Magellan RoadMate 300 Product Review
by Larry Leviton, AE9E
23 December 2006 Release 10
Original Article Dated 26 August
2005
The Magellan RoadMate 300 is ideal for a route person needing multiple destinations per trip within a local area.
It's also a good entry-level navigation system for the value conscious GPS enthusiast.
But the RM300 is not a RM700 without a hard disk. There
are subtle differences between the RM300, RM700, and RM760.
Originally it was expected that consumers would download detailed
maps to the RM300 from a personal computer through
a USB cable. It was relatively easy to do but time consuming. To
stimulate sales Magellan offered preloaded detailed maps that are
inserted into the SD card slot. But these have to be mailed to the
consumer. Consumers wanted an out of the box solution. So the
RM360 was born and the price on the RM300 was
cut. Get latest prices
HERE.
MAGELLAN RM360
MAGELLAN RM300+
The Magellan RM300+ is identical to the RM300 except it comes with a preloaded SD card of all North America. There is no map CD, no USB download cable, and no AC-power supply. Whatever you do, don't accidently reformat memory. I'll talk more about this later.GARMIN C320
This review points out differences between the RM300 and the Garmin c320 which is a competitive unit. Get latest prices HERE. In general the c320 is easier to use and the RM300 has more features. For a c320 review, see http://www.gpsinformation.us/c320/c320review.html.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
The RM300 kit includes:
* RoadMate 300 14 channel WAAS enabled GPS receiver.
* Pre-loaded major road (base) maps of North America or Europe.
* 80-megabytes of internal memory for downloading detailed maps
* SD slot for downloading up to one-gigabyte of additional detailed maps (SD card not included)
* Suction cup gooseneck windshield mount
* Cigarette lighter power cable
* AC power supply
* USB cable
* CD-ROMs with fully unlocked Navteq maps
* CD-ROM with 156-page user manual
* Basic instruction manual
* Instructions on how to acquire a GPS signal for the first time.
I initially liked the gooseneck mount. It was sturdy, yet allowed the
RM300 to be close to the driver and away from the
windshield. There is no quick disconnect. Usually the suction cup is
difficult to remove. Sometimes it falls off the windshield.
Being visible on the
dashboard is an invitation for thieves to break a side window
and steal it along with other valuables.
The 156-page user manual (on CD-ROM) is thorough and helpful.
The instructions
on how to acquire a GPS signal for the first time are helpful,
but forgot to mention to scroll down to get to the Diagnostics
selection.
Scrolling down is not obvious to the first time user because the Diagnostics selection is not visible until you scroll down. It took me an hour to realize this.
Downloading maps through the USB cable to internal memory was relatively easy. The user manual was very helpful when I got stuck.
MAP SIZE
Skip this section if you are
using pre-loaded maps.
The RM300 works best when maps are limited to 40-megabytes each. 40-megabytes is large enough to hold a metropolitan area like Los Angeles. There is no limit to the NUMBER of maps a RM300 can hold. Any of the three users can access any map. Maps can be overlapped but only one can be loaded at a time.
The problem with
larger maps is
that they are slow to compile and download. A
40-megabyte map
takes 10 minutes to compile and download using a 1.4-gigahertz
computer. Compilation and
download times are proportional to map size and computer speed.
To load all of North American requires 2.2
gigabytes of memory. The maps would have to be broken into 256-megabyte
chucks, a time consuming process. The user would have to manually
change maps when traveling beyond the current map load.
TRIP PLANNING
Multiple destination trip
planning
allows you to connect a list of addresses into a single route.
Trip planning is best done off-line on a personal computer, but only if you have a map CD. Address entry on a personal computer is easy.The software does not reorganize the addresses into an efficient route, you must do that, but it does show you the route on a large map. New addresses are inserted at the end of the list. There is no way to insert an address in the middle of the list which is a real hassle. The trip is then downloaded to the RM300. The c320 does not have trip planning.
Further trip editing can be done on the RM300 and uploaded back to the personal computer.
The
RM300 holds 20 destinations per trip and 20 trips. It
also holds 200 addresses per user, three users, and the last 50
destinations. The c320 holds 500 addresses and the last 50 destinations.
USER INTERFACE
At first appearance the user interface is friendly. The 3.5-inch touch screen is large and bright. Often the same function is available by touching the screen or pressing one of the large external buttons.
The quick spell feature on the RM300 blocks out keys as names are spelled out. It is very handy. But the touch screen keys were a tad too small for my fingers. I found myself using my fingernails. The keys on the c320 are bigger.
After trial and error I found the
Cancel Guidance screen, which shows Route Yes No.
Pressing Yes got me back to Select Destination. This isn’t obvious. I kept pressing No because I didn’t want the same route.
Often
the large external buttons don’t respond to being
pushed. This is due to software, not hardware.
The
color display partially washes out in sunlight, but I
did not find this objectionable. It was still readable in part because
it is transflective. Transflective means the screen is illuminated from
both
front and back.
