Magellan RoadMate 300> A review in progress

Joe and Jack are working on reviewing the Magellan Roadmate 300.  The unit is well built and similar (but not identical) in appearance and function to the RM500/700.  However,  there are a couple of operational limitations that we feel should be mentioned even before our review is published.  NOTE THAT THESE PROBLEMS WERE  NOT PRESENT IN THE RM500/700 which we reviewed earlier..

1) Loading Maps into the Magellan Roadmate 300 is Tedious and overly Complicated
    (note that this ONLY applies in case you use an adjunct SD card memory for maps.)

Before you can start using a Magellan RoadMate 300,  you must load maps from the Magellan Roadmate Manager CD.  The procedure goes something like this:
1) Install Magellan RoadMate Manager (MRMM) and maps on your computer.
2) Plug in your RM300 to your computer's USB port.  Leave out the memory card initially and click on UNIT SETUP and follow the instructions (carefully).  I had to go through this multiple times (retry) but eventually I was able to connect to the GPS.  (Magellan is working on a fix for this.  Some computers work immediately,  others take multiple tries to connect.)
3) After you can connect,  you can load your maps into the 80megs of built in map memory OR you can insert up to a 1GByte SD card if you wish.  Read on.
4) If you are going to use an SD memory card, insert it now.  It SHOULD be recognized by the MRMM program.  My SD card was not recognized initially.
5) If your SD card is not recognized,  unplug your USB cable to the RM300 and remove power and reconnect power and the unit will power up.
6) Select USER 1,  then press the OPTION key,  then Scroll down to USER SETTINGS and press enter.  Then scroll down to DIAGNOSTICS and press enter.  Then scroll down all the way to item REPAIR on the bottom of the list and press enter.  You will see two options.  DON'T REFORMAT INTERNAL MEMORY or your RM will likely need a trip to factory repair!  DO scroll down and select REFORMAT SD CARD.  Answer YES in the appropriate places to format your SD card. 
7) At this point, plug your RM300 back into the computer's USB port.  Remove power from the RM300, then reconnect power.  At this point, the MRMM program should be able to connect to the RM.
8) You will be instructed to remove any installed SD card at this point,  but I was able to proceed with the card installed.  When you go to MEMORY CARD SETUP,  you (should) be informed of your SD card's electronic serial number.  This is NOT always the same as the serial number printed on the back of your SD card. 
9) Now with the card recognized and the serial number of the SD card available,  you can either register the card ONLINE with Magellan -or- you can phone Magellan tech support for help. 
10) Note that if you want to load the maps from a second computer, you must go through this same "SD Card Registration" process on the second computer.  Magellan has no registration storage facility on the GPS itself nor on the SD card.  The  registration facts  for the RM300 are stored only in the computer when you do the registration.

The above is not necessarily every problem you will have in getting ready to load maps but if you need help (as I did) you can phone Magellan Tech Support at 800-669-4477.  They knew exactly why my card was not recognized by the RM300.

LOADING MAPS INTO THE RM300
Now you are ready to begin loading maps into your SD card.  Here I am not going to give you a step by step procedure,  but rather some guidelines that are not necessarily obvious.
1) Magellan defines a "Region" as being a (user selected) max map file of 80megabytes and not a particular geographical area. 
2) You can load a MAXIMUM of 240 megabytes (3 regions) on a single map build/loading run.  You CAN do multiple map building/loading runs to fill up your 1Gbyte (or less) SD with maps.  (I am not sure if larger SD cards will work.)
3) The method used to select the 80 megabytes (max) for loading is to use the map selection tool and mouse to enclose an area of interest.  You get to watch the memory size in the lower left of the screen and you MUST keep the enclosed area sized such that you enclose a maximum area that generates slightly LESS than 80megabytes.    UNfortunately,  the Magellan software allows you to enclose MORE than 80megs but even MORE UNfortunately,  if you do so, the region will not function in your GPS when you get it loaded and you will have to delete and start over. Trust me on this!  Makes you wonder why Magellan's mapping software could not simply LIMIT the selected region size to 80 megs and not allow the box to go any larger when that limit is reached. 

