"Also, Magellan's QuickSpell text entry system does not work within AAA's TourBook database, so when you search the AAA TourBook POI database all keys on the keyboard remain selectable."

I think this is due to AAA have some sort of contract with Magellan to show it differently and there is also updates that is offered by AAA that will not be available to update the NavTeq POI's.
By the way, the keyboard for POI's does not include the quick spell like it did with the MRM 5xx and 7xx, it all stays selectable which you have to figure out the correct spelling yourself.
One thing you should of mention is the AAA show your card and save and also the Event option that is very unique, the Show you (AAA) card and save acts like the Garmin Saver guide but it's free for AAA members, the Event option will show up coming events like car shows, art and wine and other events in your area, this is not offered by any other navigation system that I know of. The AAA authorized repair facilities is also a good feature, for a garage to be qualify to be a AAA shop, they must have all the right tools and training and if you have a complaint, AAA will go to bat for you. I use to own several AAA authorized repair facilities and we are held to a much higher standard and customers satisfaction is all AAA cares about so no matter who is right or wrong, the customer always gets the benefit of the doubt and wins. So it is a good thing for travelers to use AAA authorized garages for emergencies repairs.

"Magellan, Garmin, and TomTom all get us to our destination address, but the Garmin nuvi chooses a slightly faster route, provides more detailed navigation instructions, and is also the only GPS to announce what side of the street our destination address is on."

Fletch, this statement is not exactally true, the Magellan will also offer audio direction for what side of the street the final destination is on, there has been time that it misses it for one reason or another, but it does have this feature more often than not. The ONLY negative part about all this is that Magellan currently do not have the repeat last audio repeat feature active, don't know why but I think this is mandatory since how many time have someone missed an audio command and needed to repeat it, if it is not needed, Garmin would not have it right? ha ha ha!

"Again Garmin chooses the best route, Magellan chooses the second best route, and TomTom chooses the worst route. While Magellan and Garmin both route us along the 101 highway from San Jose to San Francisco, TomTom instead chooses highway 880 North to 80 West -- an odd choice that adds around 4 miles ( 6 minutes) to the journey. Even worse, TomTom again has us arriving on the wrong side of the street, with our destination address on the left."

TomTom offering new mapping software from TA that may route you better, you should test their new TA software for fair comparison.

"Throughout my testing I noticed that if I strayed off course, although the Maestro would almost instantaneously "re-calculate" the route, it would keep trying to route me back to the original path instead of accepting the change and re-routing on the new road. In some cases this added 10 miles to the trip and had be doubling-back in circles instead of just re-calculating the route going forward on the new road. In a side-by-side comparison along the same route, Magellan's routing engine had me doubling back (adding 15 minutes to the trip) while Garmin's nuvi GPS simply re-routed me along the road I was currently driving on (although the Garmin did make me wait a nail-biting 30 seconds before it finally figured out I had missed the turn)."

This maybe a regional issue as far as doubling back, I found the Magellan normally will ask you to double back once and than it will offer you a complete different route if and when it is available. I think Garmin took a lot longer for rerouting and the problem is we are missing all the possible options on the highway when we are waiting for the Garmin to reroute us, this was true on our beta test few weekends ago going to San Diego and the Garmin unit was so slow that it was ridiculous.

"Once paired with a cell phone, you can access the cell phone's address book, place and receive phone calls using Maestro as the speakerphone, and dial POI's from the POI database.

Using Maestro as a hands-free speakerphone in the car had mixed results. When parked in a quiet cabin, sound quality was good and both parties could hear the conversation well. However, when traveling at highway speeds, I found Maestro's internal speaker too quiet to hear the phone conversation, and people I called complained they could hear their own echo."

I agree and have requested Magellan to consider the use of an external mic like Garmin Nuvi units, the Garmin units sometimes have the same echo issue but is resolved by using the external mic which makes the sound quality on the other end much better. the speaker volume is strange with the Maestro, it is not tie to the vehicle navigation sound output and it should be, it is not as loud and missing an FM transmitter so it can use the car speaker if needs be.

Fletch, nice review but I think you will find that there are better things coming from Magellan thanks to the direction of our new CEO or I should say Magellan's new CEO.

