For your information - Magellan 1412 - we love it!

[+2fulltimervers]

We just wanted to let you know about our experiences with this new Vehicle GPS. We first saw this GPS at Costco for $199. Then, we saw the Coupon. Even without the coupon it is a heck of a deal. I would go so far as to say it is a steal! We've considered a GPS for our car for some time. We looked at Tom-Tom's, Magellans, Garmins and Navigon. Magellan just came out with a new line of hand helds and they have had a bit of a rocky start. So, we were initially a little leary of this new addition to the Magellan Auto GPS line. But, Costco had them as part of a working display and my wife and I got a chance to try the unit out in demo mode in the store. The unit was quick and flawless.

 

Though the unit has 6 Million points of interest, not every gas station, store and Resturaunt is in there. We find the problems to be with the establishments that are 10 or more years old. We also found this problem with the other brands as well. We actually liked the Tom Tom better than the garmin as well. Garmin is mighty proud of their units and need to figure out that they need to bring down the price point if they are going to stay competitive. The Navigon and it's 1 million POI's is a little limited based on it's competition. We have a Magellan 210 Explorist that we use for Geocaching, and we love it. So, we were willing to give this unit a try and we love it!

 

For the money, the Magellan 1412 is the way to go for a complete Navigation unit. We didn't want one to Play MP3's or have blue tooth or do traffic stuff. This unit is perfect for us and we look forward to using it a lot.

 

We found that the unit was very quick to re-route us when we missed a turn. The Text to speech pronounciation is very good. The unit comes with a built in battery so you can do routing in the comfort of your Home or RV and then move it to the dash and 'Away you go'. The unit changes to a black screen automatically, when it gets dark out to make it more comfortable for night driving. We find the user interface to be very intuitive. We would highly recommend this unit to anyone considering a GPS for the vehicle.

 

Happy camping. - Eric -

[GreatCanadian]

I'm glad you enjoy your gps, however you do come across as having chip on your shoulder regarding Garmin. If you think Garmin needs to lower their price point to remain competitive, you are surely mistaken. I'll not go into details comparing Garmin and Magellan sales, but you may feel like retracting your statement if you chose to do some research yourself. Yes, you may have a great gps (i'm not familiar with that particular model), however, to state that it's the way to go for a complete navigation unit, and at the same time state that it doesn't have bluetooth or do traffic stuff, shows that it is NOT a complete unit. It's a complete unit for you, and that's all that matters. But it is not the be-all end-all to automotive GPS's. Enjoy your GPS.

Edited June 11, 2008 by GreatCanadian

[+ferventkids]

We picked up the 1412 too from Costco, I had never researched these before however with the price on Magellan's site being $299 and Costco with the coupon being $149 couldn't pass it up

 

We did not get this for the goal of caching, really had no idea about it, we are a road trip family. We have a friend who he and his wife enjoy caching. He told us about some local caches, so signed up for the website and got some coordinates for our area and where we were camping and we are hooked.

 

As far as this working for caching, it worked great on most, there where some (burning bush, lake alpine) where the "you are here arrow" was bigger than the whole mountian bluff, so was unable to pinpoint exact part of the bluff for the cache, as for the others, you can walk the 15-20 feet in either direction and get the center.

 

Getting a large list of waypoints is a little awkward. Right now I download my list in a loc file with Magellan Vantage software, it loads it as waypoints. Then I export that as a .wpt file which I then open up with the Magellan POI editor, then save it to the 1412 as a POI.

 

Have fun

Ron

[+Cacheoholic]

Garmin is mighty proud of their units and need to figure out that they need to bring down the price point if they are going to stay competitive. The Navigon and it's 1 million POI's is a little limited based on it's competition.

What? In what country? City Navigator North America has 6 million points of intrest. The phrase "You get what you pay for" comes to mind. Wait until you want to update the maps. Worse yet, pray you never need customer dis-service!