I didn’t even notice that the street names weren’t spoken because I could see them on the screen. It reminds you several times at different intervals when you are approaching a freeway exit or making a turn onto another street. Another feature that I really like is the little bell (which you can change to other sounds) that lets you know right when you’re supposed to turn.

   One nice feature on the 1470 (although it’s just kind of a ‘bells and whistles’ thing for me) is the AAA support that gives you all kinds of places to go that are near wherever you happen to be and written descriptions of them which this unit doesn’t have. This unit includes pre-loaded maps for the U.S., Puerto Rico and Hawaii. The 1470 includes maps for Canada. With the 1210 you’d have to buy an add on. Other than that and the size, there aren’t a lot of differences. They both use the same holder, which in California has to be on the dash. Because the touch screen is a little smaller, I have to be a bit more careful when typing in addresses with this smaller screen but with the ’smart type’ thing that fades out letters you don’t need it isn’t too difficult.

   I didn’t need to read the manual to be up and running with this GPS. I mounted the holder on the dash of my PT Cruiser, which was the perfect spot for it, plugged the USB power cable into the unit and then into my cigarette lighter and it was ready to go. It found my location in just a couple of minutes. Then, I pressed the “Go to” button on the touchsreen, selected “Address” and typed in the city and street that I wanted to find. It has the smart type thing which fills in the word after a few letters or gives you some suggested choices so you don’t end up having to type a whole lot. It found my destination right away and I was ready to go.

   The screen is nice and bright and you can easily see where you are going. The voice is pleasant and it’s loud enough to hear even with the radio on. You can adjust the volume by touching the handy icon on the touch screen and going to the volume menu.

   All in all, I really like this GPS. It’s a nice size that will easily fit in your pocket or purse and for me it has all the features that I really care about in a small amount of space and is a lot less expensive than the RoadMate 1470 model. I posted a video showing the difference in size between the two models which I hope helps if you’re trying to make a decision.

3. 

   M. JEFFREY MCMAHON on October 14, 2009 at 6:17 pm

   I took the Roadmate out of the box and let it find its location, making sure it was near my living room window as it needs exposure to the sky to work. This is why you need to mount it on your car windshield for Roadmate to operate.

   Finding its location took about 5 minutes. Then I wanted to type in my home address but the touchscreen keys, the column on the far left, would not respond, so I could not input the correct information.

   I did some Internet research and found that this unresponsive touchscreen was a common complaint. In fact, I came across dozens and dozens of Magellan owners with the same problem.

   I then shut the Roadmate off, hoping that rebooting it might fix the touchscreen problem. But sadly, the numbers on the far left column remained unresponsive.

   To add my frustration, when I pressed, say “A,” the voice recognition did not correspond to what was really being inputted–or not being inputted–in the Roadmate. This occurred during a simple test to get directions to my in-laws’ house.

   A couple of hours later, my wife and I used categories (as opposed to manually typing since far left column on screen would not respond) to select a familiar destination, a supermarket. On the way there, the directions were convoluted and required extra driving. On the way back, the voice response was late on the turn to our street and when it did respond it gave us the wrong direction, left instead of right.

   Inexplicably, an hour later, the touchscreen worked for a longer drive my wife is taking to Long Beach. Based on the inaccurate directions earlier, she is going to do a mapquest to supplement the Roadmate’s directions.

   Perhaps I will be able to resolve the aforementioned issues tomorrow with Magellan Tech Support (1 800 707-9971 M-F 6AM-5 PM PST).

   It goes without saying that these glitches prohibit me from recommending the Roadmate 1210.

   Update: I can type in the letters on the far left and right column if I tap a certain way. It takes the right touch. On a trip to Westminster from Seal Beach, the directions were accurate. The more I learn how to use it, the better it serves me, so I’ll give it another star.

   Updates: If anything changes, for better or worse, I will update this review.

4. 

   J. White on October 14, 2009 at 7:52 pm

   I have been testing this out for the last three days and am very satisfied with it. The voice prompts and navigation work well. Maps were accurate for the places I used it and did not seem to be “out of date”. The routing algorithm used for this unit worked well. It offered a significantly improved solution over my Garmin 765t in one case. Contrary to what one of the other reviewers said different GPS manufacturers do use different routing algorithms. I found the brightness of the screen to be adequate.

   So what are the units “problems”? The only problems I can see with it is it is a bit slow to boot when compared with units like the Garmin 765t and sensitivity isn’t quite as good as the more expensive units causing it to take longer to lock satellites. Another disadvantage are that maps of Canada are not provided.

   The size of the display is adequate and its smaller profile will be preferred by some as it does not take up as much space on the dash. The unit comes with a windshield suction mount but it should be noted these are illegal in California. One needs to purchase a bean-bag mount and attach the suction cup to it. I tested the suction cup directly on the dash and it frequently does not stay put so a bean bag is really needed. I checked and Magellan does have a history of providing firmware updates for its products so if any bugs arise I am pretty sure Magellan will fix them. All in all I am very satisfied with the performance of this value priced GPS and recommend it.

5. 

   Daniel G. Lebryk on October 14, 2009 at 10:01 pm

   What a sweet light weight little tiny user friendly GPS. Wow, I like this thing. The pictures really don’t do this device justice, it’s small, it’s thin, it’s light weight, and the screen is very readable. Definately fits in a pocket.

