Magellan RoadMate 1340 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
The Magellan RoadMate 1340 device boasts the acclaimed OneTouch menu, a 3. 5-inch color touch screen, and an ultra-thin design. Preloaded maps and points of interest for the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico make the RoadMate 1340 ideal for both business trips and vacations. Easy-to-use, premium features give you confidence on the road and deliver a powerful navigation experience. Turn it on and go! Click to enlarge. OneTouch favorites menu affords instant access to your personalized bookmarks of favorite places and searches anywhere you travel. Click to enlarge. AAA TourBook provides ratings and descriptions on AAA approved places to stay, play, dine, and save. Click to enlarge. Highway lane assist signs show highway signs to point you in the right direction when approaching interchanges and exits. Click to enlarge. Multi-destination routing with route optimization lets you plan your trip …more
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13 comments
Mhina on August 25, 2009 at 12:39 pm
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unreliable, low quality
I was prepared to like the 1340, having used many Magellans in the past. However, the spoken street names on the 1340 I tried were muffled/garbled, unintelligible and usually…
Wood on August 25, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I recently purchased a Magellan Roadmate 1340. This is one of the first new releases by Magellan since they were acquired by MiTAC (parent company of MIO) I am using the Magellan 1212 as a basis for comparison, since I have been using that for the past 3 months and been very pleased with it, other than some occasional routing quirks. The 1340 is very similar, but does add some significant extra features and improvements, for relatively little price difference: 1) “One Touch” Favorites menu offers quick access to many of the most used features and shortcuts. 2) Customizable route method lets you instantly view and compare and select the shortest distance, fastest time, most use of freeways, or least use of freeways to customize your route. 3) The AAA TourBook is a nice addition that provides ratings and descriptions on AAA approved places to stay, play, dine, and save. 4) Several other features such as Highway Points of Interest have more conveniently positioned shortcut buttons. 5)A new “Highway Lane Assist Signs” feature show highway signs to point you in the right direction when approaching interchanges and exits, and ensure that you’ll choose the correct lane well before your next turn. That being said, the 1340 has 2 “glitches” that need to be corrected by Magellan: First, in any kind of sunlight, the screen is very difficult to see! The 1212 is very visible in all kinds of light, but the 1340 almost seems as if there is some kind of coating on the screen that makes viewing very challenging in sunlight. I contacted Magellan support, and they indicated they were aware of this issue and would hopefully have a fix available at some point. Second, of less importance but still a step down from the 1212 is the voice clarity on text to speech. When the voice announces the street names, the names are slightly “fuzzy” or “garbled”. This is not a “deal breaker”, but definitely does not have the excellent clarity of the 1212. I tried 2 different units, and they both have the same problems in these 2 areas. In summary, I think the added features make the 1340 a better unit than the 1212, and an excellent value for the money. However, if these shortcomings could be corrected, it would be a GREAT unit! UPDATE (5-19-09) I contacted Magellan support about these issues a couple of times and they said they were aware of the issues and that hopefully a “fix” would be issued. Yesterday, a firmware update (to version 1. 10) appeared on the Magellan website and I downloaded and installed it, thinking it was to correct the brightness and sound issues. However, I did not notice any difference in either problem, so I emailed Magellan support. They said that the update was to correct another issue, and did not address the brightness and sound problems. They acknowledged that “you are correct that there is a significant difference between” the 1340 and 1212, but could not tell me for sure when or if another update will be issued to correct these known problems!
Oda on August 25, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What’s this?)
