Great review, but there was a lot of copy & paste from previous review of 4050. For example, although you correctly state in specs part that 4205 has 6 mln POIs, later on you say that it has 4.5 mln (paste from 4050 review). I recently returned my 4050 and got 4250. I see that quality of voice recognition improved so did ability to have phone conversation via bluetooth connected phone. I noticed that 4050 tend to hang and/or crash with large number of custom POI loaded (probably due to being low on RAM, internal memory, not to be confused with non-volatile storage). 4250 doesn't have this issue, might be because they don't load all maps, but split them into regions. Also for reasons I can't understand 4250 holds better to the satellite signal in a bad weather.
The major problem with both units, and I am surprised that you don't discuss it in detail is what Maestro does when you missed a turn. 4050 used to show progress bar on blue background and no map while recalculating. 4250 shows static ("frozen" at the point when it began recalculating) map, with no progress bar. Both solutions are very poor especially if driver needs to make some decisions before calculations are complete. My old Lawrance continued to track car on the map while showing a small progress bar in the screen corner - this would be the optimal solution.
Also I would like to underscore several very good points you made in the reaview. First it would be great if in general POI list there would be a reference to AAA listed items - this is really trivial software change long overdue. Also an important point is that we need ability to search POI by name WITHIN a given category or subcategory not only among all POIs - can drastically improve the search speed. You are right saying that there should be an option to connect power to the base instead of the unit so we don't have to plug and unplug it everytime; for that reason I liked better the bulkier base of 4050 - I could plug power to it.
I found that Maestros is less stuborn than Nuvis, i.e. if I chose different route it adapts faster without trying for long time to turn me back on the old route.
Lastely I note that my unit sometimes doesn't react on power ON button and I have to press it for 10-20 seconds and then (not always after the first attempt) unit reboots. That worries me. Overall for $350 at Costco 4250 is the best value for the money at the present time.

Hello
I'd like to contribute my two cents worth as a 4250 user (and an ex-4040 user). I recently tested this unit with a Tomtom 920, side-by-side, and I eventually returned the 4250.

Why? When it came down to brass tacks, the driving experience with the 920 is far better.

Now some cons for the 4250. Many of these observations are also true of the 4040, which I upgraded from.

1. While driving, map updates are slooooow. The map moves like you're watching a slide show, snapshot followed by snapshot. Very jerky. I found that I was frequently getting ahead of my position on the map. Not nearly as smooth and fluid as the 920. This only gets worse when receiving traffic data, which apparently steals CPU cycles, making calculations far slower.

2. Route recalculation when a turn is missed is excruciatingly slow. This is also true of the 4040. When deviating from a route it takes the 4250 30 - 45 seconds to recalculate. Again, this is much slower when receiving traffic data, and can take 1 minute or more. This is with the strongest GPS signal. By comparison, the 920 often recalculates within 5 seconds.

3. The antenna is integrated into the power cable, but it provides a very poor signal if you just let it dangle. There's a screen that allows you to watch signal strength as you drive around. I had to string out the cable across the dash in order to get decent reception.

4. Traffic is absolutely useless. It's not up-to-date and will alert to problems even if an incident is not on your route. Tap the traffic indicator and the list of incidents in the area appears. You can display these on the map, but the map is very hard to scroll, or move with your fingertip. Again, see problems with slowness above. It was also hard to scroll a 2D map in the 4040.

5. The mounting arm has no 3rd axis. You can adjust up and down, swing left or right, but not tilt side-to-side in order to get it horizontal. That leads to a lot of trial and error when positioning the suction cup. The ball and socket of the 920 is far easier.

6. Unresponsive touch screen. I sometimes had to touch twice. Often, it would beep and the button change color, as if the screen were going to change, but it doesn't. Sometimes it happens much later. Same true with 4040. See slowness above.

7. While the AAA info is a good touch and a strong selling point, I had little use for it. I don't often take a long trip without some degree of planning, at least when it comes to hotels. On the other hand, it would have been very useful when I drove across the US. I last did that about 15 years ago.

8. Terrible customer service. Magellan's reputation seems well-deserved, at least from my limited experience. They took three days to respond to an email regarding a feature inquiry. I wanted to know exactly how traffic was integrated into the 4250 because details weren't available their product literature. Did it come via a special cradle as in the 4040/4050? After being handed off three times, I think I ended up in India. The answer was "Yes", it uses the same cradle. That was obviously wrong. I can only imagine if something went wrong with the unit and I needed to seek some recourse. Tomtom has responded within hours to two email inquiries. When I called, I reached someone within the US.

9. Strange routing in my area, at least. The Tomtom 920 was much better.

Pros:

1. Good screen. Nice and bright. Better than the 920.

2. Uncluttered interface and easy to find things. Better than the 920 with all its funky icons.

3. Consistently great GPS lock. On a par with the 920.

4. I didn't see any strangely wrapped street names. The map was very readable.

5. True-view split screen is truly unique, but I like the intelligent zoom when approaching a turn on the 920 better.

6. I found the Magellan DID announce the side of the street that a destination was on.

I want to emphasize that all of my criticisms of the 4250 are identical to the 4040, so I didn't have a defective unit. I upgraded from the 4040 in the hope that a more recent model would have some of these glaring problems fixed, but besides a more recent map, more POIs, and VR, the basic OS performance remains identical.

Let me add that I'm not a Tomtom apologist nor have I used a Garmin. Tomtom could stand a lot of improvement, especially in the interface. The above is just based on my experience with the Magellan 4040, 4250, and the Tomtom 920.