The RM300 display is far better than the c320 which claims to be
transflective
but is not. For pictures comparing the two, see
http://gpsinformation.us/joe/gpscompare/gpscarnavscreencompare.html
. It is very hard to see the difference inside a store. You're just
going to have to take our word for it.
The RM300 lacks an automatic day/night display. The daytime display is too bright for night viewing. The night display makes the background dark blue, but you must manually switch to this screen. The RM760 and c320 do this automatically using time of day which is transmitted by GPS satellites. I got around this problem by leaving the display set to nighttime.
At the time of this writing, some built-in navigation
systems dim the display when the headlights are turned on. Is that dumb?
There is no external volume
control or brightness control. Both are done from touch screens. I did
not find this a problem. If the voice became too annoying I just turned
the whole unit off with the on/off button. Usually its very quiet.
DRIVING AROUND
One
common complaint about prior firmware versions was that
they were slow at automatically recalculating a route when you drove
off route. Firmware version 1.65 fixed this problem.
One trick software engineers
use to speed up calculations is to pick the first successful route,
which is not necessarily the best. The RM300
appears to do this but without doing anything stupid like going in a
circle or down side streets.
The route exclusion
feature allows you to avoid certain roads. But route exclusion turned
out to be useless trying to avoid a major expressway.
I wanted to use the I-294 tollway to go to Central Illinois.
I-90/94 is the shorter route, but is under construction.
The easiest way to do this was to drive towards I-294
and let automatic rerouting figure it out.
Trip planning would also have worked.
I-294 was a good challenge
for the RM300 because there is no direct interchange between I-294
and I-57. Routing by Shortest Time took me off the expressway. Routing
by
Most Use of Freeways correctly went from I-294
to I-80 to I-57. Some competitor's models lack routing by
Most Use of Freeways.
I liked the split 3D guidance / 2D
map, although this
cuts the map size in half.
The map screen includes direction
of travel
(NSEW), distance to next turn, estimated time to final destination, and
distance to final destination. Seeing this information while sitting in
a traffic jam relieves some stress.
Upcoming street names are hard to see on the full map. Often they are
not shown. This is
important because at night it’s hard to read street signs. Street names
were easier to see on the c320.
Points of interest (POI) icons are
displayed on the map. Touching the icon shows its name, address and
telephone number.
When using POI
to find a restaurant you might want to call ahead and see if the
restaurant is still in business. Judging from the
restaurants in my hometown, I’d say the POI information was about two
years old. As of September 2005 20% of the restaurants were out of
business. The Navteq
map
was dated Q1 2004. The Magellan website says that maps are updated
every year but does not say how to get them. While we're on the
subject, don't confuse map updates with firmware updates. They are two
different things. The c320 does not display
POI icons on the map.
Although the unit speaks six European languages plus
American English, male and female, only one can be loaded into memory
at a time. I loaded American English. The female voice was very
pleasant. A
pleasant bell chimes before each voice announcement and can be turned
off.
I particularly liked the double bell just before each turn.
The double bell was within 100 feet from the intersection center. The
c320's last warning is within 400 feet and the American female voice
was too happy. The c320 British female voice was tolerable.
The RM300 also gives several verbal warnings before each turn, starting at 2 miles. There is some variation in the announcements. For example, “approaching next turn” and “1/2 mile to next turn”. I liked this.
Unlike the c320, there was no nagging “off route, recalculating” voice announcement. It simply announced new instructions after recalculating. I liked this. Automatic rerouting can be turned off.
Pressing the Enter button repeats the last voice instruction.
Pressing the View button toggles between several navigation screens.
Sometimes the screen automatically
changes between the split 3D guidance
/ 2D map and the
full map. I liked all of this.
The
RM300 does not have 3D maps and the c320 does. I prefer 3D maps but
without two units sitting side-by-side I don't miss the 3D maps. "Out
of Sight, Out of Mind."
Other
screens display satellite information, latitude,
longitude, altitude, a compass, and a speedometer.
Lat and Long might come in handy during an emergency,
especially when off road or out of area. The altitude does not
correlate to sea level. The c320 does not display
satellite information, latitude, longitude or altitude.
The RM300 also includes a track recorder which records
where you’ve been. The recorded information can be uploaded to a
computer and displayed on a large map. The c320 does not have a track
recorder.
DOWNLOADING MAPS
Skip
this section if you are using pre-loaded maps.
The CD-ROMs contain detailed maps of most of North America including the continental US, Hawaii, Canada, Cuba, Greenland, Puerto Rico, Caribbean Islands, Yucatan Peninsula, Central America, and parts of South America. It does not include Alaska or Central Mexico.
When loading maps to the SD card occasionally the USB port would not detect the RM300 but succeeded on the second try. You must remove the SD card to download maps to internal memory which is a hassle. But I had no trouble loading maps greater than 80-megabytes. This is an improvement from the original firmware.
Joe Mehaffey
and I found regions awkward to understand. A region is a sub-map.