Introduction ———— I am going to compare the Magellan Roadmate 1340 with the Tomtom One 130-S. These two navigators are similar in size, cost, and features. If you are thinking about buying the 1340, you should also look at Tomtom’s navigators. In the Tomtom line, the 130-S has been replaced by the 140-S, but these two navigators are very similar. I will refer to the Magellan Roadmate 1340 as “the Magellan. ” “The Tomtom” is what I will call the Tomtom One 130-S. First impressions —————– The Magellan and the Tomtom are the same size, except that the Magellan is a few millimeters thinner. Thin is good. You’re going to be carrying or hiding your navigator every time you use it, to avoid theft. Both navigators have a front side entirely occupied by the display screen. Both navigators have a speaker on the back. The mounting system of the Magellan is excellent. It stays attached to both your windshield and your navigator. The mount is easy to position, and easy to take down. The Tomtom mounting system is also excellent, but different. The Tomtom mount folds flat. You can buy a small carrying case that swallows up the mount along with the navigator. Once again, small is good (see previous paragraph). The trade off is that the Tomtom mount is more difficult to position, and will pop off from the navigator quite easily. Start up time is a problem with the Magellan. It will be fully 30 seconds after power-on before the Magellan will respond to you in any fashion. It can be minutes before the navigator acquires satellite signals. By contrast, the Tomtom becomes responsive within one second of power-on. If you haven’t traveled far since power-off, the Tomtom will re-acquire satellite signals within seconds. Start up time is a problem for the Magellan. When I get into my car, I don’t like waiting around for my navigator to become responsive. Both navigators have simple user interfaces. However, the Tomtom is more simple. The difference between the Magellan and the Tomtom is not night-and-day, but it is evident. Basic Navigation —————- The Magellan maps are excellent. I was surprised to find that the Magellan knows about the roadways inside the parking lots of hotels and shopping centers. The Tomtom does not. In other respects, both navigators seem to have maps of similar quality. That is, accurate and complete. The Magellan display screen is difficult to see in bright sunlight. This is by far the most serious problem with this navigator. For some folks, this will be a show-stopper. I suggest that you CLEAR the menu item Settings/System settings/Brightness/Dim on Battery Power, which is SET by default. This helps, but only a little. By comparison, the Tomtom does not have much of a problem with sunlight. Some reviewers have complained about fuzzy sound from the Magellan. I do not find this to be the case. The voice coming out of the Magellan is loud and clear to my ears. Pronounciation of street names and cities is excellent, much better than the Tomtom. In particular, the way that the Tomtom pronounces Spanish names is hilarious. A navigator should give you a lot of preparation for road intersections, freeway interchanges, and so forth. Both navigators are excellent in this respect. You get verbal announcements long before you reach each intersection. The Magellan has an advantage over the Tomtom in this department: a distinctive bell sound occurs at the moment when you the driver must begin your turn. I really like this feature. Although a good navigator must give repeated announcements of upcoming intersections, I sometimes make the mistake of turning too early, ending up on the wrong street or freeway exit. The bell sound of the Magellan solved this problem for me. Entering Destination Information ——————————– Both navigators provide a means to store destinations for repeated use. The Magellan’s implementation is more feature rich. With the Magellan, you get an address book. Each address book entry can have a name, company name, two addresses, and three phone numbers (these are all optional). With the Tomtom, you get a list of Favorites. An entry in this list is a name and a location. That’s all. If you have expended some effort entering data into your navigator, you might give some thought to backing up this information. Both the Tomtom and the Magellan offer this capability. The Tomtom can back up and restore its state using your computer as the backing store. The Magellan can also back up and restore, but it uses a removable MicroSD flash card as backing store. You have to buy your own MicroSD card to use this feature. Points Of Interest —————— Both navigators provide points of interest, such as hotels, parking lots, and restaurants. The Magellan is notable in that it provides the AAA Tourbook. Well, sort of. The Magellan does indeed provide information from the printed AAA Tourbook, including locations, phone numbers, descriptions, and ratings. This is useful, and it is something that the Tomtom does not offer. However, the descriptive information in the AAA Tourbook cuts off after a few words, often in the middle of a sentence. Even the titles get