Table of Contents

1. Technical Specs
2. Features
3. What's Included
4. Design
5. RoadMate 3000T and 6000T: Cut from the same cloth
6. Mounting the MRM 6000T in the Car
7. Turning the MRM 6000T On, Off, and Putting It To Sleep
8. Entering an Address
9. Navigating to a Destination
10. Magellan's Locate Feature
11. Points of Interest
12. Multi-Destination Routing (Trip Planner)
13. Announcing Street Names (Text-To-Speech)
14. Setting System Options
15. Installing the RoadMate Tools PC Application Software
16. Integrated Real-Time Traffic
17. Bluetooth
18. Music Player and Photo Viewer
19. The Good
20. The Bad
21. Conclusion

1. Technical Specs

Price: $799 ($649 street price as of 9/4/2006)
Dimensions: 4.8" H x 3.8" W x 1.4" D (W 121.9 mm x H 96.5 mm x D 35.6 mm)
Weight: 8.64 oz (307 g) w/ battery
Display: 3.5" diagonal touch screen: full-color, high resolution, transflective TFT, backlit, automatically adjusts to light conditions
CPU: Intel XScale Processor
Screen Resolution: 320 x 240 QVGA; 64,000 colors
Storage: Secure Digital (SD) or Multimedia Card (MMC) for expandability
Audio: Integrated Speaker (mono) with integrated stereo headphone jack
GPS Receiver: 20 channel SiRF Star III, WAAS/EGNOS enabled
Acquisition Time: Hot: 1 second, Cold: 40 seconds, Initial: 5 minutes
Accuracy: 3 to 5 meters (10 - 16 feet) - WAAS/EGNOS, < 7 meters (15 feet) - GPS only
Battery: Li-Ion researchable 1350 MA, 12 V AC or 12 vehicle adapter
Mapping Data: Pre-loaded - 50 United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, US Virgin Islands
Language: English, French, Spanish

2. Features

• Traffic-enabled - Integrated traffic receiver provides LIVE traffic incident reports1 to avoid accidents, road work and more. Incidents appear on screen with detailed information.
• Hands-free phone calls - Bluetooth® wireless technology and built-in microphone let you make hands-free phone calls using your Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.
• Turn-by-turn voice and visual guidance - BE THERE™ quickly and safely
• Built-in maps - 50 United States, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Canada.
• Birds eye 3D view - Clearly see your surroundings
• Digital Music Player - Play your favorite music while navigating through integrated speaker or headphones
• Photo Viewer - View your vacation pictures while you're still on vacation
• Rechargeable battery - Navigate and enjoy music and pictures for up to 4 hours, when you don't have access to power
• Multi-Destination Routing and Route Optimization - Select up to 20 destinations and optimize the most direct route between them
• SayWhere™ text-to-speech - Hear when to make each turn including the street name
• SmartDetour - Customize the settings to automatically route you around sudden slow freeway traffic
• Auto Re-route - Never miss a turn and quickly get back on track whenever you take a detour
• SmartVolume™ - Turns up the speaker at 45 MPH
• Auto night view - Adjusts color and contrast for easy night viewing
• QuickSpell™ - Easily enter addresses with unique auto-complete feature
• Over 6 million points of interest (POI) - Easily find gas stations, restaurants, ATMs, airports, parks and more
• Interactive POI icons - Touch an onscreen icon for a nearby destination; see phone number and get an instant route
• Customizable route method - Shortest time, shortest distance, least use or most use of freeways, avoid toll roads
• Route exclusion - Select street or freeways to avoid
• 4 easy views - Map View, 3D map, TrueView™ 3D split screen, Maneuver List
• Address Book - Create and store personal points of interest to easily route to those locations in the future
• Instant locate - One touch shows your location; quickly advise roadside assistance or emergency services

3. What's Included

Figure 1: Here you see everything that was sent to me for evaluating the Magellan RoadMate 6000T:

• The MRM 6000T unit itself
• 12v Car Adapter
• Suction Mount
• Mounting Bracket
• AC Adapter
• USB Cable (not shown)

4. Design

Figure 2: The Front of the Magellan RoadMate 6000T (shown with protective shipping plastic adhesive thingy still on the screen).

Figure 3: Button Layout on the Front of the MRM 6000T

1. Mute button
2. Bluetooth button
3. Built-in Microphone
4. Zoom Out Button
5. Power/Sleep Button
6. Zoom In Button
7. Charging Indicator
8. Locate Button
9. Destination Menu/View
10. Main Menu
11. Enter
12. Navigation Key
13. Escape

Overall I liked the layout of the Magellan RoadMate 6000T more than I thought I would. I liked having both options of using hardware buttons or the touchscreen. Having both input options costs Magellan more money, so they deserve some credit for doing so. I was especially happy to see the addition of a Mute button. In my experience, having a physical mute button is extremely handy. Sometimes when you are talking to people in the car it is very handy to be able to quickly silence the voice prompts. I've been complaining for years that Magellan needed to include an easily accessable Mute button; it's always nice to see customer feedback incorporated into the design.