GPS4Me, I think you're totally right about the routing engines; that it is more than likely regional. Heck, when I had the 4040 it actually gave better routes than both of my Garmins in many situations within NYC, depending on the boro I was traveling. The Maestro often routed me better while driving within Manhattan, though the Garmin routed me better getting *into* Manhattan.

Does that make one gps better than the other as far as routing is concerned? I don't think so.

Fletch's test routes usually favor the Garmin, at least in ETA and distance. But just how accurate are the ETA and distance if actually driven? I know that the Garmin wants to take me into a section of Brooklyn in a funky way, even though it claims lesser travel time than the Maestro. But, the estimated time is not accurate, because it considers Kings Highway an actual highway, when in fact it's a 6 lane drive (both ways) with lots of stop lights and takes you through a less than desirable neighborhood. The Magellan, to it's credit, avoided Kings Highway, and all though the ETA may have been a bit longer on the Maestro, in actuality it was much shorter, since it kept me on the highway and in a manner I would have chosen since I know the area well.

Fletch, I'm not sure why you use Google, Mapquest or Yahoo maps as a benchmark. They too can take you through some odd routes, and if I'm not mistaken, some of them, i.e. Mapquest, use both TeleAtlas AND Navteq maps.

Also GPS4Me, I have to agree with Fletch. More often than not the Maestro (at least the 4040) doesn't tell you which side of the road the destination is. As a matter of fact it surprised me by announcing it the first time because it rarely does. I wonder why it's intermittent?

Also, not having the ability to use QuickSpell within the POI searches is mind-boggling and defeats the purpose of that great feature. At least offer a QWERTY keyboard to make life simpler.

Oh..I forgot. I can't wait to get my hands on this sucker. I'm liking it already and also like the fact that Magellan seems to be listening to us.

sorry to be redundant, as I have made this comment before, but since Magellan seems to be listening, can they please restore the "street first" address searching that the older Magellan units offered? There are a lot of times I am not sure which town an address or intersection is in, and it is annoying to have to guess, get it wrong, try again, etc. Also, sometimes it is just faster to enter an address street first, then pick the correct city from a list. Missing this feature is an absolute deal breaker for me in choosing my next GPS.

GPS4ME - The TomTom ONE XL I used for routing engine comparison already has the latest TomTom maps on it.

In my testing, routing performance was still poor on the TomTom, even with their newest maps.

You might want to try panning in 2-D mode. My crossover won't pan in 3D but does in 2D and maybe the same is true for the 3140.

"You might want to try panning in 2-D mode. My crossover won't pan in 3D but does in 2D and maybe the same is true for the 3140."

I don't know of any unit you can pan in 3D mode, even the Garmin have to be switch from 3D to 2D for map pannig,the same holds true for the 3140.

Since these current GPS systems have an internal battery, an application would be to use the systems as a hand held device for identifying where you parked, either on a city street, a large mega-mall parking lot, or at an airport parking lot, and getting you back to where you parked. But I don't see any evaluation of how well the system functions as a hand held device when walking.

When you park, this GPS allows for saving the current location (unique to Magellan (?)), and then it should navigate you from there to your final address destination. When arriving, turn the system off, and do you business. When leaving, turn the system on, pull up the saved parking spot, and have the system get you to your car, whether on a street, or a mall parking lot. At an airport, the specific parking lot should also be saved for remembering which bus to get on, and what stop to get off.

If the charge time of the battery is important enough to be a factor in the evaluation, then the application where the battery is used should also be part of the evaluation.

After reading this review, I decided to look into buying the 3140 (not yet available). Since the review said that the human interface of this GPS is the same as the 4050, I went to a Best Buy to look at the 4050.

My 760 was problematic with entering addresses, so I was especially interested in the ability to enter a zip code and bypass the ambiguity of multiple cities in a state with the same name, or the city name in an address not being recognized. What a disappointment!