Thanks

Another nice review, Fletch, but again I have to take exception to several things you either said or omitted saying about the routing engine that are relevant and play in favor of the Magellans in general.

First, you criticize the routing engine as coming up consistently second to Garmin, but as with past reviews you fail to mention that the Garmins tend to be overly optimistic in their time estimates, whereas the Magellans tend to be "right on" in estimating one's correct time of arrival. I will say it again ... the Garmins aren't getting you there faster in most cases - the GPS just "THINKS" it is. The result is that a route you claim is "better" might not be if you're only comparing the choices on the reported time estimates versus actually driving the routes in question and seeing for yourself who does it best.

I've come to the conclusion that Garmin is using this as a marketing ploy, rather than correcting this flaw in their otherwise excellent system. Earlier this year you admitted that the Garmin systems err in this way, so I wonder why you keep failing to include this critical piece of information in your subsequent reviews? Garmin hasn't fixed it so why not call them on it and give the Magellans and Tom Toms credit for being more accurate in calculating arrival time?

You also stated that "it's the exception rather than the rule" when a Magellan announces the side of the street your destination is on. I've used several different models of Magellans over the years and with VERY rare exception the Magellans ALWAYS announce which side of the street the destination is on. The Magellans also have an excellent history of RE-ROUTING faster and more accurately than the other brands when you divert from the original course (thanks to their "best in class" routing options), yet you seem to always overlook mentioning these strong and consistent traits in the brand.

I also question your criticism of the Magellan suction cup mount. You've had trouble with Garmin mounts going bad after only a few months of use (specifically the suction cup itself), yet you criticize Magellan for providing a larger one that is less likely to lose suction over time and use. You also criticized the length of the mount, but this could be looked at as a positive rather than a negative. In past reviews you've mentioned that the fonts and maps on various GPS units can be difficult to see when the units are recessed away from the driver, yet here is a mount that definitely gets the GPS closer to the user in any given position on the windshield (versus the short Garmin mount) and you go ahead and criticize it? You would seem to be contradicting yourself here. Given the choice between a sleek mount like the Garmin that looks nice but positions the GPS further away from the driver and a longer mount that gets the product into a safer and more easily viewed (and operated) position I would have a hard time choosing form over function - the Magellan mount is clearly superior, if not prettier.

You're coming along in your reviews, but it still seems as if you can't help but favor the Garmin brand, even when a competitor clearly seems to be doing several things better. It might seem to readers of my comments that I favor the Magellan brand, but I own (and love) a handheld Garmin that I use on my motorcycle, as well as several other brands of GPS, and each has their pros and cons. Quite a few "no name" GPS's are beginning to show signs of competing quite favorably with the big boys, and I don't think it'll be long before the difference between best and worst is MUCH smaller than it is now. I'm currently putting no less than three sub $150 (and in one case sub $100) units through their paces, and I'm amazed at how competent these units actually are. I expected much less after having used the best products from both Garmin and Magellan in the past.

Regards,
Steve

Oh ... one last thing. You mention that the TTS (text to speech) on this unit is "a little verbose," or in layman's terms, it "talks too much." Again, I have to take exception to this opinion. If I'm an average driver in a place that I'm not familiar with, there's nothing I like better than to get as much information about my navigation as possible. If that means the GPS describes a particular route in greater detail, perhaps using both the street name AND route number, I can't help but appreciate it! In some places you ONLY get a street sign that gives you one OR the other, and that can get confusing to somebody who doesn't know where they are. By speaking BOTH options the Magellan is ensuring that the driver has every possible chance of finding his/her way without missing a turn. I was impressed with the say some of the low-cost systems I'm currently testing do this and I applaud Magellan for doing the same ... this is definitely a positive, not a negative in my opinion.

Regards,
Steve

Same ole, same ole, with Magellan and thier Maestro line. Nothing new and exciting.

Does a low price justify buying a GPS that is jam-packed with features, but don't work well (if at all), a GUI that is poorly designed, POI's that are inaccessible (for the most part) while on a route, and customer support that is SO poor that purchasing anything Magellan is like playing Russian Roulette?

I would pass on anything named Magellan, regardless of any attractive price point.

Great review.

I have no doubt that Magellan makes a worthy product BUT, I have said this over and over and over....

The problem I have with them is their Customer Support, or rather their lack of customer support.

I am not the only one who has had to TRY to get to these people, just Google Magellan Customer Support.

If they could fix this, they could give Garmin a run for their money. As it stands now, I find it VERY hard to recommend this to anyone I know.

I owned a Magellan 3250 (same as 4250 except the screen size) and had to return:

Very simple reason:

Magellan's fastest route from Carson City, NV to Las Vegas, NV was throught Salt Lake City, UT.

Look at the map and decide yourself if you really want to buy this unit.

How you can be so forgiving with your headline on this Magellan, yet still so harsh with the TT 720 is just completely beyond me!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday to all.

I feel everyone had made great comments and not so unlike choosing a car or a pair of shoes, everyone is entitle to their own opinion including Fletch. What unit functions best for you personal is the one you should stick with. Not everyone can afford to own 180 different models of GPS system to test with.
I would say find the unit that have the features and ability that meet your needs and stick with it.

I like Magellan and have always try to offer my personal opinion to their marketing team and CEO as to how they can improve their products. Their CEO is aware of customer support issues and have already started to change their customer support from India to the Philippines, but I think they need to learn from Dell and bring their customer support back to America.

