Joined: 30 Nov 2007 Posts: 4 Location: Atlanta, GA
Feedback on 4250 Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:50 pm
Hi, all. I have been looking for a GPS for a few months now. I still haven't bought one, mostly due to my husband's resistance to its necessity. I recently received a coupon book from a major warehouse store showing the Maestro 4250 for a steal in March '08 (with coupon). I'm totally willing to wait for such a good deal. My question is - In general what has customer satisfaction been on this unit? Can anyone who has owned the 4250 for at least a few months comment on how happy they are with it? Thank you, in advance, to everyone willing to share their experiences.
Hi, I got mine from Costco on BF for $349. I like it a lot so far and for $250 I will like it even more. I plan to return mine like so many Costco members do and then re-buy in March. I am a new Costco member, joined to get this primarily and have never returned anything but, I've been told you can do this.
As far as the 4250 goes, I have read some negative stuff about the bluetooth and the voice recognition. I can't comment on the BT yet because I don't have a BT phone but, some of the negative posts were from people apparently trying to use phones that weren't on the compatible phone list. The VR works pretty good IMHO if you are patient and give it a second or two to respond, otherwise it may not respond and you start over saying "Magellan" then wait for it to respond.
The story so far:
1. The first unit they brought out to me had been opened and the contents removed from the plastic bags. I didn't catch this right away and ended up taking the unit right back to Costco. There were fingerprints all over the GPS unit and the protective sheet had been removed from the LCD screen. This isn't a Magellan issue, I simply don't like buying stuff that's already been opened. I guess this is a side-effect of people returning their purchases. LOL! After bringing out TWO MORE opened packages, I finally got it exchanged for an unopened 4250.
2. Got the new unit home, plugged it in only to find the LCD is defective (peppered with bad pixels) and now I'll have to take this one back and exchange again.
To be continued...
Later the next day:
I've returned the 4250 for my money back and I'm now looking for a 4220 instead. After some reflection, I really don't need the AAA, Bluetooth or Voice Command stuff, just a basic wide display GPS anyway.
I got a 4250 for Christmas b/c I specified that I wanted a TT920 too late in the game. I almost took it back for the TT right away but decided to give it a try. I loved it. You can type in almost any retailer and it will find the closest ones. I also like the maps better than the TT. Mine worked flawlessly and gave me good routes for the most part. I just returned it so I can buy it at Costco to save $100 ($200 if I wait until March) and I really miss it. I never had any problems with powering up, finding signal, getting directions, or anything. I only used it about a month though. Also the voice recognition worked pretty well. It would sometimes come on while I was talking on a cell phone thinking that i was talking to it. The only thing I didn't like was if you were on a highway that had one of those exits where it gets off the highway, has a few exits and then merges back onto the highway, it would tell you to get off and then get right back on. It did that a few times going north on I95. Hope that helps a little.
Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Salt Lake City
Just Got a 4250 Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:01 pm
Okay, was going to wait til March to purchase it at Costco for $249 but we are taking a trip to CA in two weeks and want to try it out - so I went out and got the 4250 yesterday (I can always purchase a new one in March and return it with the receipt from yesterday).
Anyway, so far so good. I did notice that on a few occassion the response on the GPS was a little lack behind when you select an option. I have the Magellan 300 - which is okay but this is so much better!!! Hopefully - I got a good one and won't have to deal with the customer service.
Joined: 27 Dec 2007 Posts: 237 Location: Phoenix, AZ
Sat Jan 19, 2008 1:49 am
I got to play around with a 4250 for 30 minutes or so at Best Buy tonight and I was actually really impressed with it vs. the Garmin 750 and TT 720 I had and returned last month.
It's kind of like a mix between the Garmin and TT actually - it has the nice GUI and map quality of the Garmin (maybe just slightly below in terms of antialiasing etc) but it has some of the same sort of cool power user features the TT has - POIs on the 3D map, the customizable detour distance etc.
The one thing I noticed that was really odd though was that it refused to go what it considered "backwards" to get to a much faster route. The BB I was at is right on a major freeway and when doing the route simulation from there back to my house, instead of turning left out of the BB and onto the freeway entrance right there, it wanted me to drive one block right and up a street onto the next exit further south. That's totally dumb and I couldn't get it to go the right way even with U-turns enabled etc (even though it's not even a U turn).
This is a very nice GPS. Like all GPS', it sometimes gives goofy directions, but it gets you pretty close if not exactly to your location.
Soem things it does very well that other GPS's don't do:
AAA tourbook. Very cool... you are in a strange place and want to know about fun things to do... use the tour book, plan your day and let Maggie take there.
POI's: Say you are looking for a liquor store, and you are heading Westbound. Maggie will list the POI, give you the distance away, and ALSO let you know if they are in the direction of travel or to the N, NW, NE, S, SE, SW... etc.
Traffic: the 4250 comes WITH a traffic receiver and antenna. This can cost upards of $100 on other GPS's. Annual traffic subscription is about $20less per year.
Well I just picked up the unit today from Costco and here are my first impressions upon making a quick guided route to work.