I tried entering the address of the store I was visiting 1717 York Rd
Timonium, MD 21093. I entered 21093, and instead of being prompted for the street address, I had the choose bewtween several local juristictions. As the only info I had, or should ever need, is the address I decided not to waste my time trying each juristiction to see which one had the street address associated with it. After backing out of the zip code entry, I chose the city name. I got as for as "Tim", the next letter "o" was greyed out, and I was stopped. Good thing I was alresdy at the store!

How could something that should be so simple get so screwed up. Interestingly, I tried the POIs, and searched for "Best Buy". After the city prompt, I ewas able to enter "Timonium", as the letters were not greyed out. The thing did identify the store, but showed the address as "Lutherville Timonium".

If the USPS can deliver a letter with nothing more than a street address and zip code, why can't a high tech gadget like this accept a valid mailing address?

This problem is not unique. I tried my zip code, and had to choose between five different juristictions. I tried "Mount Joy", PA, a good sized town northeast of Lancaster, PA. I couldn't enter "Mount".

What a shame!!

Went to a Circuit City store to see if the 3140 were in. They weren't. Spoke to one of the more knowledgeable GPS salesmen I know and he informed me that the Maestros are being returned at an alarming rate for various reasons - slow processor, routing, crashes, bluetooth, awful TTS. He then told me to look at CC's own user reviews (the 4040) to see how atrocious some of the user reviews are. So I did. The highest ratings "5" were often suspiciously given by "users" saying such as "the best ever!" while the poor reviews (most) seemed more detailed and legitimate.

It had a poor overall score of 3.3, which IS poor by CC's review standards. If not for some shady "5 stars" it would be closer to an average of about 2.

I haven't been doing much GPS reading lately so I visited a few of the better-know gps sites. What I found is that EVERYBODY and their mothers, no matter what their problem was, were told by Magellan reps that their issue will "be fixed in the upcoming update." It would be nearly impossible for Magellan to fix everything they are promising their customers. Seems like they are pulling customer's legs.

Me is starting to thinks that Magellan is pretty much a crapola company. And to be honest I could care less about how little resources they have compared to Garmin as an excuse to how difficult it is to provide top-notch service. Why should I care or shed a tear? This isn't charity, so why on earth should I purchase from them out of sympathy? I want a reliable GPS with A-1 service from a company I can trust, not from a company like Magellan that either fibs or one where customer service either isn't available, doesn't return calls or IF you're lucky enough to get one, get someone form India who is almost as difficult to understand as the Maestro TTS. I'm starting to realize that all we are hearing is a lot of noise out of Magellan and their supporters.

I'm starting to rethink my 3140 purcgase after doing some digging.

I Just received my Magellan 3140 Today. I got it for $299 on HSN. WHAT A STEAL. I see Circuit City has them for $399 and you cant get it yet.

I have yet to test it out but I can't wait. I will post a review once I do.

I purchased my 3140 this week and have tested it. I found it to be easy to use, and acurate. The only complaint I have is that the display is hard to see in bright sunlight.

I have suggested to Magellan that they make a black plastic sunvisor that will snap over the unit to make the display more visiable.

bonjour comment je peu comende la housse de protection

Fletch, I am a first time GPS buyer. I am considering the Magellan 3140 or the Garmin Street pilot c550. You mention in this article that Garmin will be updating its mapping data within the next few months. If I were to buy the 550 today would I be able to upgrade the maps? Would it cost me anything? Do you know when the Magellan 3410 will be available at Circuit City? If so do you have any idea how much. Thanks for your great reviews they are really helpful.

Hi, I bought the 3140 off of HSN for $299. so far its great, works good, very fast. I like the bluetooth feature. I use a garmin quest 2 at work (issued) and this by far blows that one away. The only bad things I can say about the 3140 is the mount is not good if you plan on taking the unit off of the mount at the end of the day, also the speaker could stand to be a little louder. Anyone know if I can get a mount that is more suited to this kind of use, dont want to leave the unit in the car over night. Other then that its great for the price.

bigjoe,

I modified the mount that came with the original 3140 series. This will be the mount that is in the box that they tell you may not fit.

I used a Dremel with the small engravers bit to cut away a small part of the two pieces of plastic that slide in the slots in the back of the unit. Be careful not to cut to much away. Cut a little and try and fit the mount. This allowed me to use the smaller mount with the head that is more adjustable.

