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Rating

I bought this because I was interested in the larger display. We use it in a motorhome and both of us like to be able to see the GPS. Not so easy with a typical 3.5″ unit. We previously owned a Maggelan unit and were happy with it but wanted a larger display.

This unit is almost idea, the display is very clear, it is easy to set up prior to a trip and it has no fluff that we have no need for like bluetooth, MP3 player etc. It’s a GPS, not a multi-purpose unit. Which is what I want. I really like the lane change feature, that’s almost enough to make the new unit worthwhile by itself. So far it has worked flawlessly. The only downside is that it will not run very long without being plugged into 12V (30 min). I suspect because of the large display. But that’s not really a issue since we have it plugged in all the time anyway. One feature I like is the small suction cup, it takes much less dashboard/window real estate that our previous unit. We us a non-skid “pillow” most of the time, but use the suction cup in the car and it’s much easier to mount.

Just wanted to make a update – We now have a lot more miles on the clock using this unit. We had no issue with it being slow or not giving us enough time to react like another reviewer found. And I often need lots of time due to the length of our MH and car together. We didn’t have any routing issues either. Guess that’s why there are many different models and companies producing these things.

I have to give Amazon a plug as well. I looked at Best Buy and one other store, they didn’t even know this model existed. Amazon shipped it and I received it in less that 18 hours. We were on a one day stop while traveling. That’s really good service.

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This is a great product, but there’s a catch. It does not tell you when to turn till you are pretty close to the turn and at times you feel like you are told to turn right as you come up on that road and have to make a quick turn. I have Garmins and they give you much more warning when a turn is coming up and you don’t feel so rushed. What makes this GPS nice though is the huge screen that you can’t get with other GPS which makes you feel like you don’t have to take your eyes off the road for as long to read it.

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I use a GPS at least two or three times a week since I drive all over the southeastern states. The Magellan RoadMate 1700 have proven to be one of the most reliable navigation system I’ve owned. It is accurate and the feature I like most is that I can just put it on the front seat and would not loose signal like others. Other customers complain about the mount, but I have’nt, and I drive a different car or SUV every day. I love this GPS and recomend it for all the good features that it has to offer.

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I had the Roadmate 1470 & even though it does have a big screen 4.7 inches, it by no means compare to the 1700, size wise. Everything else is very similar. The 1700 (this gps) is not a perfect gps but the combination of ease of use & screen size (a big factor for me) merit the 5 stars in my opinion. I wish they had not included a battery in the unit cause it’s worthless. We’re talking 10 to 15 minutes before the unit requires to be plugged in.

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I am so crabby about this unit. It is just what I want, but I WANT A BEAN BAG DASH HOLDER. Cripes, what a pathetic connection they give you for this. I have a wonderful Garmin Nuvi bean bag that I LOVE (too bad the Nuvi died…). I got a Motorola, and gee… fits perfectly. Now I get this unit, and will it fit??? NO. the ball and screw shield are slightly different, so it won’t fit. Just barely different, but that’s all it takes. Why can’t they be the same??? I don’t want this suction crap. I’m trying a vent mount to see it that will work. Otherwise, I may have to make my own mounting, and I will be REALLY crabby then! The unit itself looks great. Replacing my wonderful Garmin 7200, which is still working great, but keeps coming off it’s mounting every time I go over any rough ground. And I mean ANY rough ground. My experience with GPS’s is that the amount of time spent with the physical aspect of the devices is pathetic. I want to kill the mechanical designer of the 7200 about 50 times per long trip. I love it otherwise, and keep it next to any new GPS I try. It’s always suits me the best, when it stays on. 8-(

Another thing I’m finding is that there are two distinctly different uses for GPS systems. Long road trips in unfamiliar territory (my use) and running around town, looking for places or addresses. The two are so different, that a system that works well for one is not well suited at all for the other. I’m keeping the Motorola because of its awesome mapping of the surrounding area. I just hope this Magellan will work for travelling, because I really, REALLY want a 7 inch screen. Once you’ve had one, it’s hard to go back. The Motorola is 5 inch diameter, or something, but is still pathetically small. Some of the text is so small, only teenagers can read it. If I had started travelling with the Motorola, I would never have become a GPS junkie like I am now.

If anyone knows of some NON suction bean bag method that would work on this 7 inch Magellan unit, PLEASE comment!! I will buy it immediately.

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Bought one today,, I have tried to like it, but without the simplest things like Speed Limits, and not to mention the Trip and time record. Lots of screen but trying to get a good view of the area is terrible, And the 7 Inch is way too big to fit comfortable in my car. I have Garmin 255w in one of my trucks, and will return this entry level unit…. So much wasted space just to keep having to enlarge to actually see where you are going, Poor visual quality, Too large for my dash. My fault there,,,, No input for except micro SD cards. No calculator. One day was enough, and will not waste my time, Maybe their updates are better, but I am not even interested in this unit any more.