4) See below for what happens if your maps overlap even slightly and you try to load them into your RM300..



Map areas are NOT ALLOWED TO OVERLAP. And.. Magellan does not tell you that two adjacent regions overlap UNTIL you try to load them.   In practical terms, this means that you must always leave a small gap between the new map region and any other map regions you have already selected.   This because (for me at least!), zooming  in and out to see how close you were to the adjacent region while keeping the left mouse button pressed to hold the "map select box"  proved to be too much to handle with one mouse and two hands.  MAGELLAN DESIGNERS need to fix this!!!  Thus maps in the RM300 will (must) always have a small gap  between the 240meg uploaded sections.  I made the gap as small as I could using a mouse and it turned out to be maybe 5 miles wide in the final loads.  Of course, the RM300 does have a basemap and it will ride off the loaded 80meg region and (hopefully) onto your adjacent 80meg region IF that region is one of the three you loaded in a group of 3 regions (3x80megs).  Note that when operating the RM300,  once you ride off the "3 region map group" that you have selected,  you must MANUALLY select the adjacent (if any) region group that you loaded.  Otherwise you will just see the basemap from that point onward.  Also, make sure your desired destinations are not near one of your "map gaps" between the 80 meg regions as you MUST leave a small gap between 80 meg regions.

The good news is: Once you get your maps loaded,  you likely will not have to mess much with them again for a long time!

We have not before seen a GPS system that would hold large map areas which was so tedious and complex to load maps into.  Hopefully,  Magellan will correct this (we  think) serious engineering defect soon.  When they do,  we know their customers will benefit and they will be able to sell lots more of these otherwise fine units.  

2) A lot of time is involved in loading maps into the SD card map memory of the RM300.  It took around 9 hours of clock time to register, select,  build and load the 1GByte of memory.  Human time was about 1 period of 30 minutes reading the manual, registration of GPS, attempt registration of SD card, learn that it is "unauthorized", find in the manual that "unauthorized" probably means not formatted, Format the  SD card, and then 5 periods of map selection 10 minutes each with an "up to"  120 minute interval of map converting and  loading between each map selection time.   Compare this with the Garmin c320 which also uses an SD card where registration was about 5 minutes,  map selection was about 5 minutes and unattended map download was about 2 hours.  Being able to overlap multiple map sections and then load the entire 1GByte SD card at once is what is needed.  Computer used was Dell Inspiron 8600 with 1.4Ghz-M processor and 512megs of memory. 

3) The Magellan RoadMate Manager software has some operational problems.  When we were using it to load maps, if we tried to use other applications while we waited,  we had several complete system lockups on Windows XP professional with all latest mods.  We suggest letting RoadMate Manager run all alone on a computer when you are building and downloading maps to your RM300.  Hopefully Magellan engineers will sort out this problem in future releases.

4) Our RM300 failed when Jack accidently plugged the power cable into the earphone jack.  Hopefully this will not happen to many other people,  but the fact that you can insert the power cable into the earphone jack (or any other connection) and damage the unit (in our opinion) is a design feature worth considering.

5) Uniquely, the RM300 (by Magellan policy) will not allow you to load European road maps into a USA version RM300 and vice versa.  There is no ability to buy a European SD card and plug it into a USA RM300.  We consider this policy to be not in the consumer's interest, and especially for those who travel to foreign countries.

SUMMARY

Map Loading in the RoadMate 300 is so tedious and the resulting maps sufficiently difficult to use that we judge the Map Management software NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE TO USE.  Having to leave small gaps between loaded 80meg areas in the maps is not acceptable.  Having to manually switch between map sections as you drive from one map section to another is not acceptable.  The time and hassle needed to load the maps is not acceptable.  Having the computer lockup when you try and do something else while maps are loading is not acceptable.  This is the only GPS car navigator unit we have reviewed where the maps were so difficult to install and use that we had to rate the system  not acceptable.  We sincerely hope that Magellan engineers will correct this problem right away.

Note that the RoadMate 500 and RoadMate 700 DO NOT have these problems. 


Joe Mehaffey