TomTom have came a long way and I think they offer a great product these days, their TT 920 is an excellent value at $499 with voice command that actually function well, the over all unit is a bargin for someone that is looking for a GPS system that is feature rich.
Garmin offers excellent GPS unit and dominates the NA market and will continue to do so if they offer their product with the quality they had in the past. If one suggestion I can offer to Garmin is that when they offer to many different PDN models, it makes it almost impossible for any merchant to represent all the models they offer. Might be better to separate the models and have it especially for big box stores and for the higher end units for service orientated 12 volt brick and mortar merchants and the cheaper units for the Costco, Walmart and Internet resellers. Magellan have special Maestro 3225 models for Costco that is not available to anyone else and this keeps anyone from competing with Costco if they need a Maestro model that offers everything the Maestro 3225 offers.
I also agree that all PND products will all soon be very similar in hardware and ability. Bottom line is the cost to build the PND hardware is about $75 average to manufacture one of these and for a GPS manufacturer to sell one for $79, they are just branding their name and not profiting from it.
Mio did very well during Black Friday in 2006, this year Mio did not make a dent due to Garmin, Magellan and TomTom had their own answer to Mio's deeply discounted units.
Yes, it's a race to zero profit is what these companies are achieving and already Cobra had surrender and opt out of this PND market.
Just look for future features to be server base navigation ability, faster processor and graphic cards, true view image of buildings and landmark, better points of interest with audio descriptions of what the POI have to offer, WiFi, WiMax, GPRS, HD radio, FM etc to be included. The ability to track the GPS product may slowdown the theft of these units.
Next year there will be much more 5" displays being offered, voice command, MSN, Yahoo search engine via WiFi GPRS, AVL, server base navigation systems with real time firmware and software updates. You will not be able to buy these units for $79.
I like to own a PND that can offer me the additional features I like to have and not just a strip down GPS with zero features.
You will also see GPS with commercial soon to supplement the cost of the hardware / software.
CES this year maybe interesting but I understand not every GPS manufacturer will display what they have in hand coming in 2008.

One thing I noticed about the 4250 is that it announces which side the destination is on when I enter the address of my destination, if I choose it from the POI list then it does not announce the side of the destination. This seems like a bug and Magellan should fix it.

I compared between 4250 and Garmin Nuvi 680 and I found that 4250 made the announcement well ahead in time, the Nuvi 680 made the announcements little late I found I was too close to the turn, this could be a problem in busy roads.

I also liked the exit POI's of 4250 and found that it is much convenient to use compared to Garmin nuvi 680's interface, the 4250 map is not good as nuvi 680 but it does show the POI icons on the map and you can tap on it to choose a POI. Also the POI search by spell name was slower on nuvi 680.

Rerouting works well on 4250 and seems faster, Nuvi 680 is also fast but sometimes I found that it is attempting to reroute and announcing the message "re-routing" multiple times (meanwhile 4250 is already rerouted).

One thing I noticed that when I (in my case to route to home) exit out of freeway from 101 North and miss the right turn purposely the rerouting picks up the next parallel street correctly, but if I exit from 101 South it tells me to make a U turn to go back to the missed street. This is not a problem with nuvi 680.

To DPal -
You obviously aren't aware that the nuvi does in fact have exit POI's and that they actually work better than the Maestro?

By "better" I mean that with the nuvi, the "exit" POIs show all service roads and services (gas stations, food) on your route on the highway; on the Maestro, it typically does not show service roads (gas stations and food) between exits. So, with the Maestro, you'll have to exit the highway to get gas or food.

Plus, with the Maestro, once on any active route you can ONLY view EXIT POIs - highway exits - in the forward direction of travel. So, if you are traveling north and need to go to a POI, like Best Buy, ASAP, you wont see any south of you, even if only 1/8 of a mile away. Instead, the Best Buy that the Maestro might show could be 50 miles up the road instead.

So, how is this better than the nuvi?

Those touting the Maestro "Exit POI" aren't thinking.

To RobGPS:

Your comment that "Those touting the Maestro 'Exit POI' aren't thinking" is totally inapropriate. It's as though you think that if others like GPS features that you don't then somehow they are stupid.

I happen to like the way exit POI's work on the Magellan as apposed to the NUVI's. If I'm traveling on a highway I don't want to have to go to the next exit and turn around (backtrack on my trip) to get to something; I want to know what's ahead of me. Some highway exits are five miles apart or futher. Why would I want to backtrack that far or at all unless it was a real emergency like a medical one etc.? When using Magellan's Exit POI's I know that everything it is showing me is ahead of me; I don't have to figure out whether they are ahead or if I would have to backtrack to get to them.

Furthermore, because I know that Magellan's Exit POI's work this way, if I needed to get to something that's not listed on the EXIT POI's (hospital etc.) then I know to just cancel the route (a two second operation) and then perform a search for what I want. Again, I would only want to backtrack if I had a true emergency.

I might agree that there seems to be a lot of non-thinkers out there (not speaking of anyone who has posted here), but preferrences for features are not "thinking" matters. Everyone has their own opinion of what works for them the best and it is arogant of you to say that because someone doesn't like what you like they "aren't thinking".

My two cents. :-)

To RobGPS:

I understand your point and know that Maestro 4250's Exit POI only shows what is ahead on a freeway exit, my point was that I found it very simple to go to a gas station or food when using 4250. With Nuvi 680 we can access anything and add it as a via point which is really a very good feature but when I am driving on a freeway, 4250's exit POI is much easier to access.

