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Awesome. Good size, accurate, good voice. Only thing I miss is the "ding ding" from other models of Magellan when approaching your exit. I can get along without it though. Love it.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I bought this GPS unit for both the navigation and Bluetooth function. The navigation works great. Fast, easy to use and reliable. The Bluetooth part is where I have my complaint. The volume is very low - so low that I have to set it at full volume to overcome the road noise. At full volume the distortion is unbearable. Low voices make the speaker rattle, like a blown speaker. I've owned a few portable navigation systems and this one is a huge disappointment. If you want a navigation system and don't care about the Bluetooth function, this is a good choice. If you want a Bluetooth device, this is not a good choice.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
We have used a TomTom 300 since 2006. We are not sure if the Magellan 4350 is "good", or "excellent", because it has a steep learning curve, which we are far from mastering. The screen is big, but, like the TomTom, hard to see in daylight. The instructions are clear and generally easy to follow, but voice quality can be a problem--the TomTom was clearer. I think it is slower than my TomTom to find sattelites, but am not sure. As long term AAA members, we wanted the AAA points of interest, and they are great. Customer service seems good, too--better than Tom Tom's. We have yet to try the traffic information feature. Keeping in mind that we have not yet traversed the learning curve, here are minor irritations: 1. Screen freezes on rare occasions, requiring a hard boot. A real problem when it happens in heavy traffic on a complicated route, especially if there is no passenger to do the hard boot. 2. Voice quality medium to poor--sometimes difficult to understand. (We have not tried using it with FM, however.) 3. Screen does not show distance to intermediate destinations. On long trip to DC, we told GPS to stop at a hotel en route. Screen showed distance to DC, and we did not know how close we were to hotel. Called customer service, and was told to go to list of directions and add miles to intermediate destination. (E.g 15 mi. to Highway, 62 mi. to exit 49, 12 mi. along route 10, 4 mi, to Smith Rd., 6 mi. to hotel) We found it easier to list the hotel as a final destination and put in a new final destination the next morning. 4. Difficult to plan a trip on the map; hard to manipulate the screen. 5. Huge, but incomplete list, of points of interests categories. For example, we wanted to find seafood restaurants on Cape Cod. Points of interest has huge number of categories by type of food (e.g., German, Dutch) and by chain (e.g., Dunkin Donuts, Outback), but no listing for "seafood" or even "fish". If we asked the GPS for nearby restaurants and looked at the descriptions, it would tell us if one or another was a seafood restaurant. But there was no grouping of them. I had the impression that some engineer was focusing on numbers of categories rather than usefulness of categories. 6. No place on the GPS to hold a stylus. But a stylus is very useful using it, and manual so indicates. 7. Some gimmicks seem silly. The ability to see buildings, for example, works too sporadically to be useful, and is very hard to make sense of when it does work. I hate to think I paid extra for it. 8. Some weird routes. If, going home, I turn onto my street 8 blocks from my house, GPS rebels and has me do a left, a right, go six blocks, a right and a left. All streets are completely straight according to the map and form a grid, so there are no curves that might make the detour make sense. If I turn onto my street seven blocks from home, it sends me down my street. I cannot account for the detour. I cannot tell how often this happens because I usually assume the route I am given is the best--this is one of the few times I know it was silly. But then again, the TomTom sometimes led me into dead ends, or into loops that went nowhere. Again, these irritations are minor. I lke the Magellan, and make heavy use of the AAA material.Read full review
Not a difficult interface, though the screen could've been more sensitive. I live at the top of a hilly street and this GPS thinks that my house number is closer to the bottom of it. Not a problem since I know where I live but it's quite off. It often misses obvious routes. For example, in the "fastest" route, going one block further to get onto a highway is faster than going 4 miles through a 25mph zone. Also, once you make a choice (fast, shortest, economical) you can't change it. By the way, shortest distance should be fewer miles (not always according to it). If you know an area well enough to find the shortcuts, etc, this device picks strange alternatives. It doesn't show speed limit. It doesn't show North (I like to know which direction I'm driving). And, I haven't seen the "warning over speed limit" yet it says it has. Traffic is a 3 mo free then subscription. Not worth it; better off with radio traffic updates. Finally I haven't figured out yet (if it's available) what Nuvi has, the total time of a trip, mileage, avrg/top speed, etc) It's not a bad GPS overall and it was under $100. Even though I just bought mine, it has old maps (2008).Read full review
ADDING THIS TO ADDRESS SOME COMPLAINTS: Many people complain about the brightness in daylight. GoTo Settings / System / Brightness / under power management choose "Backlight Always On" adjust "Backlight At Daytime" all the way up+++ This made a big difference for me. And like I said originally, I really like the bluetooth for hands free phone operation. NOW FOR MY ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is my third gps unit I have owned in my life. My first was a one of the first Magellans made back in 2005. It still worked but was becoming slow in finding itself on the map. My other is an in-dash Pioneer DVD/Nav/Stereo. I have 3 vehicles and the Maestro 4350 is for the other two. The mapping is a great improvement and it can find it's location standing in my home. The bluetooth phone connection works great. The fm transmitter I only tried a little on one channel and didn't sound too clear. I don't believe the fm transmission was good enough to use this device as a mp3 player through your car stereo. The battery is strong and after first bringing it to a full charge, I ran it all day going from place to place with the bluetooth before it needed to recharge. Of course I powered it off when I got someplace. I'd bet I got 3 to 4 hrs out of the charge. My old one was hard to remove from the windshield mount while this one pops in and out of its windshield mount nicely so I can sit back in the car seat holding it like a little video game and once I have it set, I can easily just reach forward, place it in it's mount, and go! I'd buy it again in a heartbeat and for the $189 I spent on ebay for this new and unopened one, the bang for buck can't be beat!Read full review
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