Magellan Roadmate 1700 - bigger screen is better

January 4, 2010 by admin.

My Cadillac’s GPS changed my life. My wife is great at lots of stuff, but she is a lousy co-pilot. When we are traveling my wife and I would often fight about the directions she offers as I drive. Sometimes I travel outside of the USA, but in most cases there is so much I have not seen here in the States that we travel America. My wife’s driving directions often include such wise advice as “just circle while I figure out where North is” and “it’s probably back behind us a few miles”. Neither of those statements make me very happy.

When I got my Caddy in 2008 it came with a Nav system. From that minute forward I swore I would NEVER travel without a GPS in my car if I left Lee County. I have become so reliant on the Nav system that I use it everywhere. I find locations, restaurants, public facilities and more.

Naturally when we bought our used recreational vehicle (RV) I had to have a GPS before we took a trip to any unknown parts. I was looking around and comparing features when I discovered the Magellan Roadmate 1700.  I  immediately stopped looking when I saw the 1700. Features like Bluetooth, multiple accents/dialects of English or MP3 meant nothing when I gazed at the gigantic SEVEN inch screen!

 Smaller is better with some stuff, but bigger is absolutely better when it comes to screen size of a GPS. Especially for 50+ eyeballs that squint at roadsigns at night.

I read all the reviews online about GPS devices. I read all the reviews I could find about the 1700, which were slim since it was new. Most of the nay sayers mentioned the lack of features like Mp3 or Bluetooth. The only features that mattered to me were mapping, text to speech and the big honking seven inch screen! After all, what I was buying was a device to help me find my way, not an entertainment device. Every car already has a radio.

So, on to the thousand mile road-test. I first used the 1700 in my Scion Xb to find an address in Lehigh Acres, FL. It found the location perfectly, in spite of the fact that the address was on a dirt road in an area of new homes. Then I unplugged the unit and re-installed it into my RV for a trip to Charleston, SC.

This would be a real test. The device would have to find rural campgrounds, restaurants, historic sites, shopping, parks, detours and more. The most disconcerting feature was the way the 1700 rotated the screen image to show your destination directly in front of you. This seems to be automatic and not manually controlled. Since I was leaving Florida, I was used to seeing the State in its usual position, aimed downward from Jacksonville to the Southernmost point  Key West. But when I was headed East, the map rotated, placing Key West to my right and Jacksonville to my left. It was a little disorienting. On my Caddys Nav System the rotation can be manually overridden. I did not see where the 1700 could  be set manually. Any manual adjustments would disappear after a few moments. This means if you zoom in or out on your map it will  return to the default position after 30 seconds of not touching the screen. But the map does zoom into any location automatically that would  be requiring a turn or navigation.

 I liked the way the screen showed highway signs and spoke the road names. I also like the way the GPS would remind you to stay in the proper lane when the road split. My Caddys Nav System just assumes you will stay on track until the next turn. Sometimes the road signs are very confusing and I found these little reminders very helpful. The only strange thing about the “voice” is the way “she” describes the type of turn. “She” will call turns either “soft”, “slight” or “hard”. The difference between the two is random as far as I can see. I have heard 90-degree turns called “slight right turn” and I have heard a curve in the road called a “hard right turn”. But, I can ignore those little foibles.

So, out of 100 different turns and direction changes the system was 95% accurate. This is roughly the same as my Cadillac Nav System. The biggest problems were always in areas with locations on the opposite side of divided parkways. Those areas would often cause both units to suggest U-turn after U-turn, circling the boulevards near destinations.

Now the other stuff. The Magellan 1700 has two types of directories, the AAA and its own Magellan directory. I liked the triple A ratings on restaurants. The Magellan Directory sometimes provided more returns on searches. But neither was flawless, they missed some very good places. But, overall, they were a BIG help on my trip finding campgrounds, restaurants, drug stores, tires and just about anything I sought.

So, overall, I would take the larger screen on the Magellan over all the little bells and whistles any day. After all, it’s a navigation system, NOT an entertainment system. Buy one, you’l like it and use it.

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