9. Searching by Zip Code

Figure 47: Searching for an Address By Zip Code

I have to admit that I found the Search by ZipCode feature very useful. It's not always obvious what city your destination is in. For example, when driving to an address in New York City, the city name is actually Manhattan. Entering the zip code is a less error-prone way of inputting your destination city.

10. Points of Interest

Figure 48: Point of Interest

Tapping POI on the main menu brings up the menu shown in figure 38. From here, you can choose to search the POI database normally (Basic POI), or just the POI's that are close to the highway exits as you drive. These are useful options to have, although I feel the wording could be clearer on what each of these two options are. For example, instead of Basic POI, it might say "All POI's".

Figure 49: Basic POI

After tapping on Basic POI, you can choose to search for a point of interest based on name or proximity to your current location.

Figure 50: POI By Name

Choosing to search for a POI by name brings up the menu shown above in figure 50. From here you can tell the Magellan to search for a POI near your current position, or any of the alternate choices listed above: nearby city center, nearby airport, nearby address.

I felt this was one layer too much in trying to find a POI. I like the idea of being able to easily choose whether you want to search near your current position or near an alternate location, but drilling menu levels deep can get confusing.

Figure 51: POI By Category

After telling the Magellan where you want to search for a POI, the category list appears. From here you can choose restaurants, banks/ATMs, gas stations, hotels, hospitals, police stations, transportation, and many more. If you're not sure what category the POI you're searching for is in, you can spell the name and let the Magellan search through all categories.

11. Setting the Home Address

Figure 52: Entering the Home Address

From the Main Menu, tapping on the Home icon for the first time prompts the user to enter a home address. Home is a special kind of address book entry that can be quickly chosen from the main menu.

12. Using the Address Book

Figure 53: Address Book

Managing the address book is very intuitive with the MRM 2000. You can view previous destinations, view only the saved addresses you have marked as favorites (favorites), list all your saved addresses (list addresses), or add a new address to the address book (create new entry).

13. Trip Computer

Figure 54: Using the Trip Computer

The trip computer allows you to view details about your current trip, and, if you want, save them. I didn't feel this feature was particularly useful, although I suppose some people might like it.

Figure 55: Trip Computer

After tapping on trip computer, the list of saved trips appears. By default, only the Current trip will be there.

Figure 56: Current Trip

Tapping on the Current entry in the trip computer will show you the statistics of your current trip: average speed, trip time, drive time, trip distance.

14. Trip Planner

Figure 57: Trip Planner

The trip planner is Magellan's implementation of multi-destination routing. Using the trip planner, you can input multiple destinations, and save the entire route as a trip.