Magellan Maestro 4040 review
Published on April 19th, 2007 in gps navigation, magellan, reviews
One of the wide screen models from Magellan’s new line of Maestro series got reviewed by people at PCMag. The reviews give Maestro 4040 3.5/5 and concludes by saying it is a great buy ($500).
For $499.99 (list), the Maestro 4040 offers a surprisingly large number of features. Most important is Magellan’s SayWhere text-to-speech engine, which enables the device to pronounce street names and exit ramps. Next, you get expanded map data. The 4040 includes maps for all 50 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Those of you with Bluetooth-enabled phones will appreciate the built-in speakerphone function (more on that later). You also get a larger POI (Points of Interest) database with millions of business and service listings. The 4040 is upgradable to provide live traffic info, if you purchase the optional TrafficKit and a subscription to traffic-data services. The 4040 snaps into the TrafficKit cradle, which has an integrated FM-TMC receiver. No additional wires or antennas are required. Finally, you can enable the Maestro 4040 to accept voice commands, for virtually hands-free operation.
Pros are listed as 4.3″ screen, new interface, and AAA TourBook, and the price. The downside reviewer found was a not-so-great bluetooth interface and non-existent auto-zoom functionality.
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Magellan’s Maestro series, and the 4040 in particular, promises all sorts of goods. Bluetooth compatibility, 4.5 million points of interest, color screen, battery back-up, an SD/MMC for expansion, additional maps for regions “around the world” and so on and so forth. In truth, it’s a budget GPS in an expensive box with functionality bordering on laughable. They don’t tell you that if you do pair it with a phone by bluetooth the unit freezes and can no longer produce directions. They don’t tell you that the 4.5 million points of interest are solely for Magellan sponsors and offer limited options to the user, the expansion port is for Magellan’s rarely produced but required map and firmware updates only, that the battery back-up has a 15 minute life unless you switch off all sound and reduce screen brightness and resolution to a minimum, and they certainly don’t tell you that they have withdrawn all the additional regions of maps they allegedly produced for this unit. The latter point is a major annoyance as Magellan instructed sales agents to use expandability as a major talking up point for this unit. In essence, they lied to shift this piece of rubbish. It’s a sham, it’s overpriced and anyone looking for any sort of true user friendly functionality should avoid this dreadful product like the plague.
I would like to say that I recently purchased a refurbished Magellan 4040 GPS unit and when I started to use it, I quickly find that the database is obsolete. I emailed Magellan and contacted them by phone to discuss this matter. They tell me since I purchased a refurbished unit that they cannot offer free database update. The cost of the database update on a new refurbished unit is $79.95. What a rip off….don’t buy Magellan GPS units. They are only a scam.