Thanks,

My Christmas present =) the 4250. I have to say thanks to GPSmagazine for offering a one stop review site (although I must say that I would agree that your site is more than a little biased toward the Garmin GPS).

Opinion on the 4250 is that it is an excellent GPS. Most of the "negatives" listed here I have not encountered. The gps re-routes exceptionally fast, it has always told me which side of the street the destination is on, the mount for the window or dash is rock solid (not elegent), the screen is way to bright in the daytime I have it set at half brightness at night the same, the speaker is set two notches below max volume and if you cant hear it clearly you need to turn your radio down (or clean your ears), bluetooth works flawlessly with a motorola razor, the traffic function works fine listed more than 10 incidents in under a minute.

The Cons, strange on/off button sometimes you do need to hold it a few seconds before the unit responds, the POI database doesnt seem to support adding your personal POIs to the category screen where the others are located instead they are in a seperate menu under enhanced, it sometimes jumps into voice command mode without warning (or request from me), will not sing to me in Latin.

To Shayne:

Does it tell you which side is the destination even when you choose the destination from the POI list? In my case if I choose it from the POI list then it does not tell the side but if I enter the same address then it tell the side.

Thanks,

I have been using the 4250 for a couple of weeks and like it, thought it has some things that annoy me. I have only used it on one trip so far and though I kinda like the exit poi thing, it bugged me a bit that I had to cancel my route to search all the poi's. Mine does not tell me what side of the street my destination is and when I was navigating towards a Target on San Jose, I was on a 3 lane road and had no idea what lane I should be in to prepare to turn. The routing seemed a little bit weird at times wanting to take me on routes that I did not feel the best way. Re calculating seemed ok. I live in an area where we don't get traffic status, but with the free 3 month trial I used in in San Jose. It is not the greatest thing, but was mildly amusing. I got an alert that said CA-87 was slowed to 43mph, that seemed useful. Then I got an alert that said CA-17 DANGER. That's it, just danger.It made me want to go there to see what the "danger" was. Overall I am very happy with this unit, though the first one I bought died after an hour; glad I bought from Costco!

My cousin just bought a nuvi so I may borrow his and try and do my own side by side testing to see which one I really like better, however the price on the 4250 will probably be the main selling point, especially now that in March Costco will have this for $100 off instead of the $50 I got.

Received a 4250 as a xmas gift – here are some tips.

I can only extensively compare to my old unit which is a 3 year old garmin that plugged into my laptop. Setup on the garmin was a huge downside, but the large laptop screen buckled up shotgun was great.

The unit has worked well here are the PROS: Great touch screen – the screen does not lag, but the slower processor in a 4250 takes time to process. I never realized how much faster my laptop was until I used other units. Everything else is on par with a higher end unit.

CONS: First I would have the top of the unit’s silver strip painted black because in the sun it reflects onto the windshield, I just put a piece of black tape on – no big deal.
Disappointed in the real-time traffic in all units – and HOPE that it will start to improve.

Would like to see an option to lower the number of voice prompts – sometimes I will keep it on during a long trip where I know where I am going for the traffic feature – as opposed to switching radio stations and waiting for traffic.

Greetings,

I just picked up a Maestro 4250 and have two negative issues -- that I hope to resolve.

#1. It freezes on the systems page and does not allow the use of the back symbol to get out of that page; even after a reset. This may require turning unit back for a replacement!

#2. The blue tooth connection does not work well with the palm 680 pda. This may be more of an issue with palm than Magellan as the problem is poor speaker / voice quality using that feature.

Other than those items, particularly the first one, it is a great unit.

Mike

I had so many problems with this unit and I deled with the most unprofessional customer support in my entire life, it was a deception.
I bought my first unit over the net directly from Magellan web site, I received it after 5 working days which was ok, I charged it for 5 hours then I entered the code I had for the traffic update, (free subscription for 3 month).
I installed it in my car, it wouldn’t start, I had to push the reset button, and then the unit froze for 3 to 4 minutes, the unit wasn’t able to get the traffic update, I called Magellan customer support, they kept me on hold for about 2.30 hours, then someone came and asked me to reset the unit, then pushing the power button for 30 second, then playing with the entire traffic update setup, and still no solution, so after talking to him for more then 1 hour he said to me that he is going to transfer my call to the professional department, and he put me on hold again for almost 30 minutes . The professional guy assumed that the unit was defective after letting me go with the same process I did with his college 30 minutes ago. He told me that he is going to send me a new 4250, and that he is going to include a shipping label for the defective one.
4 to 5 days later I received the replacement, but I got charged CAD $ 69,56 for delivery, and the shipping label wasn’t available to return the old defective one. The new unit has exactly the same problems as the old defective one, so I called Magellan to let them know, and believe it or not, I spend a month and 4 days talking to the customer support trying to refunf my CAD $ 69,56 and to get a solution for my problem.
Yesterday, January 16, 2008 after being on hold for about 1 hour, they finally agree to send me a third unit, with a shipping label for the 2 old defective units I have. (They did not agree to pay me the CAD $ 69,56)
I hope, this unit will be ok.
Suggestion I have for Magellan, they are trying hard to imitate the Garmin nuvi 680, please stop, and give back the money for the people that own this defective 4250 unit.
Regretfully yours.

To RobGPS:

In regards to Exit POI I disagree with your assessment. First, if I am traveling down the highway I want to see what's ahead of me not what's behind and that's when I use Exit POI. If I just want to see random POI near my location I can do that with the Magellan by simply searching for a POI.