Another feature that is quite handy is the Locate button. As far as I know, this is unique to Magellan. Pressing the Locate button brings up a screen with your current street location, heading, and how far you are from the next major intersection (i.e. "heading West on Main street, xyz county, 1.2 miles from the i82 interchange"). This is quite handy if you want to tell someone where you are, such as a tow truck, or the police.

However, notice buttons 4 and 6 on the top of the unit. One of my biggest grievances with the MRM 6000T (and the 3000T which shares the same design) is the positioning of the zoom-in and zoom-out buttons. These buttons are quite sensitive and the positioning of them makes it basically impossible to handle the unit without accidentally pressing the zoom buttons. It's not really an issue once the unit is mounted in the car, but all other handling of the unit will result in accidentally pressing the zoom buttons. Given Magellan's track record of excellent, I was really quite surprised that this design flaw made it out the door. There's really no way to handle the unit for more than a few seconds and not notice this problem.

Another complaint I had about the design is the amount of wasted space around the border of the display. I really feel that the display should either be larger, or the area with the buttons around the display should be thinner. Compared to the beautiful and functional industrial design of the TomTom ONE (New Edition) or the Garmin Nuvi, the Magellan 6000T looks cluttered and dated. To be competitive in the PND market space, Magellan needs to recognize that it's not only about function -- form is an important part of the consumer decision-making process, and can definitely be a tie breaker between similarly priced GPS units. This is Magellan's high-end GPS that competes with the TomTom GO 910 and the Garmin StreetPilot c550. Of those three, the Magellan RoadMate 6000T has the least attractive design.

Figure 4: The MRM 6000T has a single speaker, located on the rear of the unit.

Like most other GPS units, the MRM 6000T has a single speaker (so far the only GPS I've seen that has 2 speakers is the Garmin StreetPilot c550). I found the speaker quality to be quite good. Voice prompts and sound effects were crisp and not distorted even at maximum volume. Although, in my testing, I found that when traveling at highway speeds, the MRM 6000T was occasionally not loud enough, even at maximum volume.

Figure 5: The volume knob increases or decreases volume; you can also press down to repeat the last voice prompt.

I was very happy to see the inclusion of a physical volume control. Nothing is more irritating than having to tap around menus to change the volume, especially since you normally do this while driving. The volume control is a rocker-wheel that clicks left or right. My personal preference would have been for a standard 0-10 style volume control instead of the rocker switch, but I'm just glad to see Magellan included hardware volume control.

Figure 6: Bottom of the 6000T

The bottom of the MRM 6000T has a 16-pin connector that the manual states is "reserved for future expansion". It's also used to attach the unit to the quick-release mounting bracket (not sure why the manual says it's only for future use -- it's used right now in a fairly major way). One thing that's slightly annoying is that you have to remove the protective rubber cap from the connector before you can connect the unit to the mounting cradle (I'd guess it'll be around a day or so before that thing gets lost!). I'm all in favor of keeping those connector pins safe from the elements, but it would be nice if Magellan could design the connector so it's protected when not in use, but didn't require you to remove anything when docking the unit.

Figure 7: Right side view of the Magellan RoadMate 6000T

1. Stereo headphone/Audio out jack
2. USB
3. Reset button
4. Power connection

These are pretty self explanatory. If you're fortunate enough to have a newer style car stereo that has audio inputs (say, for an iPod), then you can connect the audio out jack to your car stereo and hear the voice guidance over your car's stereo speakers.

Figure 8: Left side view of the MRM 6000T. The SD Card slot, protected by a rubber flap. An SD memory card can be used to store mp3's or pictures.

Figure 9: The mount for the MRM 6000T connects to the windshield mount, and then you dock the unit into the mount. This allows you to leave the 12v cigarette adapter connected to the cradle, and the cradle connected to the windshield mount. So mounting and un-mounting the 6000T is a quick procedure.

Figure 10: The back of the mount. This type of dock can also be connected to various 3rd party mounting hardware by using the 4 screw holes. The included windshield mount slides into the grooves seen here. Once connected, the mount and windshield suction mount are very secure and stable.

Figure 11: The connectors on the mount for an FM antenna and an external GPS antenna connector.

Figure 12: connector for the cigarette lighter power adapter (or external power source).