Help for the directionally afflicted

I previously purchased a much older Magellan model which couldn't even figure out where it was, and we could do nothing to figure out how to make it work. It was so arcane that we finally just gave up and tossed it. Perhaps it was defective - we'll never know.

Therefore, I was very leery of this model, but the excellent reviews I had seen encouraged me. I'm so glad I purchased it! The screen is easy to read, even for my old eyes, and gives you 2D and 3D options. There are several color options for both the map and the menus, which are helpful, as my hubby is color blind, so we needed some versatility there.

There are turn by turn voice directions, and you can choose chime, ding or beep for when you actually get to the intersection. You can choose for it to warn you of upcoming turns at several intervals of your choice. You also can choose several ways to route - fastest, least distance, avoid toll roads, avoid highways. There are many programmable choices in this little gadget, which was surprising to me, as well as gratifying.

You can program multiple destination routes, as well as save routes for later use. It also allows use of an SD card to store your routes and address book. It also will route you around traffic jams, based on specifications you provide - you can even tell it to reroute you if you are in slow traffic as little as one minute.

The screen tells you how far to your next turn, as well as estimated number of minutes to arrival, which adjust as you travel. You can do a "test run" with it, by choosing "suggest simulate route" in the settings area. If you set it to do so, this will pop up when you ask it to route you to an address or intersection. By doing this, you can check out if the suggested route seems squirrelly to you, and this can unfortunately happen, so you can tell it to give you other options if so - such as shortest distance or shortest time. Hint - the device won't do anything until you respond, so I have set mine not to ask for this during trips, since I want it to immediately change my route if I miss a turn, not ask me to simulate. I've found just going to the "show route" option best to check on the route before a trip and it will display all the turns it intends to take you through.

Like all automated devices, you can get some way out directions, so I suggest a map back up. I have a physician who is about 40 miles from here. There are many turns from here to there and I always forget some of them. I've never been able to get there without a map as I only go there about every six months. If I use the "fastest route" method, the Magellan sometimes suggests a route through another state which is over 300 miles! So, for this doctor, I have to select the "most direct" route, and then I get directions that are correct. Very strange, but since I always preview my routes, I know about this and plan accordingly. I no longer have to have written directions to get to this doctor's office. Hooray! But I'm a chicken, so I take a map just in case. ;)

The box comes with a cigarette lighter car charger, as well an AC adapter charger, so you can charge it from indoors, which was great, because I was able to charge it from home before my first trip. It also comes with a data cable to update the firmware. All the mounting equipment comes with it, as well as a sticky pad. As soon as I turned it on, it came on and even had a fair charge in it already, so that I was able to immediately program it and make sure it knew where I was, which was reassuring after our first experience.

The documentation is weak, but if you go to the Magellan site, there is a demo and a lot of information on the unit. It also comes with a CD with more extensive documentation, which answered all the questions I could think of.

This unit seems to learn by what you do. It wanted to take me out of my subdivision using a road that seemed inconvenient. I was driving the first time at night since summer, and I became disoriented while looking at the Magellan and driving at the same time. I made several screwy turns to get back on track, and it soon recalculated the route to adjust for my mistakes. The next time I routed a way out of here, it used some of the turns I had actually used while I was messed up.

On this trip, I was headed to a school in a town I'm unfamiliar with, whose physical address is on a completely different street from the preferred entrance. In fact, an ordinary map doesn't even show these two areas to be even on the same intersecting block! I was nervous! Since the address to the street the parking lot is on wasn't given by the school, I was a little stymied trying to program it, so I chose the nearest intersection for the route, and even though the directions were slightly different than the school gave, I arrived just fine. It routed me differently to go back home, but it worked out well and in less time than it took me to get there. For a while, I thought it was lost, but I looked at its map at an intersection, and there was a gas station symbol exactly where a real gas station was, so I was reassured.

Since this all took place in the dark in an unfamiliar town, I was so thankful for the Magellan 2000 telling me every once in a while how soon my next turn was going to be, and what direction I would be going in.

The Roadmate 2000 has an address book and a special area to record your home address. You just hit the "Home" button after you've programmed it, and it takes you right home. It may use a different route than how you arrived at your point, but nevertheless, is accurate.

I love this little gadget! It was supposed to be a Christmas present for my hubby. I can't tell you how happy I was when he told me it would probably be more useful to me than to him.