4. Finding An Address

Figure 26: Main Menu

The RoadMate 1470 allows you to enter a destination a number of different ways, but probably the most common method is to use a street address. To test Magellan's address entry system, we'll enter a destination address in New York City: 135 Central Park West.

The first step in entering a street address is to tap Go To from the Main Menu.

Figure 27: Choosing A Destination Type

I'll be entering a street address, so I'll tap Address (we'll look at Points of Interest later in this review).

Figure 28: Enter City or Zip Code

First we'll need to enter the city name, or zip code of the destination address.

Entering an address on the RoadMate is a breeze, thanks in large part to Magellan's QuickSpell -- A handy feature that only allows you to press letter that would spell a valid city name. Letters that would not spell a valid city name are dimmed out.

Figure 29: Recently Found Button

Tapping this button in the upper-right corner displays a list of recently found cities.

Figure 30: Select City Name

Once enough letters have been entered that only a few possible matching city names exist, the RoadMate automatically displays a list of matching cities. I'll select "New York, NY" and continue.

Magellan's new Smart City feature further speeds address entry by sorting the list of matching city names in order of closeness to your current location.

Figure 31: Enter Street Name

Next we'll need to enter the name of the street name of our destination address.

Figure 32: QuickSpell

Spelling the street name is identical to the the city name: as you type, Magellan's QuickSpell feature only allows you to select letters that will spell a valid street name within the chosen city.

This feature may not sound like much, but it greatly speeds text entry, and just makes the GPS easier to use. Once you get accustomed to the speed and convenience of Magellan's address entry, you'll miss it when using other GPS devices.

While spelling out a city/street name, you can press the green checkmark icon at any time to view all the cities that match the letters you have entered so far, or you can wait until enough letters have been entered that the RoadMate 1470 will automatically display a list of matching city names to choose from.

Figure 33: Select Street Name

After entering the first few letters of the street name, the RoadMate displays the list of street names shown above. I'm entering an address on Central Park West, so I'll tap "Central Park W".

Figure 34: Enter Street Number

Next we'll need to enter the house/building number of our destination address.

Notice that the RoadMate displays the valid range of house numbers for the chosen street (in this example, the valid range of house numbers along Central Park West in New York City is 1-499). This can be handy for situations when you're unsure of the exact house number.

Once the house number has been entered, tap the green checkmark to continue on to the Route Calculation page, shown below.

Figure 35: Address Confirmation Screen

Once the address has been fully entered, the RoadMate 1470 displays the address confirmation screen, shown above. This screen lets you begin navigating to the destination by tapping the large, orange, "Go" button, and also provides the following options:

• Plus icon - Add another stop to the trip (you can add multiple stops to any trip)
• Save - Saves the address to the address book
• Options - Lets you choose one of four available routing preferences (shown below), or manually exclude specific roads from the planned route
• Map Icon - Displays the entire trip on a 2D map, with the planned route highlighted

Setting a Route Method on this screen only changes the Route Method for the current trip. If you want to permanently change the default Route Method, you'll need to do that via the settings menu.

Tap Options to change the Route Method, or the Go button to begin navigating to the destination.