My experience with Garmin units in the same price range as the 4250 is that POI display is more limited. From what I can tell on the Nuvi 350/360 and the 650 that I have looked at is that it's all or nothing on displaying POI icons on the map screen and searching for POI forces you into a specific category, like Fuel or Food where Exit POI on the Magellan will give you all POI at upcomming exits.

The only one not "thinking" about using Exit POI seems to be you. Exit POI is not for generic searches. Both Garmin and Magellan have that covered. It's for when you're travelling on the highway and want to pull over for gas or food or whatever and in that case most people don't want to backtrack.

Your argument lacks substance, IMHO, because while the Magellan can't look behind you with Exit POI, many Nuvi can't look ahead or behind.

I believe that one thing everyone is missing about the 4250 POI's is that if you Search for POI, you will see the list of POIs, but in addition to that you will see the DIRECTION of the POI from the point of travel. This way you know if the POI is ahead of you, to the side or behind you. It also shows the distance away. Neither TT nor Garmin show POIs this way. Very cool Maggie.

Hi,
I never used GPS before. I recently purchased Garmin Nuvi 660 and Magellan Maestro 4250. I used both for few days and returned both. Here are the Pros. and Cons. I found about these two GPS.

Magellan Maestro 4250

Pros.:

1.The unit looks solid and stylish.
2.It has more routing options compared to Nuvi 660. I tried all options and it choose the routes exactly as I expect. I'm very much familiar with the routes that I tried.
3.The speaker sounds better than Garmin. And the voice instructions sounds somewhat natural.
4.It alerts the driver about the upcoming turn, well in advance. And it shows the next turn direction.

Cons.:

1.I found a funny bug in this GPS. Instead of announcing "Dr" as "drive" the GPS announce it as "doctor". That was a big joke. That itself shows how well the units are tested. At that time itself I decided to return this GPS.
2.The Bluetooth feature is not as good as Garmin. It didn't support my phone Sony Ericsson W300i.
3.Magellan says it has traffic alert option and it also has antenna connected to it. But I never get any traffic alerts. This option is completely useless. Garmin does better job in this area.
4.In Maryland state we have I-270 highway. It has two set of lanes, express lanes, and local lanes. I need to take exit 11, So I can choose express lane and take exit 11. It is one straight road, very simple. But this GPS asked me to take local lane and it keep on announcing "stay on left lane", "stay on right lane", blah, blah, blah. It is very irritating. Even if I'm in the express lane the GPS thinks that I'm in the local lane and keep on announcing the usual blah,blah,blah.
5.The windshield mount is very big compared to Garmin mount. And the power card and traffic antenna wire goes to GPS instead of mount as in Garmin. This setup I really don't like. And placing GPS on the mount is ok, but not as easy as Garmin.

Garmin Nuvi 660

Pros.:

1.The windshield mount is awesome. The power card and traffic antenna are built-in with the mount. So we don't have to messup with wires everytime we need to attach or detach the GPS from the mount. I don't prefer leaving the GPS inside car for security reasons. So this feature is very convenient.
2.The screen interface is very easy and the response is very quick.
3.BlueTooth feature worked excellent with my phone Sony Ericsson W300i. It immediatly recognized my phone and imported all data even the text messages.
4.Nice MP3 player.
5.Traffic alert is an excellent feature and it works fine.

Cons.:

1.The very basic "next turn" symbol is missing in this GPS. Thats really shame for Garmin. We can get the detailed information about "next turn", by touching the "Turn in" option. But I don't prefer operating GPS (meaning touching screen) while driving. So many customers and reviewers pointed out this flaw, But still Garmin is not listening to them. Garmin is still releasing new products without this option which is ridiculous. And also it doesn't alert the driver about the next turn as Magellan does. I would like to have "next turn" symbol, current time, arrival time, remaining distance information on the main screen itself. But garmin doesn't show all these information.
2.Most reviewers says Garmin's routing engine is best. But I don't agree with this, based on my experience. Even if you select the "fastest time" option the garmin still doesn't choose highway instead it choose local road with lots of traffic signals. I feel Magellan 4250 is way better than Nuvi 660 as far as routing and routing options are concerned.
3.Garmin asked me to take an exit, I intentionally missed that exit, But on the screen, still it shows my car is going towards the exit road. It took around 10 seconds for garmin to realize that I missed that exit. At that particular time, the distance between the actual location of my car and the car symbol on GPS screen should be around 500ft. And another time I was in the parking lot of Costco. But on the screen it shows that my car is on the near by road. The distance should be around 200ft. I really surprised by this behaviour of Garmin GPS. helloooo garmin where is your accuracy?
4.On my way from office to home, garmin asked me to take an exit and again took me back to the same highway. How stupid it is? Fortunately, I'm very familiar with that route, So I didn't take that exit.
5.The speaker sucks, the volume is very low even at maximum setting. you can barely hear the voice instruction on highways. Magellan speaker is better than Garmin. I heard TomTom speaker is best.
6.The FM transmitter is completely useless.

Good review.
Perhaps there is a bit of bias, but that's ok too, as we all have our favorites. But, some factual items need to be checked, like the number of POI's, or how often the side of the street of the destination is given.

That said, I have an initial impression of the 4250 compared to my 4040.
I don't like the new casing. Shiny black surround? No good in sunny locations. Silver on outside edges?
Again, no good in sunny locations.
The matte finish of the 4040/4050 was much better.

