Magellan Maestro 4010 Review

The name of Magellan comes to us from the famous explorer and navigator attributed with first discovering the Magellan Straits right at the bottom of the world. It seems logical, therefore, that the company should shine when it comes to producing satellite navigation equipment. The reality is that although their performance for GPS on yachts has held them in good stead for many years, the smooth transition to car systems has not been quite so successful.

The Magellan Maestro 4010 is a middle of the road sat nav with some, but not all, the features of the pricey set.

UK and Ireland maps are preloaded and the QuickSpell™ facility makes searching for destinations and points of interest a breeze. Even if spelling is not your forte, this exclusive auto-complete feature makes it easy to enter destinations. An additional software searching feature is the FlexAddress™ which will search for a 'best fit' option when only given part of the information.

The unit comes with a full 4.3 inch high resolution colour touchscreen display with an anti-glare screen. There are thousands of points of interest in the database, and many more could be downloaded from user group websites. The interactive screen shows POI icons in your immediate vicinity - simply touch the icon to see the name, address, telephone number and directions to get an instant route.

More information is available via the Marco Polo™ travel guides. The sight seeing category for capital cities is included with free access, but you will need to pay a fee to access other categories within the guide.

The batteries are standard Lithium-ion rechargeable with a charged life of 3 hours. An AC adapter is an added accessory, but a 12-24 volt cigarette lighter style power adapter is included in the basic package.

Bluetooth capability is included with this system for hands-free functionality when making and receiving phone calls as long as your mobile is compatibility enabled.

Traffic information is not part of the package, but the unit is upgradeable with the optional TrafficKit™ RDS/TMC Receiver. This will give you a lifetime subscription to the service in Great Britain and France.

This unit is nicely sleek and compact, even with a widescreen format it is only a little over 2 cm thick. The weight of 240 grams, however, does not make it the lightest device around. The mount, on the other hand, is not so sleek. It does not have the ball and socket style adjustment and needs to be fiddled with to move and re-tighten it. The arm is extended to bring it away from the windscreen, but that amount of weight on a long stem means vibrations will always be an issue.

The Magellan Roadmate 1200 uses the SiRF star III chipset providing state of the art GPS position acquisition, and NAVTEQ maps and with the fast processor, positioning and repositioning are rapid and accurate. Having said that, the display refresh is rather slow which makes the maps rather jerky as they move across the screen.