Regions cannot overlap, are limited to three regions per map and the
total map size cannot exceed 240-megabytes. A flyer that comes
with
the RM300 says “We also recommend, for faster performance,
saving the maximum of three regions in one map file rather than one
region in each of three separate map files.” I know what
they're trying to say,
but this statement just adds to the confusion.
The purpose of regions as
explained in the
user manual is to create detailed street maps along a route
and use the base map to connect the regions. Once I realized this,
regions
made sense. But it took me two weeks to realize this.
When a map contains more than one region you must select the region when entering a new address.
The Magellan web site warns that only certain SD cards work with the RM300 and lists the manufactures. The web site also includes an automated facility for computing authorization codes for new SD cards.
REFORMATING INTERNAL MEMORY
Pressing Reformat SD Card showed
“WARNING! This repair
operation causes data loss. Please go to www.magellangps.com
or call us for more information. Continue?”
Pressing Yes shows: “Are you sure you want to delete the contents of the SD card? Please go to www.magellangps.com or call us for more information. Continue?”
Pressing Yes shows: “Format Passed”. This took two seconds and erased all the maps on the SD card. I had no problems downloading new detailed maps and I did not have to reauthorize the SD card.
So…
I tried reformatting the internal memory and…
lost all of the base maps. The RM300 displayed “Map not found” even after downloading detailed maps to the internal memory. All of the Select Destination features were locked out.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
I filled out a customer service request on Magellan’s web site. I did not try telephoning.
The next business day I received the following response:
From what you
have emailed, the unit will have to come in if it is showing no maps
and you reformatted the internal memory.
That option is not for the customer to perform... I will need to
issue you a return authorization number.
As far as loading maps using the internal memory, only when you need memory will the unit ask for you to delete a region to make room for the new ones. You cannot simply delete them; there is no option for that.
Let me issue you a
return authorization number so that you can send in your GPS for
service. Please send the GPS, a note with the problem, and a copy of
your proof of purchase so that we may cover this for you at no cost.
Once the unit is received at our service center, a replacement or the
repaired
unit will be shipped out by UPS ground. In-house turn around time
is between 5-10 working days from when they receive the GPS.
I was disappointed that I had to send the unit in. The USB port was
still
working.
I sent the demo unit in and received it back 9 days later including shipping time. I also received an email when the unit arrived at the service center and when it was shipped back to me. The unit I received had all the languages loaded into it including sound files. When I downloaded a detailed map, the personal computer software notified me that it was removing all but the last selected language.
Two days after sending the unit in I received an email that
the base maps (NA_BSMAP and EU_BSMAP) were on my map CD. They
just didn’t get downloaded.
I could have downloaded them by copying them to removable drive F
which appears when the RM300 is connected to the USB port. See Question
and Answer section for more details.
Side note: The CD-ROMs that came with the review unit RM300 would not load maps onto Windows 98SE. The CD-ROMs that came with a new RM300 did. Both worked on Windows XP.
MAJOR PROBLEM FIXED
A major problem with prior
firmware versions was that
there was no search by city when selecting street names. After
entering a street name, the user had to select the full street name
from a list that included prefixes (N,S,E,W) and suffixes
(AVE, BLVD, RD, ST).
This caused problems for common
street names and produced long lists of streets and cities. The larger
the
map area, the
longer the lists and the longer it took to build those lists. Most
reviews failed to mention this problem leaving customers disappointed
when they purchased the product.
Firmware version 1.81 (released
Sept 2005) fixed this
problem. Immediately after entering a street name the user selects the
city. If there are more than five choices the user is
asked to spell the city name.
PROBLEMS UPDATING FIRMWARE
I had difficulty updating the RM300's firmware. See Pre-Configured SD Card.
PRE-CONFIGURED
SD CARD
I also evaluated a pre-configured
256-megabyte SD card.
When I first inserted the SD card it said “Detailed Maps Not
Authorized”.
Powering the RM300 off and on cleared the problem.
The pre-configured SD card needs to be
removed when updating firmware
or configuring a new unit. This is because the SD card comes with the
lock switch set to the lock position, causing the installation software
to not detect the RM300 through the USB port. The installation
software and Magellan web site need to mention this.
Overall the pre-configured SD card saved
me time by
giving me detailed maps and POIs over a large area.
NO INTERNAL BATTERY
The RM300 does not have a battery
to keep the receiver powered
when external power is lost.
It can take a minute for the RM300 to acquire a GPS signal.
Starting a vehicle causes the RM300 to loss its GPS signal due to the
high current consumption of the starter motor.
This is normal for many vehicles. I did not find this objectionable.
On one occasion the cigarette plug
came out just as I was making a critical turn. There was nowhere to
pull over. All I could do was plug the power back in, wait, and pray.
To my surprise the RM300 did not go through the usual start-up
procedure but rather displayed a message asking whether I wanted to
resume from the current position. After pressing YES everything went
back to normal. The total elapsed time was about 15 seconds and I did
not miss my next turn.
The c320 has an internal battery
that
keeps the unit powered when external power is lost.