The biggest disappointment with the newer 4250 is the audio.
It's not as good as the 4040 version. The previous 4040/4050 has very nice fuller range speaker that also had louder volume.
The audio in the 4250 now sounds like a small transistor radio. It even makes the digital voice sound less accurate. NOT a good thing, and a step backwards in my opinion.
I understand that for some reason they wanted to make the unit thinner, but sometimes a certain size is needed so that an important feature actually works better. In the case of audio quality, the larger casing allowed for a more robust speaker that had much better tonal quality and louder volume.

The other negative I see with the new 4250 is the screen itself in comparison to the 4040/4050.
The resolution of the new unit looks to be lower, especially on some screens. However, on other screens it looks the same.
It doesn't appear that the screen used in the 4250 is actually of a lower quality, it appears as though something is odd with the way the page was designed to look.
On some pages the background shading shows lower resolution and more gradient steps in the shading, whereas the 4040 was very smooth on every page.
Also, the 4250 has slight fuzziness that appears around the fonts being used that makes the letters look a bit out of focus. It's very easy to see when you go to "options" and "system settings" where the controls are for "volume", "battery", etc...
Compare the 4040 screen to the 4250 and you see the 4040 has sharper and crisper text.

I can't say if this is true for the entire line of the 4250, but it's true of the 4250 I bought to "upgrade" my 4040.

I too am experiencing the same issue with the power button on the 4250. It seems to work sometimes, and other times it seems to want to wait or reset before it acknowledges that you just pushed the power button on/off.

As I said, I bought the 4250 to upgrade from my 4040. And, with the incredible discount Costco is offering, the price was actually lower than what I paid for the 4040.
I figured I would get a newer model, with the added traffic feature, with a nifty to try "voice control" function.
However, I am now considering keeping the 4040 and returning the
newer 4250. I may just wait until Magellan actually improves the functions of the newer models, rather than just redo the cosmetics.
Granted the 4250 has 6 million POI's, compared to the 4040's 4.5 million. However, in my comparison of local POI's, they both showed the same things.

I think I'll wait for the 4350 and hopefully Magellan will have a faster processor, improved the screen, created a mount that contains the antenna and power with just 1 plug, fixes the speaker/audio, and include traffic information that is actually useful.
I don't need bluetooth as my car has it built-in, like many newer cars have. I can't say that the 4250 is any real "upgrade" from the 4040/4050. In fact, overall I would say the new 4250 has been downgraded compared to the previous models it replaced.

The review says "But the SMS features didn't work, nor could I view the address book." The SMS does not work, true. I have, however, learned how to copy the address book from a Bluetooth phone's phone/address book to the Magellan Maestro 3140. This procedure copied only the numbers stored on the phone, not on the SIM card.

1. Make sure battery is charged or 3140 is plugged in to power.

2. Go to SMS message entry screen.

3. At bottom of screen, press the phone book icon.

4. When asked if you want to get addresses from the cell phone, press the green check mark icon.

5. An orange progress screen and bar will appear, saying that the phone book is being copied. (The phone may say it is disconnecting. If so, ignore.) The operation can take several minutes to complete, depending on the size of your phone book.

When it is complete, the unit will return to the Bluetooth menu screen.

That is it.

Note that no other SMS functions work at this time (17 April 2008).

Just purchased a 4250. Bought it rather than a TomTom 920T or a Garmin 760 because it was over $150 cheaper. Has worked flawlessly. Very fast, easy to use, extremely accurate, and chooses routes that make sense. Missed a turn because I was not paying attention and the reroute was almsot instantaneously complete. Tells me what side of the road my destination is on as well. LOVE the split screen turn info prior to a turn. That really is one of this units best features. Haven't tried the Bluetooth or Traffic yet but everything else, including voice command, has been, and has worked, great.

Magellan 4250 vs Garmin 660

First I would like to thank the rat bastard who smashed and grabbed my 4250 (that I got for xmas) for helping me compare units and write this review.

To add insult to injury, I called Magellan with my s/n and wanted to disable the real-time traffic, and they said that they couldn’t but agreed that they should be able to in a perfect world.. I also added the s/n to the list of stolen units incase it gets sent in for repair. Both my calls to cust svc surprisingly went OK, I called CA.

This brings up the main reason I switched from Magellan to Garmin: India.
Magellan was bought by an Indian company. Now working in the medical field and moving from the IT field I have had lots of dealings with Indian Company’s, EVERY time they are the worst of the worst. My guess is that they will run the company into the ground quickly – I hope that I am wrong. It seems they must drag random people off the streets and have them answer phones with ABSOLUTLY no experience or training what-so-ever. They rarely have a clue and now use the trick of escalating issues to second level where the next person is clueless, they just ware you down until you give up….
India = failure, incompetence and death, I am anxious to see what happens with Jaguar and Range Rover. RR is a joke but I hate to see Jag die and ugly death, thinking Ford buying their name was the worst thing that would happen.

Anyway, I did not want to buy a gps that would not have updates like the Navman F20 that I bought my son a couple years ago, company was sold and dropped updates although they are trying to keep selling new models.

My orig gps is a nRoute from 4 years or so ago – I would plug it into my laptop and was the best darn gps I used. Garmin gave me free updates for 1 year, it has tons configurable options that even the most expensive mobile units do not – for eg. I was able to give speed limits on different types of roads, so I kept highways at 75 to keep me from taking back roads all the time.