Sorry if I hurt any ones feelings.

PS was a bit harsh, but is way too big for my car, Maybe for the pick up. after playing with it at home, found it to be better on night vision than day mode. but still not happy camper with this one. Maybe the clyde is better. hearing some good reports but will wait for the Clyde to be on the market a bit longer.

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I own a Mazda CX9, and the wind sheild mount is not an option, one- the reach is too far from the drivers seat and two anything mounted near the center of the dashboard blocks at least one microphone and renders the hands free blue tooth inoperable.

Not A problem I thought – I’ll just use the same vent mount I’ve used for my Garmin NUVI and the Magellan 4700 I had tried out earlier. NO LUCK -Magellan changed the size of the Ball in the ball adapter to a non standard size so there was no way to mount it had to send it back. I was prepared to like it as I had been really impressed by the 4700, but, sent it back when Amazon dropped the price by $52 a week after I bought it (amazon Really needs to go back to their 30 day price protection, it’s save a lot of returns) However before I could re-order the 4700 at a lower price I saw the 1700 and sent for it instead, Guess I’ll go back to the 4700 at the lower price or the 1470 at an even lower price. Based on my experience with the 4700 I probably would have given it 5 stars instead of 3.

Good unit do not understand why they changed from the industry standard ball & cup sizes

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Had to return unit. Screen started going blank every 10/20 minutes.

Ordered secound unit, had to return same problem as above.

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I’ve never owned or used a GPS before, so I have nothing to compare with this. What had put me off all these devices previously was the small screen size of so many of them, and the very mixed reviews from brand to brand. It seemed like none of them stood out with reviewers. When I saw this one in a store, I decided to give it a try, and if it had the various problems I’d been reading about, then I’d return it. I’ll start by saying I was not looking for a bluetooth compatible device to run my phone through, and I did not want to subscribe to any service for “extras.” Since I wear reading glasses, the huge 7″ screen was a big plus in getting me to try this out. I can read everything without glasses!

We tested it yesterday on a long 400 mile trip. You can choose various options: fastest, fewest miles, freeways, no freeways. I chose “fastest”, and the route it set up was faster than we were doing this route previously, and everything was perfect, never an error in anything. You get alerts about 2 miles before a turn, you get lane assist, close to the turn you get another comment, and then very close to the turn you hear a bell or some other sound alert you can choose. When we came upon places where the road split and you could get confused, there was always an alert to either stay on the current road, or take the right fork, etc. You would also see the appropriate road signs on the screen at this point, indicating the lanes which applied to each sign. This was REALLY useful! If I deviated from the path it set up for some reason (i.e. stopping at a coffee shop), it picked right up and got me back on track as I left my stop. I used it to find coffee shops, a store I wanted to find, and so on. Since when you look up things, for example Costco, you get the full address and phone number. So I can avoid cell phone information charges! You can find wherever you want to go, add it into the trip, and in the whole trip with a lot of stops to new places, not a single glitch. It has both day and night screen versions….the day one is quite bright so you can scale it back with a dark, lower light background for night driving.

It’s very intuitive. I deliberately did NOT do more than quickly peruse the manual. On this trip, I easily figured out the features and how to access them, very quick and easy, and everything soon became second nature.

It has built-in AAA information, too, which could be useful.

When you type it’s a qwerty keyboard, but there is another option for the other style keyboard too if you want that. The keyboard is nice and large due to the big 7″ screen. You can zoom in and out in the screen to see more or less, it has 2D or 3D, although frankly, I don’t see a huge difference in the two. There are a lot more features I’m probably not remembering right now, but I really love this thing. I’m a convert!

Cons: I think the built-in rechargeable battery is probably fairly useless. When you use this, you absolutely MUST have it plugged into the car charger. The battery seems to die down within 10 or so minutes of battery-only use. So don’t plan to run on battery power! (This may be true of all GPS units). I bought an extra house charger for it, but I can now see that was a waste of money, basically. When you turn the car off (even while it is plugged in), you get a message that it’s going onto battery power, so obviously it doesn’t stay “on” when the engine is off. So when we turned the car off, we also turned off the GPS.

Another Con: The great large, easily read screen turned out to be a bit of a negative: It’s really too big to put in the window area, it blocks your sight. Probably smaller would be better….or if I could figure out a place to put it where it’s easily seen yet not in the window area. Darn…

Voice/Sound: It’s a woman’s voice, a bit tinny, and the sound could definitely have been richer and better. But it’s OK. The speaker is on the back side, so if you had this on your lap as I did, the voice couldn’t be heard well that way. The unit is better in its upright position. I’m planning to get some sort of dashboard holder to do this (can’t mount it on the windshield in Calif).

