he Maestro 3100 is the entry level unit offered by Magellan, which is exactly why I chose it. This is my first GPS and as I've learned when entering a new technology area, start on the low end and learn what you like about it and what you want in your next one. I may have taken this a little too much to heart with this unit, as I've certainly found many things that are lacking, but in general I think it's a good device for what it does. My review follows.
The Basics
This system does it's job well, it just doesn't do a whole lot more. If you give it an address, it'll find you a way to that location. Its nice feminine voice will guide you with with helpful voice prompts and should you stray from your path it will auto reroute. The system has a decent 750,000 entry Points of Interest database though not as large as the Tom Tom's > 1M. It tends to know big chains, but don't expect it to find you many coffee shops other than Starbucks. It comes with a suction cup mount that works nicely on my windshield and a battery that lasts a few hours on a recharge.
The Good
The Maestro 3100 is the cheapest name brand system I found. It's $250 retail but at the time Amazon offered it for $200, ( however it is currently listed at $250 ) this made it $60 cheaper than the cheapest Tom Tom and it was sold from Amazon directly, always a bonus in my book. It performs it's basic task of knowing where you are and getting to elsewhere well.
The menu system is flat and fairly discoverable in general. The Address book is the deepest of the menus, but I quickly was able to navigate to a saved location in just 2 or 3 seconds. The system is responsive for the average case and tends to only slow down when it's acquiring a GPS signal which usually only happens when you first start up the system.
The system automatically changes it's color scheme to reduce the brightness of the unit at night. This is a must have, you'd be blinded otherwise.
The Bad
The main bad items are in what this unit is lacking, which I'm sure more expensive units cover. So I will be specific to this units offerings
2D is the new 3D
The map offers both 3D and 2D views. The 3D view is nice to look at, however it is impossible to do anything interactive in it; moving the map around is simply slow and it's usually not possible to actually navigate enough to see what you want. The 2D view is almost preferred in all cases just for ease. Another sorely missing feature is the inability to see an entire route easily, there really should be.
Wasted Space
The Maestro offers a 'Plan a Trip' feature, however this amounts to nothing more than a list of way points. There is no special navigation, or hand off between points. You could easily just put each point in the Address Book and just choose the next one to navigate to on your trip.
Nagging Features
This unit comes with a 'preview' option that you can turn on where, when you start a route, it will ask if you want to preview it with a fly over. The problem with this feature is, any time it recalculates the route it prompts you if you want to see a preview before you can get actual directions. So any time you take an access road instead of the highway, or turn earlier or later than it wants, or take a slightly different route, you gotta fiddle with the box. That is just annoying and simply unsafe.
Also, the preview fly-by feature is useless. It doesn't go fast enough, and is a poor substitute for a full route view.
The Review
This unit is a good buy overall; you can get it with a warranty for less than a Tom Tom. It'll get you where you're going for the cheapest you'll find a name brand unit. The mount is very useful and aside from a few initial drops from my windshield it's held fast. The battery should last long enough to get you around the city for the day if you use it to get your bearing when your lost. As well, it even fit in my blue jean's pocket. Maybe not the most comfortable, but it works.
Amazon.com Links
This Item:
Magellan Maestro 3100
2 Year Warranty
Other Units:
Magellan Maestro 3140 - "SayWhere" functionality says street names in addition to directions, Bluetooth, 4.5 Million Points of Interest
Magellan Maestro 4000 - 1.5 Million Points of Interest, AAA TourBook integration
Magellan Maestro 4040 - "SayWhere" functionality, 4.5 Million Points of Interest, AAA TourBook. Additional Costs: Voice command, Traffic aware
Magellan Maestro 4050 - 4.5 Million Points of Interest, AAA TourBook. Additional Costs: Voice command, Traffic aware
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