The biggest problems with both these units are that they want to take shorter routes but on a congested road with traffic and stop lights everywhere, sure the speed limit is 40 but you end up sitting in traffic and averaging 15 mph…. Strangely enough my Magellan (and I assume Garmin with the same flaws) had this problem: Flying down a highway at 75 and the unit wants me to get off on a busy side road and average say 20 mph, I of course stay on the highway – the trip eta was say 30 minutes – I stay on the highway and as it recalculates it now says 24 minutes ! WOW it actually calculated that it was taking me longer to get there. Worse yet I have no idea that the useless real time traffic did some calculation and wanted to avoid something. I do like the Garmins map of traffic where I look for myself at the roads and decide. I am heading to NYC Thursday and will decide if I will keep the 660. Plus I will test the poi’s that I loaded for speed traps and red light camera – we have quite a few 10 miles or so from my house.

The biggest flaw so far in the 660 is the failure to give you the heads up on when to exit on a highway before you are a few hundred feet from the exit. I only tested it once and it was way off. It spoke of a left exit, without name or number, and there has never been a left exit within miles of it. The mileage to exit was calculated to the exit just before mine the same road in the opposite direction, I knew to pass it, then it told me to exit and gave me the name and exit number waaaay too late. It could be a killer in NYC if you do not know and commit to the far left lane. I did read about this flaw but on only old reviews with 2.0 firmware, and hoped that it was fixed.

Here are my thoughts:

4250 Pros screen and quality
overall look and feel
pois show up all the time
easy volume adjustment
easier fast/shortest route selection
superior next turn info

660 Pros real time traffic map
upgradeability and ease
better history of support / engineering
frequent upgrades
company integrity
poi options

In conclusion: My trip to NY went well, I will keep the 660. The rt traffic had another disappointment, I rarely had any signal on 99% of route 287. Another blow was that it takes quite while to load the traffic map while driving, although around me in PA is it OK. The next exit alert actually worked OK, seems like it gets confused on some routes…

I will roll the dice here that I will receive the 2009 update free since I bought the unit @ 4/15 and the updated maps with speed limits will help the routing. It’s hard to knock errors in the mapping data, since this stuff is still in its infancy…

My youngest will be driving in a couple of years, hopefully I can give him my old unit and buy a far superior rt traffic unit.

Magellan Navigation was purchased by Shah Capital Partners, whose president and CE0 is Iain MacKenzie and it is based in California. This hardly sounds Indian to me. Please don't confuse Magellan's technical support line with their ownership. Actually I think I would prefer an Indian engineering company to a capital investment firm that is more likely to gut a company and run. Prejudices aside, the other comment I have about your various pluses for both units is that the 4250 also has real time traffic alerts. I think the problem is the FM alerts aren't all that good in some areas,no matter what unit you have.

My apologies, apparently the President is Ajay Shah, who does appear to possibly of Indian origin, however my comment about rather having engineers instead of an investment capital firm running the company stands.

I bought the Maestro 4250 in early April because I had several scheduled road trips and got tired of playing with paper maps.

For the most part it works as advertised and and I'm pleased with it overall but it does have some maddening quirks.

The text-to-speech feature needs some common sense tweaking. Sometimes it recognizes common abreviations and other times it doesn't. For example, I live just outside of Boston and travel on MA Rt. 2 daily. In some places Rt. 2 is known as the "Concord Turnpike" which the unit corectly announces. In other places Rt. 2 is known as the "Cambridge Turnpike". The maps list this as the "Cambridge Tpke" and the unit will announce it as "Cambridge Tee-Pee-Kay-Eee". On other Turnpikes I've also had it announce the abreviation as "Tipika". It has a similar probem with the "St" abreviation. If it is in the map as "St." (with a period) the unit will announce it as "Street". If there is no period (i.e. "St") it will announces it as "Ess-Tee".

On one trip from Boston to Lewes DE, I took I-84 west through CT and when I crossed into NY the exit ramp led to I-684 which you can take South to either New York or North to Pawling. The exit description comes up on the Maestro as "New York C/Pa" and the unit announces it as "Exit #xx; New York Ka-pow".

I think these last two issues could be fixed by standardizing the way teh street names are loaded into their database - something you'd think one of their engineers would have figured out right from the start.

It also has issues with exit numbers where there are "A" and "B" exits. It will properly announce Exit 27 as "Exit Twenty-Seven" but Exit 27A will be announced as "Exit Two Seven Ah" and Exit 27B will be annound as "Exit Two Seven Bee".

Another "feature" that drove me nuts. The unit was adamant that I take the Cross Bronx Expressway through NYC even after I excluded it from my Route list. I couldn't force it to come up with directions that took me over the Tappen Zee bridge no matter what I did. It was bound and determined that I was going to take the George Washington Bridge.

I've run into this in a few locations in/around Boston as well. This morning Last week I was traveling down a road which branched to the left and to the right - the 4250 had me take the right-hand branch and then looped me around the block, back under the original road, back around another block and ended up bringing me right back to where I would have been if it had just told me to take the left branch from the original road. This morning I made the same trip and excluded two of th roads on that loop. The unit directed me farther out aso I made a 4 block loop instead of a two block loop.

One final nit - one feature that I would really like to have seen on this thing is the ability to tell it that I'm driving a commercial vehicle and be able to tell it my vehicle weight and then have it figure comercial vehicle exclusions when it calculates my routes. This may not be a huge deal in the rural mid-west but it is a big issue in the northeast if you are driving a commercial vehicle.

