Magellan Maestro 3200 Review:
The Magellan Maestro 3200 navigators feature a 3.5-inch screen. The Magellan 3200 and 4200 offer great, basic navigation with turn-by-turn spoken directions, pre-loade maps of the 48 contiguous United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and 1.3 million POIs.

The Magellan Maestro 3200 is smaller and has an updated look to the interface and map screen. It also responds more quickly to inputs.

The feature I like most is the ability to tap the position triangle and then scroll around the map. When you are zoomed in to closest 2 or 3 zoom levels you can scroll around the 3D map this way. On the 2200T I found I had to be in 2D map view to be able to scroll the map. Very handy feature! Also, on the Magellan 3200 the 3D view seems to be at a slightly higher angle and maybe further back. This made road curvature seem less dramatic and often gave a better view of nearby POI’s.

The ability to adjust the brightness was nice at night. The unit switches to night mode automatically (but you can disable this) where the background becomes black. When dimmed to the lowest brightness and in night mode the unit gave off no annoying glow to the interior of the car. The 2200T also had the ability to choose different color schemes in addition to adjustable brightness.

Most importantly the street maps on the Magellan Maestro 3200 are updated from the 2200T. In my local area, a major highway interchange was reconfigured a few years ago, the Magellan 3200 shows the new traffic pattern where the 2200T showed the old one. Streets in my newer development did not show, nor did a new street at a new shopping center, but the Magellan 3200 did list some restaurants in that shopping center. They showed up at a nearby intersection. Even though the Magellan 3200 has fewer POI’s (1.3M?) than the 2200T (1.5M?) they are more current. I’ve searched for a couple of shopping centers for my wife and neither unit was very helpful, I had to resort to navigating to a nearby restaurant. I suspect shopping centers are difficult POI’s for NAVTEQ to keep up with. Wal-Marts were sometimes found under “Grocery” where the “Shopping” category found shopping malls. Maybe the pricier units with 6 million POI’s show these businesses better. The Magellan Maestro 3200 showed gas stations, restaurants, and hotels well enough to please me.

There is no Text-To-Speech on the Magellan 3200. However the voice prompts were identical to the TTS enabled 2200T except the 2200T announced the street name or Interstate number at the end of the maneuver. “Slight right turn in 2 miles” vs. “Slight right turn in 2 miles on I-77″ Considering the additional cost of TTS enabled units I am pleased with the Magellan Maestro 3200.

Being physically smaller, the Maestro 3200’s speaker was smaller than the one in the 2200T and the unit had 5 volume levels and a mute where the 2200T had 7 volume levels and a mute. Hearing the voice prompts from the Magellan 3200 was never a problem though.

The mount worked well and seems quite solid. It is not very long however. If you place it low in your window and your window has a long slope, the unit may feel far away. I found I could actually flip the mount upside down and place it higher on the window. The mount and the unit were both small enough to be unobtrusive.

The power cord has a coiled section to keep things tidy. I found the length to be perfect without having any of the coiled section extended.

The included CD-ROM has a .pdf manual and a software utility for creating your own POI’s. I have not used that software yet.

There is no PC cable included. Ever buy a printer? You don’t usually get them with printers either and this is an entry level unit. I have several cables already that work with this device. The small USB connector (also used for the DC power adapter) is the same as many digital cameras.

PROS:
1) Startup Time - The Magellan Maestro 3200 starts up in under 10 seconds. The initial satellite lock-on time is under a minute. Most of times, if you’re at the same place you turned off the unit, the lock-on time is under 30 seconds. However, if you turned the unit off and took a plane across the country, it takes a bit longer to get the initial lock-on.

2) Signal Strength - I have never lost reception with the Magellan Maestro 3200. Although to be fair, I’ve also never driven into a tunnel or deep into an underground parking garage.

3) Recalculation time - I have missed my turns lots of times, either on purpose or by accident. The Magellan Maestro 3200 can handle most of them pretty well. I’ve only experienced one time where the unit told me to make a u-turn because it can’t figure out any other way to get to my destination.

4) GUI - The UI is very clean. The type to display response time is very good (<1 second). I love the way Magellan 3200 takes away the letters as you type and suggests the city/street before you finish typing the whole thing.

CONS:
1) Calculated Route - Sometimes you need to double check what it gives you. I would say 95% of the time, the route is probably good enough. It doesn’t have traffic capability, so you might use some common sense when it gets to rush hour. However the other 5% of the time, you’ll get a route that blows you out of the water. It’ll add an extra 100 mile onto your route when you’re just driving to the next city for some dinner. I don’t know what prompts these errors, but usually you can spot it.

5) “North” & “South” - I don’t know if this is Magellan’s way of getting you to pay for the more expensive units, but half the time, the unit won’t tell you if you’re suppose to get onto the freeway in the NORTH or SOUTH direction via text-to-speech. The screen still displays the N/S, but it just won’t pronounce it. So whenever you’re getting onto the freeway, you have to sneak a peek at the display to figure it out.

Magellan Maestro 3200 Features:

Easy To Use Interface
Use the big icons on the 3.5-inch touch screen to search for your destination by address, intersection, or any of 1.3 million points of interest (POIs), including restaurants, hotels, airports, gas stations, and more. Turn by turn visual and spoken directions guide you every step of the way. Auto re-route gets you quickly back on track whenever you make a detour or miss a turn. QuickSpell feature intelligently searches and checks spelling when you enter addresses. The Magellan Maestro 3200 offer multiple view options, including 2D, 3D, and TrueView that shows your upcoming turn using a 3D split screen. Maneuver List displays the full turn-by-turn details of your route. Auto night view adjusts color and contrast for easy night viewing

Take It Anywhere
The Maestro 3200 is super-thin, lightweight and fits easily into any pocket. The integrated rechargeable battery enables you to operate the Maestro 3200 away from your vehicle for up to three hours. The battery recharges while driving via the included vehicle power adapter.

Tons of Data
The Magellan Maestro 3200 comes pre-loaded with Navteq maps of the 48 contiguous United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and 1.3 million points of interest (POIs). POI data includes telephone numbers and addresses.

It also has an Address Book in which you can create and store POIs and addresses that you use frequently.

Flexible Routing
The Magellan 3200 provides a particularly large number of routing features relevant to its price point.

• Multi-destination routing: Select up to 20 destinations and choose the order that best fits your needs.
• SmartDetour: Prompts you to route around heavy or stopped freeway traffic.
• Customizable route methods: Choose between Fastest Time, Shortest Distance, Least or Most Use of Freeways, and Avoid Toll Roads
• Route exclusion: Select streets and freeways to avoid so you can get there your way

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