By Helen
This is my first GPS and so I have nothing to compare this item with but I do like it very much and think for the price it’s a good investment. It definitely gets me where I’m going and back. It’s not sophisticated but it works. Mounting it in my older 1992 Camry was tricky but Best Buy had a mount that clips to the vent (above the radio) and it worked like a charm.
By Benjamin Marks
The magellan works great. It is easy to use. The best feature is that it finds the directions quickly, very little waiting around. I have a Garmin and Magellan, this Magellan is faster in finding the route. However, I like how the Garmin attaches to the windshield better. Otherwise, it works well and basically no differenant than other GPS systems.
By Spiro Apostolopoulos
I’m not a GPS expert (this is my first one), but from what I have read in reviews and seen at stores, the Roadmate 1212 is awesome, especially for the price ($80 at BestBuy on Black Friday). It’s hard to find a GPS that speaks street names for under $200 (most in this $ range only speak the turns - I found a Garmin 260WT for $189 that did this, but that was on a super sale). Don’t be fooled by the specs on the Roadmate 1200 - it does not have spoken street names, just turns. The 1212 is the least expensive model that calls out the street names.
By B. Roy
I have three GPS’s - A Tom Tom one, a Magellan 4250 and the Magellan 1212. The 4250 is updated with the latest firmware (4.6). The 1212 I guess is a new model with much better hardware than the previous generation.
Much to my surprise - the routing logic on the 1212 is the best of the lot. For example, both Tom Tom One and the 4250, give me highly suboptimal routing when I ask it to take me to the nearest Wal Mart in Mountain View from Sunnyvale without taking the freeway. I’ve given then identical starting co-ordinates. Only the 1212 gave me directions that were optimal (taking central expressway almost all the way) - and matched the directions from google maps. The 4250 had me take “El Camino Real” instead which would have been “Really Slow”..The Tom Tom one had me take Central expressway half way and then took me to Wal Mart using a mysterious detour.
The 4250 had rev 29 maps while 1212 had rev 33 maps. I think it is unlikely that the map revisions would be a factor in the routing logic, since these area’s haven’t seen new road construction in decades.
Another area where the 1212 excelled was in reception sensitivity. While the 1212 found 8 satellites (marked in green) inside my house, the 4250 kept next to it - found 3, but both were marked in orange and not green (un-usable data) (see posted photo).
I found the smaller screen of the 1212 to be a bonus. It occupies less windscreen area - and hence does not hinder your view as much. It is also lighter and easier to carry around.
By Elizabeth Haws
Costco in Mesa, Arizona had a Black Friday sale for $100 on the Magellan Roadmate 1212 yesterday. My wife and I were out to get it at 9:00 a.m. On the same outing we saw and picked up a refurbished Magellan Roadmate 3100 at Pep Boys for $69. So we tried them both out and discovered the refurbished 3100 didn’t pronounce the street names (Text-to-Speech), and though it had something like 160 million Points of Interest vs. the 6 million in the 1212, the 1212 had our local Target store, while the 3100 had no Targets within 8 miles. So we returned the 3100 and kept the 1212.
One thing we noticed in testing the 2 devices was that Text-to-Speech really makes for safer driving and is reassuring when you get off course. We turned into a neighborhood and the 1212 got us right back onto course via a way unknown to us. Hearing it say “Turn left on Capri Street” was very reassuring to us, and was the deciding factor in returning the 3100 in spite of the price difference. (I also knew the 1212 was newer technology).
Lucky us! I learned later that day online that the refurbished units aren’t eligible for a one time map update. We would not have been happy customers under that scenario.
By ed1300
I purchased the 1212 from a big box store recently and so far I like it. It is very easy to use and the interface (Windows CE Core 5.0) is easy to use and the voice direction is clear and easy to understand. There are a few quirks though….
1. Sometimes the system lags when you press a button and you have to press it again or wait.
2. If you enter into a submenu from the map or route screen it is difficult to get back to the original map menu. Though the system seems to still keep you on track and let you know about turns etc…
3. The included software link and software on the installation package are not very useful. You get a standard PDF version of the user manual which contains a good amount of information on the operation of the product and was useful. The software POI (Points of Interest) editor allows you to enter additional points of interest and upload them to the GPS. Only one problem with this software. Unless you know the longitude and latitude coordinates of the place you want to add you won’t be able to and the software is very basic in that you can only enter known information and there is no way to look it up or select it. Other software Vantage Point and Mapsend and mapsend manager are not for this unit and therefore do not work.
Powered by WordPress