Great unit, HOWEVER: I bought this unit knowing that the traffic reroute function was very important to me. I have had the unit for three weeks, and Magellan still has not released the traffic kit. I was told by tech support that it should be another week or so, and about $150. for the kit. I am upset that magellan has offered nothing for customer service, since I can buy another manufacturer's gps with traffic, available NOW, and not have to wait. I love the unit, so I don't want to return it and get something else, but the traffic is one of the most important features for me!

In summation, I am a seasoned user of GPS's and I have ZERO complaints with this unit-I have it mounted via standard bracket, in the center of my windshield, and I do not experience tremendous wash-out, I do find it intuitive, accurate, and in short I love it. I could have paid alot more money, for a different unit, but this does everything I need, and then some. I also love the AAA guidebook; makes finding new POI's very fun!

Fletch, you mention that Magellan is going to release an update for the 3100 that mirrors the map changes to the 3140. Have you heard an ETA on that update? Thanks!

I truly did like this unit, however, 3 times in the first 3 weeks it did not find the proper address. The directions it gave were pretty much spot on until the very end. In 2 of the cases, when I got to the last intersection, it told me to turn the opposite direction of where the address actually was! Now, I was just testing it with addresses I know, so no big deal, right? But what about when I'm somewhere I don't know? I have no confidence in it. It actually told me to turn left when the correct address you actually to turn right because it was on a different block. Now, I'm new to GPS and maybe I'm asking too much, but can I trust it? It also tells me to turn into my street about 500 feet before my street, which is actually someones yard. My street has been around since the early 90's, so it shouldn't be a mapping issue. By the time I can actually turn into my street, it has already recalculated an alternate route. I've also tried the Nuvi 350, which has the same issue at my street, so that I figure is a mapping error. but the Nuvi does find the other addresses that the 3140 did not. I actually like the 3140 better as far as the actual operation of the unit goes, but it also needs to be accurate first I believe. am I off base here?

Great unit, but one big problem for Canadian users. The 3140 cannot plot a course from Canada into the US. Also, it does not seem to understand that Canada has postal codes, with letters and numbers, not just zip codes. So on the Zip code screen, it will not allow you to enter a Canadian postal code, nor will it accept US zip codes, as it is set for Canada.
No clue what these guys were thinking.

Erik:
in order to enter Us address you have to change the region from Canada to US.

Thanks Greg.
I do get that. I am just concerned that I cannot plot a route from Canada into the US. My friends cheapie Garmin can do that. Lots of Canadians who live near the border (that being most Canadians) make frequent trips into the US. A real pain if you have to stop just over the border, switch to the US setting, and then do the rest of the trip that way. Sure, it CAN be done, but the competition does not require it.

The mount sucks. I read that one could shave some plastic but is there any other alternative such as a universal mount with and easier detachment process? Other than that I love it.

I bought the Roadmate 2200T at Costco ($250) about three months ago before driving from L.A. to Montreal, Canada.
I found it to be good company. Two of the features I most appreciated were the brightness adjustment and the multiple interface color options, some of which were actually quite psychedelic, and ranged from black and white to flourescent)!
The biggest negative was the feeble routing info in Canada, which is why I am looking to upgrade to a unit with more up-to-date mapping.
However, as a typical 50+ user with diminishing eyesight, I would expect a newer Magellan to have at least as many colorization and contrast options as the 2200T.
Anyone have any insight?

BTW, Magellan 3140 - $354 @ Overstock LESS $40 this week! ie $314 plus nominal shipping

I've spent the past 3 days reading every website and review I can find for AutoGPS systems. I have about 10,000 vacation touring miles on my Magellan Meridian Color with DirectRoute v1.00a and 3D topo maps so I'm no longer WOW'd by having the GPS just get me there. I narrowed the choices down to the TomTom One, the Garmin nuvi 350 and Magellan 3140. I gave up on the TomTom because it seems to fail the fundamentals, good maps and good routes.

I am now favoring the Magellan 3140 over the Garmin 350 because of its multiple intermediate "waypoints" routing and its better (AAA) travel help. I am not happy that the battery life is so poor. 2 to 3 hours almost precludes carrying the unit with you on walking tours.