My $02. ;)

For the most part, I agree with the comments comparing the Garmin unit and Magellan 4250. I bought both during Costco's last sale, but returned the Garmin because it plugged in at the bottom of the unit. I live in NYC and could not mount it on my windshield for theft reasons, so it sat on my dash, which was awkward. I kept the Magellan because 1) it plugged in on the side, 2)text to speech directions are terrific. One thing though, the voice is soooo low we cannot hear it when AC is on high, much less listen to the radio. Any suggestions? I called text support but besides buying speakers, which sounds silly to me, they had none.

how to enter coordinate into the 4210

Hi There,

I`m not a GPS expert. Bought the Tomtom 720 because of it`s features, but later exchanged it with Megallan 4250 having the same features for way cheaper price. The first Megallan died on me within 24hrs; so I exchanged for a new one. It was fine as long as I was using it in Toronto. Though the re-calculation time was way to slow.

But the real story began when we started off to Quebec city. On our way we looked for Walmart using the POI option, and it gave me a wrong direction to an unknown residential area. In fact it gave me wrong direction 3 times (twice with Walmart and once with Holiday Inn at Quebec city). Also the re-calculation time was so slow that I was not able to take a decision in the highway where everything was written in French.

After returning to Toronto, I just returned the 4250, and purchased the Tomtom 720 again. Haven`t used it, but hopr it`s better than the 4250.

Thanks,

SM

I just purchased the 3250 - same features just a smaller screen.
The exit POI function works well for looking ahead but... I just got back from a round trip drive from New York to/from Florida and the exit POIs don't include truck stops like Flying J, Pilot etc... I contacted Magellan customer support and they informed that the business' have financial agreements to be included in the exit POIs. So I have to cancell my route to find the nearest Flying J or Pilot because Magellan didn't make an extra buck to include them in the exit list. That is misleading the customer a bit in my opinion. The exit poi function is billed as extra help for me but I would rather stop at Flying J or Pilot to use the bathroom (usually); they also have a big selection of convenience and emergency items compared to gas stations and convenient stores. If Magellan would just leave the full POI list available instead of making me cancel my route it would be much more helpfull. Cancelling the route is not a difficult task but it is a bunch of steps I should not have to go through. I was also told by support that this could not be fixed with a firmware update because it is in the programming - THE FIRMWARE IS THE PROGRAM - crack support team or crack smokers? The AAA event listings in the tour book are from 2007 - I just got my unit in Sept 2008 and no free update on that one - thanks again for last years calander. I did find the tourbook feature usfull on my way through Nashville - it guided us to the Wildhorse Salloon for dinner and we had a good time. Other than that I am not sure I will keep this unit.
Additionally - I never thought I would care but the sound of the voice on this unit is really bad on a long trip - the garmins give a few choices.

iam still waiting for my Magellan 4250 and as promised will arrived after 7 days. Can anyone just tell me that I made a good decision on buying this 4250? The garmin 880 has so many good reviews but God it's just too pricy. I can't afford that much. I hope I am buying a good investment here since I am a first owner of the Magellan 360. I just trusted them so much that I was happy with my 360. Anyone who has a Magellan 360, you can take advantage of the customer loyalty program and get the 4250 half the price. I got it for $209. Pls. respond to my email good or bad,I'll take it just let me know what to expect. I read so many reviews but it's just discouraging me to buy. I really can't wait anymore, but if I'm not happy with this I will go to QVC and order the Garmin 880 but I will wait until they have a payment plan. Probably I will be able to afford it by that time but come to think of it, new 1000 series comes out and the 880's get a lot of negative reviews. Pls. help me out. Thanks

iam still waiting for my Magellan 4250 and as promised will arrived after 7 days. Can anyone just tell me that I made a good decision on buying this 4250? The garmin 880 has so many good reviews but God it's just too pricy. I can't afford that much. I hope I am buying a good investment here since I am a first owner of the Magellan 360. I just trusted them so much that I was happy with my 360. Anyone who has a Magellan 360, you can take advantage of the customer loyalty program and get the 4250 half the price. I got it for $209. Pls. respond to my email good or bad,I'll take it just let me know what to expect. I read so many reviews but it's just discouraging me to buy. I really can't wait anymore, but if I'm not happy with this I will go to QVC and order the Garmin 880 but I will wait until they have a payment plan. Probably I will be able to afford it by that time but come to think of it, new 1000 series comes out and the 880's get a lot of negative reviews. Pls. help me out. Thanks

Well, I just purchased a refurb 4250 and it works great...For the $150 I spent it was a terrific deal and with many features. I returned the original 1420(?) to Costco after I found that this one could be synced to my cell and used as a hands free phone (required in California.) I have not purchased the 2008-09 maps yet as I want to see how well it does with the old. I learned from this column how to transfer my address book from phone to gps, so if I get my pc address book up to date, transfer to phone, then to the magellan I will be perfectly set up. Hot dog!

Well, I received my refurbished 4250 today and for the most part, it seems to work well. For the most part. But two things immediately struck me: I can't connect to Voice Recognition. The GPS remains mute when I say "Magellan". Worse than that, when I push the phone icon on the main screen as the first step to setting up Bluetooth, all I get is the voice saying "Phone". I can live without the VR, as I understand its performance is spotty, but the BT is another story. I set it up with no trouble on my 4050 but I'm getting no where with the 4250. Has anyone had the same problem and is there an easy solution. I don't want to return the unit for repair as it works fine otherwise and I don't want to trade an annoying problem for a major problem