This was my third magellan. I had two Roadmate units. They both died. They both had the annoying habit of overheating in summer and, consequently, getting slower and slower and slower and....then stopping entirely. And then they just stopped working altogether. So I wasn't holding out much hope for the maestro when it showed up. Same basic design and maps - some interface updates, but clearly the same unit reworked and repackaged. But: it wasn't. The overheating problem has been pretty much solved. It's done it once in the last 18 months, on a 100 degree day - can hardly complain about that. Given that, I think it's outstanding value. The maps are great (in the midwest - I took it to the west coast and it sucked somewhat), the reaction time is very fast, the route selection is usually pretty good (and better than Garmin's laughable choices), and it has the unique feature (I think) at this price point of allowing you to build routes in a separate folder: extremely useful if you're making deliveries or need to get around a selection of places (real estate agent, anyone?). The interface is easy to understand and, IMO, a lot faster to find places than any other brand given the way they've structured it: use the "zip, downwards" option for finding places. Warning times are usually good, and the directional instructions it uses suit me very well. Downsides: The manual on-off button stopped working after 6 months. The unit has had four little "incident" so far where it simply stops working and re-sets itself, losing all your stored data. (Gotta back up to SD card!) the maps will never be updated, and Magellan's customer service and support is truly awful. If you do have a problem then you may as well just buy another unit, because Magellan won't be any help.
On balance, and bearing in mind the price, I think it's a great "disposable" GPS that you should expect to last 18-36 months.Get more detail about Magellan Maestro 3100 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator.
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