1. Have you seen a battery extender for the Magellan Maestro series? Garmin seems to have one for every unit even though they don't seem to need it with 8 hour batteries. see

http://www.gomadic.com/brand-garmin-accessories.html

2. With my Meridian, I used 3rd party software to format Google Earth placemark files in Magellan format and load them in bulk as waypoints. Can I still do that with the 3140?

3. I still have the Meridian and can use it for Topo's. The 3D Topo software loaded on my new Vista PC OK in compatibility mode but my DirectRoute v1.00a did not. I have seen discussions on some websites, mostly European, that there is a thing called the CrossoverGPS "Kit" that will allow Maestro series units to work with topo maps just like the CrossoverGPS. I can see nothing on Magellans very user un-friendly website about it. Have you heard of this? That would be ideal, having the full functionality of the 3140 and topos in the same machine. see last paragraph of this site.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pda-solutioncenter.com%2Fproduct_info.php%3Finfo%3Dp2146_Magellan-Maestro-4040---Europa.html%26XTCsid%3Debff61d01f699c9b535a13bd1e230312&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=EN&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Google translation from German

My 3140 went back yesterday. While it is potentially about the best GPS for the bucks available now, there are just too many bugs and bad design choices to make me want to keep it. Mine even had the latest firmware.
I don't think it would take much to fix the problems, but I don't feel like being Magellans guinea pig.
Swapped it for a Garmin Nuvi 350, which has already shown itself to have inferior screen and sound compared to the Magellan.

3140 is on sale at HH Gregg this week (thru 8/4)for an unbelievable $199. You can purchase it on their website and have it shipped as well.

WOW!! for $ 199 how can you go wrong with all the features. I was debating between the 3140 and Garmin C340, this price made up my mind. If it don't work I'll return it to Magellan.

I don't have an HH Gregg near me, and the web deal was OOS, so I printed up the web flyer, brought it into Sears, and they price matched it, plus gave me an additional $5 off as the PM guarantee. The interesting thing was that the REGULAR price rang up as $249.97, which is still a pretty good price.

I love getting a new toy!

I just purchased a 3140 and it works great. Paired with my Sanyo cell phone with no problems. The AAA tour guide is the greatest thing ever put on a GPS. The routing also appears to be good.

hello,
I have a couple of questions concerning this unit as well as gps in general.

1. I read in the review of the 4040 that you can not plan an itinerary on the computer and transfer it to the gps, is that the same on the 3140?

2. The key feature that I am requiring is the ability to manually select a route (example: I want to go from Virginia to Massachussetts and if I type in a start and and end point it will take me through Washington DC, Baltimore and NYC, via I 95. The route that I prefer takes me around DC and Baltimore by using the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and it takes me around NYC by going through White Plains, by using the Tappan Zee Bridge.) Can any gps unit allow me to pick the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel and the Tappan Zee Bridge or do I need one with multi destination capabilities? If I need this capability the 2 units that I am looking at are the Magellan 3140 and the TT One XL. The only reasons that cause me to lean towards the 3140 are the TTS and the fact that your test say that the TT one gives bad directions a lot of the time. Since the TT One XL is newer does it still give bad directions or has that been resolved? Also, in your personal opinion is TTS worth the extra money, I don't need any of the bluetooth or entertainment stuff just a reliable gps unit that gives good directions, has current technology and allows me to modify a route to the roads that I prefer. So which unit would you recommend?

Thanks

Just got a Magellan 3140. Downloaded a series of 15 POI's into it from my computer. Tried to plan a TRIP using these points. Trip Planner would not let me use my own POI's to plan a trip. Only accepts first POI in the Category. Called Magellan's help line. They confirmed that you can only use their preloaded POI's to plan a trip. Magellan is going back to the store.

after reading the great reviews here and looking at the buyer's guide, I was in a quandry. should i get the magellan 3140 or the garmin nuvi 350. the nuvi had a better score and the reviews recommended it over the magellan. if the price was the same on both units I would have bought the garmin. however, since the magellan could be had for $299 and the garmin was $370 I couldn't tell if the garmin was worth $70 more considering my limited us of the GPS device would just be for road trips. so I went ahead with the magellan and so far I have been pretty happy with it. I can't imagine anything easier to use and the added bluetooth functionality is a plus. it's silly however that the magellan doesn't come with an ac adapter to charge the unit and the battery life is rated at only 3hrs compared to garmin's 8 hrs. however, this would only affect me if I used the unit outside of a car (which is very unlikely).