Coming from a Roadmate 760:
Signal: I can't tell you how awesome it is to have a decent and working GPS receiver. The 760's sucked so bad it made the unit worthless in anything but a perfectly sunny day in direct view of the sky, without trees, buildings, powerlines and birds.
Routing: The routing is the same, if not improved over my old 760, considering I hadn't updated the map the original (probably dated 2003 or older). The unit is a bit slow to re-calculate routes, but nothing I can't live with. It might choose a quirky turn I wouldn't pick sometimes, but that's going to be the case anytime I know more about the route than the GPS does. Likewise, it does equally well as google maps/live maps/yahoo maps have ever done.
Interface: It's nice. Maybe it doesn't look quite as refined as the Garmins or TomToms, but that doesn't really matter to me. In any case it certainly doesn't look bad. It has POIs showing right up on the map. I thought I had read the other makers do not do this, and I had actually become pretty addicted to using that feature on my 760. I'm happy to see it still exists. I'm also happy to see the split screen, trueview stuff still exists as well.
Mount: I can't say much. The one for my 760 sucked and would fall off in cold weather. I'm sure this is better. It's a moot point in my case as I had drilled a custom bracket in to my CRV's dash for the 760, anyway. I'm certainly glad to see the sliding mounting system is exactly the same, so I didn't have change anything.
UI/Ease of Use: I think it's pretty simple. Works for me. Played with demo units and I think the interfaces between Magellan and Garmin are comparable.
Media: Doesn't have it (at least I haven't run across it). Good, I didn't want it. I think playing media on a GPS is stupid.
Voice Recognition: Nifty feature. A bit limited in scope as many have mentioned. Functionally it works well for me. Maybe I have to speak a little louder than normal, but it works and understands me fine. My CRV is certainly not the quietest of vehicles either (quite a bit of roadnoise, especially at freeway speeds), and it still works fine. This is just something that's going to vary widely for people based on their volume, tone, accent, intonation, diction, etc...
Bluetooth: My biggest gripe. It works, but functionality it's not the greatest. I should be able to simply press a button and do voice dialing, but I've found no way to accomplish this. I don't care about having my contacts in the address book, I just want the regular voicedial prompts I get through my phone when using any other bluetooth headset. There are connect/reconnect issues as others have said, and it doesn't do it automatically. My phone (LG env) is on the compatible list, but there is no entry for it when the unit asks for my phone's make/model. Hopefully these issues will all be addressed in a firmware update.
Powering up/down: I leave mine plugged in. Hopefully this is something that will resolve itself, but when I turned on my car the unit came on, but then said it was connected to a PC. This happened several times in a row before I just shutdown and powered on again using the unit's button. Err.....I dunno, I'll have to work on that. Maybe it was just a fluke.
Well, after more use, I found that my power issues on the 4250 weren't just a fluke. The unit simply chose to act like it was connected to a PC on powering up, and sometimes not. For the life of me I couldn't discern a pattern or reason why.
Obviously an issue like that is unacceptable. Maybe it's just my unit, maybe not but I'm returning it to Costco when I get the chance. I would exchange it, but the only reason I really wanted the 4250 was for convenient bluetooth capability. Alas, the bluetooth doesn't work well at all. The other features (screen size, AAA, traffic, VR) are all very nice but aren't what drew me to the unit (I would have also tried the Garmin 360, but Costco pulled it from their website as I was still reasearching).
I did end up grabbing a pair of 3225's on sale at Costco ($150 each...hell that's less than I spent on the 4250 alone and my wife and I each get one!). They're functionally equal to my old and familiar Roadmate 760 in every way...except better and with the addition of the awesome sirfIII antenna. 1.3 million POIs is certainly lacking, but easily remedied using the method described over at AnandTech forums making for an incredible deal....oh, and no power issues with these units.
Hi, all. I have been looking for a GPS for a few months now. I still haven't bought one, mostly due to my husband's resistance to its necessity. I recently received a .
I think the 4250 is worth a look. while the 3225 is a great deal, the 4250 adds some cool features like AAA Tourbook which is very nice and the Traffic Receiver. The latter alone would cost $100 on a Garmin or TT. So you are getting the Tourbook for free.
Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 14 Location: Berkeley, CA
Both Costco and Buy.com units work fine Wed Apr 09, 2008 6:41 am
I like my Magellan 4250. It turns on and off with the car, doesn't freeze, and gives accurate directions.
Actually, it's the second unit I tried, and both worked fine. The first, I bought from Costco for $350. I found out Costco had been selling it for $250 the week before; and, when I asked, Costco refused to give me that price or match similar prices from others. I returned it and bought one from Buy.com for $250, delivered.
Interestingly, the Costco unit was Hardware Version -4, which the one from Buy.com is -3. Seems to work just as well, though, and maps are the same. Does anyone know what changed in the hardware?
Joined: 25 Jan 2008 Posts: 726 Location: 42.36N 71.02W
Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:29 pm
If you look at the operating system I bet it also says -3. I think they just put the same number in both. So maybe it is just a change in the operating system, which will change with upgrades.
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