Magellan RoadMate 700 - 3.8 in. Car GPS Receiver

Logical questions to ask before dropping a bit over a grand for an electronic gizmo to essentially replace a $10 map are: "Will this thing do what I expect it to do?" and "Is the technology involved reliable, and worth the additional money compared to a simple paper map?"

Obviously, anyone who would consider an electronic "map" this expensive knows that the Rand McNally map you can buy at Target is a pretty easily used, and frequently updated, accurate product. Let's face it! For anyone who just needs a basic guide for navigating on their annual vacation to Pike's Peak, or Jellystone Park...a good, reasonably recent map that costs $10 or so is fine. Even the person who just needs a little help with streets in a larger town can buy a good street guide at Costco for around $13.00. With the aid of some strong eyeglasses to see the little tiny print...that will suffice for basic navigation for most anyone. But to consider plunking $1000 on a device like the Magellan 700, you have to really want some bells and whistles that an ordinary road map doesn't have...OR, admit it...you have to be a bit of an elite technology freak.

The Magellan 700 is for the person who likes gadgets...plain and simple. It's essentially a road atlas that runs on electricity. But, you know that. If you are considering a GPS unit like this, you ARE a technology freak. If you aren't a tech freak stick with Rand McNally, you won't like a GPS.

Aside from buying a factory installed GPS navigation option in a new car (at a cost of at least twice the price of the Magellan 700,) for me at this time, it came down to the M-700, or the Garmin 2620. These two similar products are pricy in comparison with some of the more basic GPS units that one could navigate with, but have some specific advantages.

As with the Garmin 2620, the Magellan uses a hard drive for data storage. The M-700 has a 10 gig HD, while the G-2620 specifies only 2 gig of drive space. This means that the Magellan (and Garmin) have pre-installed maps, while some of the less expensive units (the M-500 and Garmin 2610 for instance,) use flash drives that must have their data "downloaded" prior to use. The cheaper units use media cards like those in digital cameras and MP-3 players to store the map data for a specific area, and are limited in capacity by the size of those cards. A larger CF media card for the Magellan 500 costs well over $200, and you must use a computer to download mapping info into the card prior to installing it in the GPS unit. The M-700 has writable space for up to 300 user specified addresses. It also stores "last used" addresses or points of interest for quick reference.

The advantage of having a 10 gig hard drive in the M-700 is obvious. The dis-advantage is that the pre-loaded maps in the M-700 are, unfortunately, not always up to date. At this point, Magellan's packaged info says updates to the maps should be released annually. I live in the Phoenix area, one of the nation's fastest growing cities, and I immediately discovered that the maps in my new Magellan 700, with the latest firmware update (3.20) don't completely show the new freeway system that has been in use for at least two years.

As for how the M-700 functions, their slogan on the box is "Turn it on and go!" Not so fast! I took my new unit (purchased at COSTCO for $1099.99) out of the box, plugged it into a portable 12 volt power source at my house, and it came to life, sporting an easy to understand display including an on-screen tutorial. The screen is very bright, and the contrast is excellent. It took only about 10 minutes of playing with it to figure out how the machine works...which is good, because the written documentation and instructions are very abbreviated. The only problem I had was that instead of Phoenix, the GPS unit indicated I was located in San Francisco. A few more minutes of messing with it, and I was able to make it learn that I was actually in Phoenix.

The test: One of the advantages of a GPS like the M-700 is supposed to be that it contains information within the unit that a map wouldn't have. The M-700 contains about two million "Points of Interest" (POIs) that are supposed to assist the traveler. These are assigned in about 40 categories such as "Parks, ATMs, Police Stations, etc." For instance, if you wish to find the nearest "grocery store" you can touch the screen, and select "nearest grocery store." You have to tell it what chain, such as "Albertson's" etc. The touch screen technology on the M-700 is actually awesome! The down side with this example is, I requested the nearest "Fry's" grocery store, and it told me to head 178 miles to Yuma. There are three Fry's stores within 5 miles of my location. So I re-specified that the stores be in "Tempe" and the M-700 found them immediately. This indicates that the M-700 isn't as "smart" as it could be, and to rely blindly in it's touted features would be a mistake. It did show me the nearest ATM for my bank, and it did find the nearest airport, and the nearest "Mobil" station. So, as for "POIs" being useful, because it's I give it a shaky "C."