Just purchased a 3140 and pleased with the unit so far. Just want to mention that this unit performs a re-route almost INSTANTAINIOUSLY when I do not follow the original route. Tried it out to a friends house, and I know some back ways to it. When I deviated from the route offered, within a few SECONDS it recalculated and took me on the back roads. So far have no complaints about the 3140

I'm new to GPS but I did a lot of research before buying the 3140. I took it out for a test drive today and it performed very well. The TTS just made me giddy; I found it to be easy to understand and not robotic. It does pronounce my street name just a tad weird, but the name of the street is clearly written on the screen so I didn't find this to be a problem.

Since I knew my route today, I took some wrong turns to see whether it would reroute fast enough and it did, right away. I also routed to a known POI and it gave me a very different route from the one I usually take but it ended up being just an efficient way to go.

The windshield mount is tricky and it's not easy to take the unit off the mount in a flash and go. But I wouldn't leave the mount anyway, so the extra seconds spent to take the whole thing off are not a big hassle.

I wish it came with a pouch, but since it didn't I'm using a nice padded makeup bag for it that fits everything, including the charger.

Speaking of the charger, I wish it had an AC charger. I'd like to just go into a local store and buy one but I can't find a place where they sell Magellan OEM accessories except online.

Have had my 3140 for a few weeks now. took a trip to Harrisburg, PA. last week. It was wonderful having it along. Took me to my hotel, the convention center and to restaurants, shopping malls, gas stations without problems. GPS is a device that once you have one, how did you get along all these years without it! My only issue, and this would be with all GPS's I'm sure, is a times in heavy traffic and a complicated direction change, having the GPS telling you what to do, trying to keep track of surrounding vehicles, and your passenger adding their imput, can be a bit overwhelming. At one turn I went norht instead of south due to the exits being close together and my not interpreting the screen prompts properly. Learning the way the GPS prompts surely helps.
I'm simply amazed at the accuracy of the maps. How they get all that detail into the 'puter is amazing, and how accurate it is as to your current position. Simply amazing!

The 3140 seems like a lot of GPS for the money. I have a Garmin 2730 and the new Garmins that finally have multi stop routing have no Truck mode, which works well for me, not perfectly, but keeps me out of trouble.. Also no exclude street as the Magellan has.
Any way Magellan has a new 3250 and does any one know if the screen is brighter than the 3140? That seemed to be one complaint plus the TTS voice.
The 3250 seems to be the replacement for the 3140 or close to it. Any one familiar know if it routes as well? Is it an improvement?
Thanks

Purchased the 3140 about a month ago based on the reviews on this site. All in all I would say you gave it a very fair assessment. This unit is alot of bang for the buck. One thing I wish you had touched on a little more is the maps themselves. I live in an area that's seen alot of growth in the last year. There are many POIs, and friend's houses that are not on the map. Many of them are not on my friend's Garmin Nuvi 350 either, BUT supposedly Garmin is much better at updating their maps. I don't even know if this unit has that capability?

I purchased the 3140 and have have major problems with cstomer service regarding the traffic kit. Read my notes: There is no traffic kit but yet the "supervisors" in the Phillipines (where the customer support is located) keep telling me I will get a special number that I can enroll with and they will call me back by 8PM EST. I have a bridge to sell...does anyone want to buy it. You cannot get a straight and honest answer from customer support. This unit will be shipped back immediately as they are using FALE ADVERTISING to lore their customers in. Be aware----the unit cannot and I am sure will not have live traffic alerts available.

I noticed on most of the Magellan units you made a big deal about seeing the TIME of the ETA on the screen. You were so happy that the 3140 finally shows this.

WHY did you make such of a big deal about a person preference?

