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For the amount of money paid for the new unit, it is just unacceptable. i went through on the hoops, resetting the unit and even installing a new battery and it continues to be un-usable with this error message. However when quality and reliability is so very poor, its just not worth the money. I bought this unit new from a vendor through amazon. after seven months, its quit operating saying battery critically low. I really like the ease of use and features better than other models out there that i have tried, tom-tom, etc.
I received it look great all the pieces worked but the charger so went and purchased a new charger ta find out that there was a short in the A/C port but it works great on batteries and I'll git around ta fixing the Short l8rand it was about 3 days late
They both died. Given that, I think it's outstanding value. Warning times are usually good, and the directional instructions it uses suit me very well. And then they just stopped working altogether. It's done it once in the last 18 months, on a 100 degree day - can hardly complain about that.
But: it wasn't. The maps are great (in the midwest - I took it to the west coast and it sucked somewhat), the reaction time is very fast, the route selection is usually pretty good (and better than Garmin's laughable choices), and it has the unique feature (I think) at this price point of allowing you to build routes in a separate folder: extremely useful if you're making deliveries or need to get around a selection of places (real estate agent, anyone). The unit has had four little "incident" so far where it simply stops working and re-sets itself, losing all your stored data. Downsides: The manual on-off button stopped working after 6 months. (Gotta back up to SD card). Same basic design and maps - some interface updates, but clearly the same unit reworked and repackaged. I had two Roadmate units.
They both had the annoying habit of overheating in summer and, consequently, getting slower and slower and slower and.then stopping entirely. The overheating problem has been pretty much solved. If you do have a problem then you may as well just buy another unit, because Magellan won't be any help.On balance, and bearing in mind the price, I think it's a great "disposable" GPS that you should expect to last 18-36 months. the maps will never be updated, and Magellan's customer service and support is truly awful. This was my third magellan. So I wasn't holding out much hope for the maestro when it showed up. The interface is easy to understand and, IMO, a lot faster to find places than any other brand given the way they've structured it: use the "zip, downwards" option for finding places.
They suggest that you buy a new one after one year which I will do, but it will not be a Magellan product. I checked the Magellan site and they state that they only service units under warranty. I have only had the 3100 for one year with infrequent use. Now it will not start up even though it is getting power. This one is abount 30 days beyond the 1 yr warranty.
Has plenty of points of interest.Buy and enjoy. There are couple of dead zones on the highway, but gets resolved really soon. The product is great for it's value. I owned one for two years with minor problems: it doesn't get a good reception in downtown Pittsburgh due to skyscrapers and narrow streets. It is easy to operate and store.
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