24. Pros

• Ultra-bright 4.3-inch display
• Touch screen is very sensitive, requiring only a light touch to register commands
• Excellent address input system (As you type, Maestro dims out letters that don't spell valid city names)
• Lots of control over route calculation preferences
• Ability to exclude specific roads/highways from the route
• Good Points of Interest (POI) database (the 4250 only has 4.5 million POIs compared to 6 million on Garmin's nuvi models. Yet I found the Maestro did a better job finding local businesses in all the areas I tested)
• Newly updated 2007 (NAVTEQ) maps
• Includes everything needed to receive traffic data
• Traffic receiver integrated into the 12v adapter
• Fast, responsive interface
• Split-screen view is excellent for understanding upcoming maneuvers
• Magellan's QuickSpell text-entry system makes spelling street names a breeze - even from the driver's seat
• Four routing methods to choose from: Fastest Time, Shortest Distance, Least Use of Freeways, Most Use of Freeways (Although it would be nice if the GPS would display estimated drive times for each of the four methods so you could make a more educated choice about which method to select).
• Current Location screen allows one-click viewing of your current location, time of day, speed, direction of travel, and also is an easy way to save your current location into the address book for future use (even if your current location doesn't have a valid street address)
• Magellan's unique "Exit POIs" feature lets you see what's available at each approaching exit on the highway.
• AAA TourBook data included
• Nice looking device
• SiRF's high performance StarIII GPS receiver
• Supports multi-destination routing with route optimization (ability to sort a list of addresses by distance)
• 6 hour (average) battery life

25. Cons

• Poor customer support
• Underpowered speaker isn't loud enough, even at the highest volume.
• Night Mode only darkens the map screen. All other menus remain in the (blindingly bright) blue theme used in regular daytime mode
• Voice Recognition only works in a quiet car with little or no background noise, and you still have to speak clearly and close to the GPS unit
• Can't enter a street address using Voice Recognition
• No way to get back to the map screen using Voice Recognition
• Maps not as smooth looking as other GPS units (probably because of fewer "shape points" being used to render the map)
• Poor documentation
• Tapping the back icon doesn't always back out to the previous menu; sometimes it returns you back several menus and you have to start all over again
• Address Book of saved locations hidden under the "Enter Address" menu
• No way to search for a POI near your destination address
• Can't search for a POI while en route to a destination; Other than the Exit POI feature, the only way to search for a POI is to cancel the current route
• Irritatingly long delay when accessing the bluetooth menu
• Weak Bluetooth compatibility. I was unable to fully pair an Apple iPhone, and completely unable to use a Blackberry 8700 with the Maestro 4250
• Announces full street names rather than truncated names, making for a very chatty GPS at some intersections
• Traffic data still fairly useless, as coverage is spotty and accuracy of data is inconsistent
• Text-to-speech quality, though improved over previous Magellan units, still lags behind Garmin and TomTom
• Street names are sometimes word-wrapped in a strange way, making it hard to read the upcoming maneuver
• Text entry system for POI lookups doesn't use Magellan's QuickSpell
• No linkage between Magellan's 4.5 million POI database and the AAA TourBook information (so you have to search in two places to get a complete list, as both may contain different POIs)
• Poor Bluetooth compatibility
• Announcing of full street names can be overly verbose
• Although you can create and store multi-destination routes, you cannot insert a single stop along a route you are already driving. For example, Garmin's GPS units allow you to add a single stop along the current route.
• Occasional bugs (unit froze up on me once and I had to reset it)

26. Conclusion