I have found it far more valuable to see the total distance to the destination instead of the estimated time. The gps does not know if you will be stopping for gas. It doesn't know if you will hit rush hour traffic and average 35mph instead of 65mph.
To me seeing a guess at what time I might arrive is worthless. But knowing whether I have 30 miles or 200 miles to go means a whole lot more to me.

Overall I have enjoyed the reviews. In the future try to not make a big deal over a personal preference that not everyone will share.

Thanks,

Jim.

I was actually very glad to hear that the 3140 had the time of ETA on the screen.

I have owned the Garmin Street pilot c340 & now the Magellan 3100.

I liked that my Garmin had the Time ETA. I could see if I "picked up the pace" I could make it on time. Sometimes 11 miles can be 11 minutes or 30 minutes. Being a Realtor, you are OFTEN going to unknown locales.

My Garmin was stolen out of my car ( Duh for me) and I needed a QUICK replacement.

I chose the Magellan 3100 over the comparable Nuvi just for "....& giggles" (after reviewing Target's return policy.)

I really like the M's:

*Screen & how it directs you- I find it quick & easy to see
*Love the auto fill for streets
* LOVE the choice in entering zip code, city or ...
zip code is the best & fastest. My G did not have this
* Like how it tells me "stuff": It just says more to me so I don't have to be looking at it as much.

Here in the midwest, I found the Garmin was PAINFULLY slow on finding satellites. Many times I had to completely QUIT out of my route as I would only get a flashing ? mark & searching for satellites icon for 6-10 blocks. f' that... I live 6 blocks from the 2 most Major Highway intersections in the Minneapolis area. I would literally have to pull over to reset & or wait ( never came up) for it to find out were I was.

I am much more satisfied with Magellan's prompt and accurate detection of where I am!

All in all, I like the 3100 more than the c340, but do plan on returning it & purchasing the 3140.

I REALLY wish that Fletch had done a review on the 3250, because this is what I am considering vs the 3140, but cannot find a thorough review on it.

Here is what I will say about this site:

This is the most in depth comprehensive review I have found for any GPS systems.
Magellan might want to consider pulling their heads out of their.... when it comes to their " compare" check boxes. I don't really care how much it ficking weighs!!! Tell me it has "XYZ PDQ "for FEATURES. Cnet.com is close to this site, but not too close.

Blah Blah Blah, HUH?

WHEW!

Muffy

(and with a name like this, who cares????)

Do any of you know if magellan throwing out next firmware for 3140 upgrade soon? They have upgrade for 4xxx series.

Magellan has released a new firmware version 2.16 for the Magellan 3140. It is available for immediate download at their site.

Great review on the 3140. The local Best Buy has this unit for $299 (I am in Canada) and also has the Garmin 350 for $399. Which is the better buy? Is the 350 worth the extra $100? Thanks.

I got the 3410 at London Drugs (Edmonton, AB, Canada) for CnD 229 (+ tax) Jan 8 2008. I tried for two hours and was ready to return it since, in spite of its rock bottom price and features, I just didn’t like the navigation display as compared to the (cheaper and plain basic) Garmin-200 (CnD 200 at best buy Canada). In short, I was willing to sacrifice ALL the 3140 features just for having a nicer display. HOWEVER, before returning it I gave it a last chance… I checked the firmware the unit came with… it was 1.19 while the latest release available from Magellan.com is v.2.16. Had no problem at all to download and install it in the 3410. In few minutes I was on the road testing it again. The changes introduced in the newest firmware are good enough for me to give it a much more serious consideration, based on the FACT that they are no other units out there with this load of features at this price. I just would wish for this unit a sharper/brighter DAYTIME screen (imo the NIGH TIME is good) and a louder speaker (imo inaudible above 100 km/h), maybe for v 3.0??. Thanks all of you for this site, it is just Great!!.

ALO UPDATE on the 3140: contacted Magellan support by email re: low volume/speaker. This is their answer the following day (see below). Nothing to say I will keep the 3410.

Quote:

"I apologize for the delay in replying to your email.

I understand from your mail that, the unit audio is inaudible in above 60
miles/hr.

