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The Navman 12v connector is VERY weak. Navman's web site states the 12v cord powers the Palm too - not so according to their tech support.
I can even drive Delorme software on the Palm from the Magellan. I have recently purchased a Magellan gold handheld GPS that works great.
The software often picks route 100's of miles out of the way for no reason. The GPS pulls the Palm's battery down in no time at all - 2 or 3 hours.
DON'T BUY THIS THING. You cannot pick your own route at all.
Mine broke within a few days.
Original SW was so bad, it couldn't catch up driving down the road. Works great.Navman does tend to eat batteries, but what Palm add-on doesn't. I had to pull over to let it catch up so I could turn the Palm off.GPS module works great, but included SW will make you mad. 4 stars since the included SW is so terrible. I bought "Delorme Street Atlas USA 2004 Handheld" to run on my M125.
I recently bought the laptop version as well. Tracked pretty well and only lost signal a couple times, ony to regain it moments later. And back. That is how much I like this item. This performed flawlessly for what it was designed to be. I think this is fantastic.
I took a trip from Upstate NY through Philly to the Jerey shore. I bought this along with a rebate and the deal was great. The only down side that I can think of is having to upload your trips beforehand. Beeped a little before my turns or exchanges. Unless you are nitpicky or expecting something this is not, you'll be pleased. But that is a limitation of the handheld, not this device.
Another trip to Washington DC.
Inferior software would not be so detailed. All of the local streets appear. BTW, did I mention I live in NYC, and downloaded most of the city to my Palm.
I had a few reservations about the item myself @ first, and initially rated it only a 3. All of the local roads, where there. I read a few of the reviews before I purchased this model, some good, most bad.
If a small town like that has that kind of detail, then the software is pretty good. There are other Software compatible with this unit, and I will eventually try, but for now, this works for me. But after using it alot locally, and then travelling South with it, I find nothing wrong, with this GPS, or the software.
I recently travelled to a town called Littleton, NC, where only about 700 people live according to the 2000 US Census.
It does not display simple (and useful) pieces of information such as instantaneous speed and direction (other simple gps units do without a problem). You can zoom in or out and recenter the map relatively quickly, and that is useful if you get lost. To start with the positive: The unit actually does a good job getting a gps position and displaying it on the map. It came with a device for mounting it on the windshield of the car and a recharger that fits in the cigarette lighter and that all works fine. The mapping features are not bad, either. As noted by others, the Rand McNally software can only find directions if you are online, and it often picks strange routes. But the worst part is actually the part of the software that is installed on the Palm Pilot.
So it is reasonably useful. I have not had it give directions that were flat out impossible, just ones I wouldn't have picked myself.
However, the software is terrible. I don't know of a single other Palm application that is this poorly written.I should say that if you just ignore the false 'off route' warnings (this requires you to have studied the directions in some detail before you go), it will guide you reasonably well to your destination (you'll know you have arrived when your Palm crashes).
I use it with the Palm m515 and it was a very tempting combination given the low cost of the unit (100 USD, now it's even cheaper). It frequently tells you you are off route even if you are not, and every single time I have arrived at my destination, the software has frozen up and crashed the Palm so I had to reset it through the pinhole in the back.
Which you probably will if you decide to go someplace new guided only by this unit.Addendum: inspired by another reviewer (thanks)., I bought the Delorme StreetAtlas USA Handheld 2004 software, and things work much much better. It seems an obvious thing to combine a gps receiver with a color screen palm pilot that has both memory and processing power to do a decent job as a navigation device.
It will only do directions to and from a given address, not just a waypoint on the map.
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