cut off after a few words, making the AAA Tourbook difficult to use. The Tomtom provides useful points of interest, but nothing descriptive like the AAA Tourbook in the Magellan. The Tomtom also has collections of points of interest contributed by users, which can be browsed and downloaded from a computer. The lists compiled by users are of varying quality, mostly bad. Extra Features ————– The Tomtom navigator provides a rich set of features involving a USB connection to a computer, and ultimately to the internet. The Magellan offers nothing in this department. Most of these Tomtom extra features are gimmicks. But if you enjoy playing with gadgets, you will favor the Tomtom. I have already mentioned some of these features above. Here are some of the tricks you can play with the Tomtom that you will not enjoy with the Magellan: – operate your navigator from your computer – download locations of traffic (ticket) cameras provided by users – download points of interest provided by users – download map corrections provided by users Conclusion: ———- This review has compared the Magellan Roadmate 1340 and Tomtom One 130-S navigators. These are among the smallest navigators commonly available for sale. In my opinion, this type of navigator is the most useful. Larger navigators are easier to see, but not enough to be justified by the bulk and weight. YOU WILL remove your navigator from your car or truck, or a stranger will do it for you. The second option will be accompanied by expensive damage to your ride. You don’t want it. You do want a navigator that is easy to carry around with you. Spend a little extra and buy a close-fitting carrying case for your navigator. The best aspect of the Magellan is its excellent map. The worst aspect is its visibility in bright sunlight. This is why I only assigned four stars to this navigator.
Bailey on August 25, 2009 at 3:31 pm
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good for $99 but lacks addresses
I couldn’t resist so I bought the thing at costco [...]. I would
of gave it 3.5 stars if I could have.
Denver on August 25, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Q: How long does it take to start up? A: 32 seconds, timed with a stopwatch. Q: How long does it take to find the satellite? A: The first time I started it up, it took a while, but every time since then it was nearly instantaneous. In my office (3rd floor of a large 3-story college building) it takes about 8-10 seconds to find the satellite signal. I also want to highlight the AAA tourbook and the user interface. I find the user interface more elegant and more intuitive than those of the more popular brands. The AAA tourbook is fantastic if you are a tourist, because it contains reviews and descriptions (not just location info). The other reviewer is right about the street name TTS function. To my ear it does not sound fuzzy, but rather it sounds QUIETER than the rest of the speech. So I have to turn the volume up to the point where the speech is quite loud for the street names to be comprehensible. I view this as a minor annoyance, not a deal-breaker.
Osher on August 25, 2009 at 4:40 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Notes from a Garmin User
Magellan does not support Apple computers, so if you are one of the growing number of people using a Mac, look elsewhere.
Rishelle on August 25, 2009 at 4:54 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Does the job, not much to complain about
Nice unit with some great higher-end features like multi-destination and text-to-speech. Some reviews have complained about the relatively dim screen under bright conditions…
Helmfried on August 25, 2009 at 4:57 pm
3.0 out of 5 stars
It will get you where you’re going
I have used a Garmin of some sort over for the last several years and admit that I am partial to that brand.
Yule on August 25, 2009 at 7:36 pm
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great little unit
I love this GPS. This does just about everything that I expect a GPS to do, although it doesn’t have features such as bluetooth for any power users out there.
Cait on August 25, 2009 at 7:50 pm
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magellan Roadmate 1340
Magellan Roadmate 1340
The Magellan 1340 is one of the low to midrange GPS units available. For a low cost unit, it has a lot of features:
1.
Derek on August 25, 2009 at 8:54 pm
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad, but not great GPS
Over the course of the last eleven years, I have owned and personally used five different GPS devices.
Ryann on August 25, 2009 at 10:58 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
I like this GPS…
Being a first time GPS user, I was intimidated by the Magellan Roadmate 1340. My hubby read the directions & explained them to me.
Musoke on August 25, 2009 at 11:54 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well functioning GPS unit which is very easy to use
Now that GPS units have been around for a few years their usability is excellent and differences between brands and models is more a preference and not a usability thing.