16. Creating Custom POIs

The RoadMate 2200T ships with a 'PC Tools' CD-ROM that allows you to create custom points of interest (Magellan calls these "My POIs") and transfer them onto the RoadMate from the PC using an SD memory card. The 2200T doesn't come with an SD card, so you'll have to buy one or use a spare one from a digital camera you may have laying around.

Why would you want to add POIs instead of just saving addresses to the address book? Custom POIs allow you add points of interest that may not be on the pre-loaded maps. For example, you may want to add the closest Home Depot, or a nearby restaurant. The PC application also allows you to import POIs onto the RoadMate in bulk, making it easy to build a large custom POI database.

The POI Manager application also gives you a way to save longitude and latitude coordinates to the address book. Unfortunately, there is no way to navigate to longitude/latitude coordinates directly on the RoadMate -- you have to use the POI Manager application on the PC to save the coordinates as an address. Magellan is planning to sell an outdoor/Geocaching upgrade kit for the 2200T that will make it possible to enter longitude/latitude coordinates directly on the unit.

Figure 56: Accessing the POI Menu

The POI menu is accessed by tapping on POI from the navigation main menu.

Figure 57: Points of Interest Menu

Once in the POI menu, you can search the pre-loaded POI database (Basic POI), view POIs located near upcoming highway exits (POI Around the Exit), or search your own custom POIs (My POI). Magellan's documentation makes no reference to the Premium POI icon shown above in figure 57, but I'm guessing Magellan plans to sell additional POIs such as speed cameras and travel guides.

17. Music Player

Figure 58: Music Player

Unless a GPS has a built-in FM transmitter so you can hear music over the car's built-in stereo, I'm not much of a fan of music players (although if you have a new car that has an audio input jack, then you're all set). Nevertheless, the ability to play music on your GPS has become a basic feature on just about all new GPS devices, and the RoadMate 2200T is no exception.

My biggest complaint with Magellan's music player is that you cannot listen to music while navigating to a destination. Actually, you cannot even access the navigation menu while using the music player, making it impossible to even view the map. This is one area where other GPS makers clearly have a more competitive offering. Both Garmin and TomTom, for example, not only allow you to listen to music while navigating, they actually pause the music player whenever a navigation voice instruction is read, and then resume playing. In its current form, I found the RoadMate's music application almost completely useless.

Figure 59: Magellan's Music Manager Application

The 2200T's music player supports MP3 and WMA formats. You cannot store music on the RoadMate itself -- you'll need an SD memory card. Magellan's documentation says you must use their Music Manager application to copy music onto the SD memory card. However, in my testing I was able to simply connect an SD card to my PC and drag the music files onto the card, then insert the card into the RoadMate and it recognized the music files just fine.

Using Windows to drag and drop music onto the memory card seems a lot easier to me than using another application to do it, however if you want to use Magellan's software to transfer songs to the Magellan, you'll need to power off the 2200T, insert an SD memory card into the slot, and then attach the RoadMate to your PC using the supplied USB cable. Power the unit back on, then launch the RoadMate Tools Application, then click on Music to launch the Music Manager application.

Figure 60: Managing Playlists

Unlike many other GPS devices (most notably, Garmin), the RoadMate music player supports playlists. Tapping on the playlist icon in the music player screen brings up the playlist menu, shown above in figure 60. From here, you can play previously created playlists, create new playlists, modify existing playlists, or delete or rename a playlist.

Figure 61: Setting the Play Mode

Tapping on Play Mode from the music player screen brings up the play mode screen, shown above. Apart from the standard play modes, the RoadMate has a 'Preview' play mode, which plays the first five seconds of each song in the current playlist (why on earth would you want that?).

Figure 62: Equalizer

The music player has an equalizer that includes default settings for Jazz, Classical, Rock, Techno, Dance Hall, Live, Full Bass, Full Treble, and Full Bass & Treble. Surprisingly, you cannot manually adjust the equalizer.

18. Photo Viewer

Figure 63: Photo Viewer

The RoadMate 2200T includes a photo viewer that supports JPG and BMP file formats. Similar to the way the music player works, you'll need to store the photos on an SD memory card. Again, Magellan's documentation states that you must use their RoadMate Tools application to transfer photos onto the memory card, although I was able to simple drag and drop photos on to the SD card in Windows and it worked fine...

19. System Settings

Figure 64: System Settings

The RoadMate 2200T has two menus for configuring settings. The most basic options are set in the System Settings menu, accessed by exiting the NAV application and tapping on Settings from the main menu. From here you can configure volume, brightness, power, language, time, and unit of measure settings. The rest of the navigation options are configured from within the navigation application, and are accessed by tapping on NAV from the startup page, and then tapping on Options.

I found it slightly confusing having two different menus for configuring options. Magellan says one menu is for adjusting global settings, while the other is navigation specific. I'd prefer to see these menus rolled up into one options page.

Figure 65: Adjusting the System Volume

One of my biggest complaints about the RoadMate was having to exit the navigation application to adjust the volume level. At least Magellan had the presence of mind to include a mute button directly on the map screen, but having to exit the navigation application (and thereby cancel any route you were navigating) just to adjust the system volume is il-conceived.

Figure 66: Adjusting the Brightness

This screen allows you to adjust the brightness setting. Checking 'On-battery dimming (80%) will extend battery life by dimming the screen to 80% when running on battery power.

Figure 67: Power Settings

The Power Settings page tells the RoadMate how long it should stay on while there is no noticeable activity, such as pressing a button or the location not changing.

Figure 68: Time Zone

Using the '+' and '-' buttons on the Time Zone page, you can change the current time zone or check/uncheck the Daylight Savings box.

Figure 69: Ahh...The Metric System

This page allows you to change between fee/miles and kilometers/meters.