Magellan RoadMate 2200T Car GPS Receiver

I've never owned a GPS unit before, so I spent a lot of time researching the various models before choosing this one. My reasons for doing so were a combination of price (Buy.com has refurbs for $169) and the fact that it offers text-to-speech (spoken street names). The next-lowest priced model that I managed to find with that feature was a Garmin for no lower than $269.

I did read the reviews here and elsewhere but figured for that price, I'd take a chance. I also knew that Magellan had a firmware update available that supposedly fixed the freezing and routing issues, so I installed that immediately. And so far, I have had no problems whatsoever.

In fact, I've been pleasantly surprised. This unit is really well-designed in a number of unexpected ways that many manufacturers would overlook. For example, it is water-resistant - so you don't need to worry about carrying it around in the rain. (It is meant to be portable.) Its battery life is a quite long 8 hours, and it comes with both a regular AC adapter and a car charger. Its casing is tougher than I expected - the plastic is quite thick and seems like it would withstand a drop from a pretty good height. The recorded female voice is nice enough that I don't even miss not being able to download alternatives (seriously, when you have to listen to the same voice every time you drive, this is important).

The little ergonomic touches continue in the navigation itself. For example, as soon as the unit senses you're off course, it immediately recalculates your route. It doesn't wait and it doesn't prompt; it just does it, and quickly. Approaches to turns are announced first just after your last turn (it will tell you even if your next turn is 10 miles ahead, along with the street name), then at different intervals apparently depending on your speed. This appears to be an undocumented feature, but I've noticed that driving at 60mph, it will remind me of an upcoming turn starting 2 miles ahead, whereas at 30mph, it will sometimes not remind me until 0.5 miles ahead. The idea seems to be to give you enough time to prepare without being overly annoying.

As you approach a turn, the system will announce "approaching left (or right) turn" followed by the street name, as a pseudo-3D view pops up in split-screen showing a closeup of what the turn looks like. If you're on a highway, it will tell you to prepare to exit, and if you're at a fork in the road, it's got recordings for that too. Only a few feet ahead of the turn, a chime will sound telling you this is where you're supposed to turn. The chime is different for left and right turns - a nice touch! It is almost impossible with this unit not to be ready for a turn, or to miss one. You'd really have to be a dunce.

The speaker, if you're wondering, is loud and clear. I leave mine on the default volume setting, which is about halfway up, and I can hear it over my stereo even at fairly loud volumes. The recorded voice for instructions is a pleasing (my wife even says "sexy") female, with computer synthesis for the street names. The synthesis is good but not perfect, but then I didn't expect it to be. Most road names are correct and perfectly understandable, but one example I can remember of when this was not the case was when it told me to turn on "Doof" Place. I had no idea what the heck this was supposed to be until I turned to look at the unit and saw that it was "Duffe" - which is pronounced "Duffey". Really no big deal - doesn't happen often, and the street name is always displayed on screen as a fallback if you just can't understand the synthesis or pronunciation.

The 2200T has options for routing by shortest time, shortest distance, most use of freeways and least use of freeways. I've tried them all and while I wouldn't say they're always entirely logical in an obvious way, they all at least get you where you're supposed to go. Most of the time, in my testing, they do pretty much mirror the routes I've learned to take through trial and error. I mostly use shortest time or shortest distance, with the freeway options as fallbacks in case it gives me a route I dislike. (The "freeways" around here are often slower than the side streets, although sometimes the 2200T's side street routings are overly complex.)

There have been a couple of annoying cases where the 2200T's gotten some little things wrong. There is a short strip of road near my house that's one-way, and its map doesn't have it that way, so it's constantly trying to route me the wrong way onto it. (This is where the quick re-routing comes in handy - I just drive around it, and everything's fine.) I doubt this is Magellan's fault - they're using Navteq maps like a lot of other GPS manufacturers. It also thinks my house is on the wrong side of the street, so when going home, it always tells me "approaching destination on the right" when it should be on the left. Still, I know where my house is so this is not a big deal. I haven't had this problem with any other address so far - it's gotten the side of the street correct in every other case. Again, this is probably Navteq's fault anyway, so most other GPS devices would do the same thing.

I have had no problem with signal strength or signal loss. If the unit's off for a while or if it gets "lost" (ie. if I turn it off one place, then bring it somewhere else and turn it on there), it does take 3-5 minutes to lock on again. But once it's locked, it's rock solid. Never had it switch off a satellite or freeze up once locked. The delay in locking on is also much shorter if it's in the same spot as when I turned it off (leaving it in the car, for example).

Some have complained about the mount, although again, no problems here. The 2200T comes with both a suction cup mount and a sticker mount, so you can mount it either on the windshield (the preferred method) or on the dash (much more permanent). You do have that choice. I've now had mine mounted to the windshield for two weeks straight, and have not had any problems with vibration or with it falling off the windshield. Your windshield does need to be clean. One thing I will say is that the knobs used to tighten the swing arm that sets its position do require quite a bit of force to tighten fully, so maybe some people are not doing this and are getting vibration as a result. Or, maybe my car just runs more smoothly than theirs!

Once you've got the arm set and tightened, you can just leave the mount there - the unit itself attaches and detaches via three tabs, two of which hook into the bottom of the unit, the third of which grabs a notch in the back and snaps it in. This is a two-hand operation because of the force and leverage required, which can be a little annoying if you've got the unit mounted low in the center of your windshield (as I do), but it's not a big deal.

I should also mention the points of interest (POI) database, which is smaller than some models - hey, one reason why this unit's cheap. You can upload your own POI databases from your PC onto an SD memory card (regular addresses that you want to enter manually can be saved in on-board memory). I haven't really tried this because I just haven't felt a need yet.

There are some tacked-on mp3 and photo features that I think are pretty pointless and are not why I bought a GPS unit anyway. I don't know why GPS manufacturers are focusing on these things now, but I guess it's just to differentiate themselves and maybe attract some new kinds of buyers. The mp3 player can't be used while navigating anyway, so it's really doubly pointless and I never use it. Don't buy this thing if you're looking to play mp3's - buy an iPod.

For navigating, though, I'm really pleased, especially for the price. I've had no major problems and everything just feels well thought-out. At some point the graphics will no doubt just feel obsolete (they're already somewhat dated) and no doubt there will continue to be improvements in newer models to speech synthesis and routing. So it's not like this is the last GPS unit you'll ever want. But it's definitely a great little first unit, without spending an arm and a leg.