Electronics : Magellan Crossover 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Road and Trail Navigator

Rating: - Nice Unit - Bad Magellan
The top reason to reconsider a Magellan unit is the old maps. I bought this unit a year ago when it first came out. You would think with the latest GPS hardware you would get the latest maps and software. Okay, no problem that they had a new version of software that changed the entire interface - it did make it easier. But the maps were OVER 2 years old. I didn't find that on the box, nor in any of their advertising, nor the poor support section on their website. I wrote immediately and they told me that there were no newer maps at the time, but they could be available anytime. It took them almost a year to release new maps AND naturally, they want you to pay $80 plus shipping/handling for the privilege of the upgrade. I've written them twice and explained that it seems unfair to pay for maps that should have been included when I paid $350 for the latest and greatest. Each note got a response in about a week that said, "We get the maps from Navteq, so we can't give them away, and anyway, you're gonna want the new maps and it's not like other electronics where you pay a subscription and get free updates." WHAT? First, you gave me old maps, so you need to make it right and I don't care where you get them. Second, of course I want the maps, that I SHOULD have gotten when I bought the unit. Third, You don't pay for something then call it free!

Magellan also doesn't have any corporate information on their website, so I can't even write to someone further up the chain.

The unit itself works pretty well and does all the things it's intended to. I especially like the announcement of street names so that I don't have to look at the unit to know where I'm supposed to turn and when.

I can't recommend a Magellan unit however, because of their map update policy.

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Rating: - Not perfect but does the job!
Pros:
1. multi-purpose, I wants one for auto-natvigation and one for hiking. I don't know why it's so hard for other auto-gps to provide electronic bread-crumps.
2. GPS sensitivity is pretty good, I can get signal in my house up to 10 ft away from the window. It's not great in downtown area though.

Cons:
1. Hard to get maps for other places (e.g. Europe, NewZealand, Asia regions..) it's much easier to download maps from other users if you own a GARMIN.
2. the track save option is buggy.. the time stamp is wrong after you exported to text file.. have to figure out a work-around myself..
3. the touch screen doesn't work well all the time.. sometimes no matter where I tap, it hits the letter "M".. a bit annoying.
4. a bit bulky and heavy..

still probably would buy this one again if I want an all-in-one unit

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Rating: - Not so good offroad
I bought this wanting to use it on and off road. The NAV features worked well enough on road, but I found the detail very lacking on offroad trails for my 4x4 trips. Magellan has been saying they would provide new maps, but I haven't seen any. I also don't like the fact that the method they use for providing map updates is to require a special SD card be kept in the unit, meaning you can't have anything else in it at the time, like saved info, photos, or MP3's.

On the positive side, this unit came with a lot of accessories that other's don't, like a mount, cables, chargers, etc.

I ended up selling the unit at a loss and I'll wait for something better to come along for street and 4x4 use.

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Rating: - Good GPS, bad service; How to xfer waypoints and tracks to PC and back
Internally this unit is known as Magellan Roadmate 2500T. This is important because if you want to purchase extra SD memory, vendors will typically tell you whether their memory is supported or not. The maximum SD card this GPS can handle is 2 GB even though the documentation says it it is "unlimited". It is very much limited, it also can not handle newer SDHC card. I have had luck with SanDisk 2GB *regular* SD flash memory.

T in '2500T' stands for Traffic, meaning it can be extended with a traffic updater if so desired.


Now the review:

-- The good:

Crossover has a really good satellite visibility, it can see the satellites from the house, from the tunnels, from inside the 27 story high office building, in fact from inside the elevator shaft of that building.

The automotive navigation logic is fine, it will get you from place to place, but it seems to recalculate things very often.

The prompter voice is Ok, you can't change it though, On the other GPS (Tomtom) I was able to set up Kim Cattrall's voice, this one is just one voice that sounds like airport lady.

-- Marine functionality: You need to get so-called BlueNav maps, they come in 2 varieties, downloadable and preloaded into secure SD card.
Both varieties are expensive, if you want those it is better wait for some sort of a deal, I was able to get mine on AAA sale event at a 25% discount.

Downloadable maps are more expensive, you get a single region but you can transfer it into as many SD cards as you want, as long as they are being used on the original device. You can obviously mix and match the regions as you go. The regions themselves are quite small, typically a state or sometime half the state. For example, Massachusetts region is from Ipswich Bay to Cape Cod Canal.

SecureSD maps are a better deal, the regions included are multi-state but: a) they don't have tide information and b) if you lost them you lost them, you can't burn the maps into a new SD media. Once you purchase them they are tied up not only to the GPS device but also to the SD card (that's why it is called secure) you can't make a backup.

--- The bad:

The software that came with the unit is useless. Compared to Garmin or Fugawi it is like stone age. Their better software (VantagePoint) can't work with Crossover GPS at all.


--- The ugly:

The unit comes with the automotive maps from 2006. Why are there maps from 2006 when it is 2008 ? Because they want you to buy the updated maps, they cost $80 and it is a download. This is just plain wrong. Tomtom allows you do upgrade everything the moment you connect it to the computer.

Also, customer support is in India, I had to call about the discount on maps. Weren't helpful at all.


Overall, mixed bag. The unit itself is quite good, but the services around it (software, support, pricing, company friendliness) aren't.

--- 07/28/2008

After long search I finally found a document on the net that explained how to transfer waypoints and tracks between this unit and PC.

Original document is at:

http://www.nextdestination.com.au/UserFiles/Docs/Transferring_data_to-from_Crossover.pdf

How to transfer waypoints/tracks/routes (trips) from the CrossoverGPS to
Mapsend Lite V2.

To transfer waypoints/tracks/routes to/from Mapsend Lite you will need to have a SD card reader.

Transferring to Mapsend Lite

1. To Transfer waypoints/tracks/trips to Mapsend Lite put the CrossoverGPS into outdoor/marine mode.
2. Push the button to goto the next page.
3. Select Options>Export Data.
4. Select what you want to export, Waypoints/Trips or Tracks.
5. Enter the name of your waypoint/trip or track. Then select OK.
6. Take the SD card out of your GPS and insert it into your card reader.
7. Start Mapsend Lite
8. To import Waypoints in MapSend Lite go to GPS Contents> Waypoints>Load from File and
select GPS Unit or SD Programmer. You should see this box open up
9. Browse to your SD card drive and go to the root directory of the SD card.
10. Select the file you want to import and select Open. All your waypoints/trips or tracks will now be imported into Mapsend Lite

Transferring to CrossoverGPS is exact opposite of the above process.

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To map waypoints into Google maps use I normally use combination of Tyre and GPS Babel

Tyre at: http://www.janboersma.nl/gett/index.php
GPS Babel at: http://www.gpsbabel.org/

Both are free

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Rating: - Old maps are a deal killer
Not a bad unit, read the other reviews, but the deal killer for anyone should be that the maps included are from August 2006, hopelessly out-of-date, and Magellan has the extremely anti-consumer policy on not providing free updates even with a recent purchase of this unit. You ask, you get a polite e-mail from India telling you you can pay $80 to buy an upgrade disk for the GPS you just bought. Neither Garmin nor TomTom "screw" their customers like this.

Bottom line, stay away from Magellan.