Figure 28: Magellan Maestro's New Map Screen

1. Direction of travel - tapping this icon displays Magellan's Locate screen
2. Zoom out
3. Turn instruction for next maneuver - Tapping this icon displays the maneuvering list (when routing to a destination)
4. Current time - when routing to a destination, this area changes from the current time to display the distance to next maneuver. Tapping this area repeats the last maneuver instruction.
5. Access the Main Menu
6. Present speed - when routing to a destination, this area changes from displaying the current speed to display distance to destination. Every few seconds this cycles from distance to destination and time to destination.
7. Street name for next maneuver
8. Volume control
9. Zoom in
10. Satellite status - tap to display additional satellite information
11. Car icon - represents your car on the map

Figure 29: Magellan's Older Map Screen vs. Maestro's New Map Screen

Although Magellan spent quite a bit of time and money re-vamping the updated map screen, it is actually more difficult to read on the new Maestro than the old Magellan RoadMate's map screen.

Let's take a detailed look at the problems with Maestro's new map screen:

Figure 30: The Trouble with Magellan's Updated Map Screen

During my testing, I found several annoying deficiencies with Magellan updated map screen:

1. The "Direction of Travel" indicator in the upper left corner is displayed in white on a light orange background, making it hard to read. Additionally, older Magellan GPS devices showed the "Direction of Travel" in red when there was no GPS signal. Thus, out of habit I kept looking at the map thinking I wasn't getting signal.
2. The zoom in/out and volume icons are so transparent that they're hard to see, especially on the "night mode" view.
3. This area displays the street name of the next maneuver. The font is so small that it is hard to read from the driver's seat. The same problem is true of the "Current Street Name" bar on the top of the map. If you look at the font used in most highway/street signs, great care has been taken to make sure these signs are easily readable just by glancing at them for a second or two. Magellan's decision to use small, serif fonts on top of a transparent background makes the text difficult to read.
4. Take a look at how small the "arrival" text - it's virtually impossible to read while driving.

My single biggest complaint about the new map view is that arrival time is not displayed. Instead, Maestro cycles the display (in area #4 in figure 30, above) between showing the miles to destination and remaining drive time. But it does not tell you what time you will arrive, so you are constantly doing the math in your head to figure out what time you'll arrive. This is such a huge flaw that it's hard to believe Magellan made an intentional choice not to include it. What could possibly be more important than knowing your arrival time?

Just to be clear (because I always see lots of confusion on this issue) - the ETA is displayed in terms of remaining miles to destination, and remaining TIME to destination, but is doesn't actually display the estimated time of day that you will arrive (i.e. 8:34 pm). Garmin, TomTom, and most other GPS devices display this critical information, so I'm perplexed why Magellan has omitted this key indicator from the map screen.

Readability issues and the lack of an arrival time displayed are major issues, but could be easily fixed via a software update from Magellan. Let's hope common sense prevails and Magellan updates the map screen..

Figure 31: Magellan's Excellent TrueView Split Screen View

Split screen is a fantastic feature that really makes it clear what the next maneuver will be. Magellan has had the split screen view for a long time, and I'm very happy to see it remains even in the new "improved" interface. Shortly before the next turn, Magellan's innovative "split screen" view is displayed and a chime sounds, letting you know that you'll need to make a turn soon.

Like previous Magellan GPS units, the Maestro 3100 does a good job notifying you of an upcoming maneuver. However, I did notice that Magellan has changed the upcoming turn alert from the previous setting of 2 miles to just 1 mile before a turn. So instead of getting notification of the next maneuver 2 miles before the turn (when driving on a highway - on surface streets the notifications are closer to the turn), the 3100 alerts you just 1 mile before the turn, and then again 0.2 miles before the turn. For highway driving, I found these intervals too close to the turn, and would prefer to see Magellan return to the standard 2 miles notifications.

10. Viewing the Maneuvering List

Figure 32: Accessing the Maneuver List From the Map Screen

When navigating to a destination with the Maestro 4040, the "Maneuver List", or text list of all upcoming turns, can be viewed at any time by pressing on the turn icon in the lower-left corner, shown above.

Figure 33: The Maneuver List

The Maneuver List screen displays a text list of all upcoming turns. Each line in the maneuver list provides details about the maneuver in the order they are to be made, with the next maneuver at the top of the list. The bottom bar displays the distance and time to the next maneuver, as well as the total distance to the destination.

To exclude a particular road and force the Maestro to find an alternate route not using that street, simply tap on the street you want to exclude from this list, and then tap "Exclude".