As for the cost-benefit versus a printed map...I have to go with the M-700. The road navigation it presents is outstanding. Assuming you input or select an address correctly, this device gives the driver point-by-point navigation information with voice and chimes advising of turns and progress that makes the driver very confident. The mapping visuals adjust in scale as you approach your destination, and it's quite impressive! It's very accurate, intuitive to program, and easy to use. I would suggest Magellan offer more frequent map updates because of the fast changing city I live in, but overall, the maps appear to be reasonably accurate, but a bit dated.

It's impossible to cover every feature on this product in a one-page review. Suffice it to say that my major concerns with the M-700 are satisfied. It's reasonably easy to use, it works well as an electronic map, and it seems practical.

One safety issue I might mention. I suggest that you become familiar with this thing in your driveway, and take precautions not to be distracted by it while driving. I can see how this might be a problem, especially in urban driving. I would also suggest you find a way to stow it when parking, as it is a tempting target for a thief.

My unit from Costco came bundled with a windshield suction mount that holds it quite well. I guess the "vent mount" that others decry here as too flimsy was abandoned by Magellan. A reasonable accessory to consider might be an outside antenna, though so far, reception seems to be fine with the one supplied.

So, for the directionally challenged technophiles out there...two thumbs up for the Magellan 700.

****UPDATE as of 7 July, 2004****

I have now owned my RM700 now for two months. In mid June I took a 1700 mile vacation with the unit and I must say am still very much impressed with its operation. From Phoenix, we went to Laughlin, NV, then to San Francisco, and back through Los Angeles. I used the RM exclusively for navigation, and relied on it to give me the "shortest time" (as opposed to the option of shortest distance) route. It performed flawlessly. It was particularly helpful in negotiating SFO and LA city streets and freeways, where I am totally unfamiliar. The voice prompts in urban traffic always advised of impending turns and features, like a "fork in the road" or off-ramp. It warns you two miles prior to major turns and keeps you alert as you approach possible deviations by telling you to "remain on the current road" when applicable. Basically, once your destination is set, you don't need to look at the unit, just listen, and you will be taken care of by the voice prompts. The POIs are very useful for finding motels, restaurants, and various places of interest.

In late June, Magellan came out with a Firmware and Index update for the RM700. In addition to map updates, the update re-structured some of the software so that new information is available. A split-screen option now allows the user to see a map at the same time the route is displayed graphically with turns and highways to expect. It also adds a screen where only magnetic heading and speed information is displayed. Another great improvement is that now, Points of Interest (POI's) can be routed by touching the screen where they are graphically displayed, in addition to the previous way of selecting them by catigory and address. The update was free, and relatively easy for anyone with a PC running XP. For other operating systems, you need to download drivers, and the process is a bit more involved.

By looking for GPS SIGs on the Internet, I was able to gain a lot of information about the RM700 than is available in their skimpy manual or their web site. For instance, there is a "secret menu" that can be accessed with a series of inputs that (among other things) gives the user access to screens where one can then "record" a trip. There is a slot on the RM700 for a Compact Flash card, that is required on the RM500 to store maps...(the 700 has all the maps on the hard drive.) The CF can be used (if you know about it) to save a trip and re-play it, or to take "screen shots" and save them. Also, there is (with the new Firmware) now a "simulator mode" wherein you can input a destination, and in several speed ranges, run the trip to watch the routing as if you were actually driving the route.

In the SIG, I noted several people who had display and lock-on problems after their download and installation of the update. Most of them found a remedy by re-doing the process, and decided that their problems were caused by a corrupt file during the download or installation process.

This update is just to validate my original praise for the RM700. I still give it 4.5 stars, and the only shortfall so far that I see is a lack of documentation of all the features. It has been fun discovering them thus-far.