   The really simple review – this is the home version of NeverLost, with some pretty significant upgrades and a way better user interface. You go to Hertz, rent a car, they give you a little bonus – NeverLost in your car – you get in, there’s this ugly device on a stalk with a really awful looking click wheel, multiple arrow toggle switch, and an absolutely hideous voice and click noises (I still have nightmares from those sounds). In the early versions, this was a pretty basic GPS program, put you more or less on a map moving; tried to do some dots on a screen with a moving road; and gave you directions – turn left in 0.5 miles, turn left, ding ding.

   So what is the 1210 – it’s that same guts, the hideous key click sound, the ding ding at turn point, the same female voice telling you to turn (or make a U-Turn), and the fancy schmasy smart typing (there’s nothing too smart about this – it’s an old hold back from arrowing over to get to a key, basically letters disappear that you can’t use like you type a Q, the only letter possible is U, so only U is available to touch). What’s way better – there’s no awful multi-arrow toggle switch (touch screen replaces that), no hideous click wheel, the maps are now sumptuous with detail and colors, the zooming feature near a turn works so much better, and you can disable all those horrible sounds (no more ding ding; you have 4 other choices or none).

   Those not familiar with NeverLost – this is a great inexpensive, very fast, small GPS. It’s just about one of the best introductory GPS’s you can imagine. The screen size is just about right. The touch screen is super responsive. Commands execute very fast. Redraws of the maps are speedy. The user interface is more or less intuitive, you don’t have to read the manual for a week to understand how to use this.

   My frame of reference is three GPS’s – a very old Garmin eMap (basically you on a moving map and as the crow flies directions – not terribly useful in the end); a Garmin Nuvi 670 (bluetooth, Europe/North America, MP3, Jpeg….widescreen, first generation fold out antenna Nuvi – it ran eight hundred dollars new); and a 6 month old Garmin Nuvi 765T (similar to the 670, but I had to buy the Europe map; and the antenna is not a fold out). All that to say, I know GPS’s very well, I’ve used them for a long time, and I tend to go very high end with this stuff.

   Complaints about this RoadMate – not many. I find myself hunting for functions in the menus. Wait, was the more highway versus shortest route in the little circle arrow menu, or the Menu menu, or the Local Options menu? In the end, it’s actually in the crossed screw driver / open end wrench menu, and you click on Navigation Preferences. On the subject of tweaking the route method – there’s only four options – fastest, shortest, Most FWY, or Least FWY (no pedestrian – for walkers – or off road – for airplanes or off road drivers, does a as the crow flies route). If you already have a route in action, changing this option does not update the route. You have to cancel the navigation (to do that you touch Menu then the little orange triangle with the red circle line no entry european street sign thing). Then you have to touch the orange go to arrow, touch the Previous icon, select your last destination, and then the route will update. It’s all kind of counterintuitive and seems like useless steps.

   There seems to be a lot of options for customizing the important display things, like display POI’s (Points Of Interest, like restaurants, gas stations, police stations…), change the clicking sounds, volume is easy to get to, etc. But you cannot change the voice – you better like this female voice, because that’s the only one possible. Screen brightness is kind of buried.

   What’s in the box – not much thank you very much. The GPS. A glue on more or less permanent shiny plastic dashboard suction cup dish. A sparse manual, warranty information (1 year by the way). A really crummy looking window suction cup mount. And a 12V to mini-USB cigarette lighter adapter. I’m not a very big fan of the mounting hardware. I’m sure the window suction cup will last a decent amount of time, it’s all plastic (100%, no metal anywhere), you cannot detach the suction cup from the GPS grabber. The GPS grabber is a strange little affair, a T shapped slot that a tab deal slides into. You have to insert the grabber before you connect the power cord. There isn’t anything terribly positive about the connection between these two parts. Maybe I’m just very used to Garmin’s mounting system to like this one.

   The power connector is a standard digital camera type USB mini connector. You probably have 100 of them around your house. I would guess about any usb adapter will charge this thing.

   Map accuracy. Well here’s where things get a bit strange. This is seemingly a brand new unit (although the GPS forums on a particular website show this model available for the past 2 or 3 years). Magellan says, no updates available for maps yet. Sadly, POI’s around my house – there’s a restaurant that closed a year ago; another that changed owners / name two years ago. So the POI’s are at least 2 years old, if not more. The base map is newer than one year old. There is a highway extension that went in and was completed a year ago, and that extension is on this maps. So good for Magellan, good base maps up to date. Shame on Magellan for outdated POI’s!

   One huge ginormous failing of this unit – NO CANADA! Why oh why they didn’t make this an NA device is beyond me. So you northerners, you are SOL on getting around Canada. The major cities, like Toronto and Mississaugua, are called out on a big black expanse. Unfortunately, you cannot find them as a destination. So, oh well, no Canada.

   Pocektable, fast, customizable… it just plain old does the job you want, navigate you where you want to go.

   Oh, by the way, ignore all the nonsense about strange routings. Basically Google, Magellan, TomTom and Garmin all use the same algorithms for getting you where you want to go. Many times those are not the routes you would take living in the area. But if you did the math, you’d discover that those routings actually are the fastest to get where you want to go (assuming the stop lights aren’t long, or there aren’t too many stop signs, or it’s not a long wait to turn left…). Honestly, you have to use some common sense with these devices, and not be their slave or robot.