I would like to inform you thats not a harddrive (sic) issue and we are working on
that to solve the issue with the next firmware update.So i kindly request you
to wait for the next firmware update."

It is not possible to add enhanced POIs to Trip Planner.

ditto , I have had garmins and tom toms and the 3140 is better and cheaper.

3140 with the firmware update gave me great routes, text to speech, auto reroute , smart detour , instant sat locks even indoors, tons of poi's, AAA , fastest reroutes, route optimizer, ( great for deliveries) and even lane assist!

still think garmin is better?

I bought the 3140 for only $ 229

to get a garmin that has all those features you would have to buy the 750 which is over $400 and doesn't even have blue tooth , smart detour , or AAA .

oh yah ! garmin doesn't even use the best sirf star 3 chip in the 200 or 700 or 800
series so good luck with getting a signal! lol!
I can tell you from first hand experience my 3140 locked on to 11 sats 15 seconds after turning it on for the first time. it even works under my car seat!

everyone knows that garmins are over priced and under featured compared to other gps's on the market today.

maybe garmin will wake up and firware update all models with route optimizer and smart detour and blue tooth instead of hosing their customers by making them buy a $700 new model just to get these common features.

give me a break garmin.

I have owned a Tomtom One for over a year and bought the Magellan Maestro 3140 ($200) since it seemed to offer a lot more features.
I badly needed a GPS unit with "Route Optimization" considering that my job requires me to travel to ~10 different locations each day.Having "Text to speech" and "Blue Tooth" ability made me very excited about Magellan Maestro 3140.

To say that I was disappointed after trying Magellan Maestro 3140 for one day is an understatement!
First of all,the sound level is way too low.I could barely hear it unless I kept the radio off.That rendered the "text to speech" and hands-free "Bluetooth" features useless.

However my biggest disappointment was the "Route Optimization".To begin with,it would not allow me to pick the final destination.That is essential.What use it there if the unit calculates the best route while setting your last stop 100 Miles away from your home?
It's amazing that Magellan's software designers failed to understand that someone might want to travel to 7 locations and return home (with home being the last stop)!!
When I entered home and the 7 different locations,Magellan suggested that I should go home on my 3rd stop!!
On top of that,the system crashed and rebooted once while computing "Route Optimization" and almost half the time deleted one location and doubled another location in its place,very weired!
This one is going back to store.

I'm new to the GPS scene. Saw the 3140 at Amazon for $149 (shipped), so did some review-searching. After reading the review here, I bought one for myself and one for my "always lost" daughter.

So far, I love the 3140. Turned it on at the post office, didn't have to read the directions to figure out inputting a destination, it got me home in great shape. I purposely passed my turn, it recommended a legal u-turn twice, then recalculated the route. It told me which side of the road my house was on, but got it wrong (oh well).

I'm looking forward to using the 3140, and am hoping my daughter feels the same way after she tries it out.

Great review, by the way!

EXERCISE CAUTION

While the design and functionality of this product is very good the Magellan customer and product support leaves a lot to be desired. I purchased the Maestro 3140 less than 4 months ago and found the maps to be extremely out of date and no new maps available on their web site. While reviewing their site recently I found their was a new maps update.

Here is the clichcer. It costs 79.99 and they will only provide free of charge for products purchased within the last 30 days. There is no literature in the packaging to instruct anyone they have 30 days to update their software.

The update has been out less than a month. This leave anyone who purchased their out of date GPS with an additional $118.00 bill to bring it up to date.Yes I did say it was only 79.99, but because it is not available for download on line I am being charged an additional $25 dollars for shipping for a CD. This is quite lucrative for such a small item. They are trying very hard to get the printer and ink marketing in effect here.

It is such a shame they lack business ethics to the extent they market out of date products with no sense of duty to ensure the product performs well, but rather look for ways to stick it to the consumer with hidden costs and over priced services. There business practices over shadow the quality of the product they manufacture and this is very unfortunate but but even more unfortunately a growing practice which Magellan obviously subscribes to.

In closing, I was told by one of their service managers the current maps their are MARKETING could be up to 18 months out of date. If you live in a high growth area maybe you want to try TomTom or Garmond. They don't seem to have map datum issues.