I can’t comment on the longevity since I haven’t had it long. I hope it will last a long time without problems.

I gave this 5 stars because it does exactly what I want it to do in a great, easy to use way, and the screen is HUGE and easy to read.

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The GPS works as promised, the only improvement needed concerns the window mount, the unit will bounce if the vehicle goes over even minor bumps due to its weight on the plastic mounting bracket.

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We have used this GPS in our RV for a couple of months now and are very disappointed. The large display is great and the database is ok but that is all I can say great about the unit. Problems have been: The “no U-turns” option doesn’t work. In an RV that’s a really bad thing. If your destination is on the opposite side of the road it takes you past it and then makes you u-turn back even though there were turn lanes directly to your destination. Its routing is crazy. It only offers “freeways only”, “no freeways” or “quickest way”. The real world doesn’t work like that. Usually you need a mix which is probably what they had in mind with “quickest way” but that selection is terrible. On “quickest way” it will sometimes route you through neighborhoods with a bunch of left/right jogs just to shave a mile off of the trip!! It has taken us down 2-track roads to save a mile or two when there is a good highway nearby that would have worked much better and faster. They should have named that selection “least miles and I hope you not driving an RV!!”. I would not recommend this unit at all. Our other GPS is a small Uniden and it works great without all of these problems….

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the best gps i ever had. i had 3 others. very easy to use.

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Have just used it for one day and love it. Beautiful display, very intuitive, touch screen is very sensitive to the touch, voice instructions are loud and clear and just the right amount, routing was right on, its really looking good thus far. In the coming weeks I’ll really wring it out on an extended trip across America (what I bought it for) and may report more.

One word of caution, though. Its HUGE. I knew it was big, I just didn’t realize how big. I had a bit of a problem mounting it in my old GMC conversion van because it took up so much windshield real estate. If I would have mounted it straight ahead as I normally do, it would have blocked far too much of my visibility. Ended up literally drilling some holes lower down in the dash (old van, who cares?!) and mounting it there. So here’s my suggestion…cut a piece of cardboard that matches the dimensions of this unit (I think its 7.5 by 4.3 inches) and take it out to your vehicle and see how it would fit into your field of view/windshield. Its a VERY impressive display, but it may not be right for what your vehicle can handle.

UPDATE: After much use of this unit the last few days, I’ve found a few flaws. First, the owner’s manual leaves a bit to be desired. I’ve stumbled across some features the unit has, which is a good thing, but are nowhere mentioned in the manual. Second, and realizing that no unit is perfect, it went a tad bonkers on me yesterday while trying to route to a state park. It told me to turn left on a particular highway. As soon as I did that it immediately told me to make a u-turn, which I did only to be told immediately to make another u-turn! I ended up finding the park on my own about four miles down the original direction. Third, the points of interest seem a bit lacking. A search for grocery stores told me the nearest was 5 miles away. One block later I passed a grocery that had obviously been there for a number of years. Lastly, I’m used to a Garmin that has a trip summary screen. (Average speed, total time of driving, miles, etc.) If the Magellan has such a screen I’ve not found it yet. Oh, one other thing….when I have intentionally not made a turn it tells me to make, it simply recalculates a new route and doesn’t mention anything about my goof. Not a word. I don’t know, maybe that’s a good feature!

Still like the unit and am still pleased with the purchase and would do it again, however, the honeymoon is kind of over, thus a downgrade from 5 to 4 stars.

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I wanted a GPS, not a MP3 player or a photo viewer… just good ol get me where I want to be. This is my first GPS. I stuck it in the window and within 10 minutes out of the box was on my way… EASY to use!

I love being able to see the names of streets around me, as well as where some of them go, (cul-de-sac, dead ends etc). I also love the fact that if I veer off course it will readjust itself and keep going. (GREAT for running around traffic or accidents). I was very happy to see newer roads already on this system. This GPS will also show you the turn arounds between opposing bound lanes on freeways (sometimes reserved for emergency traffic only).

Simply put, if you have the room for a 7″ screen this GPS is the one. I own a full size pickup and it fit very nicely without losing any visibility. I love the fact that the large display allows me to keep my eyes on the road.

I will come back and update once I have had a chance to check out all the extras… Points of interest, etc.. As of right now it has done an amazing job and fulfilled my every want and need for a GPS.

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Compared to the TomTom, this particular Magellan unit is very basic. No MP3 player. No RF transmitter. No bluetooth connectivity. No instant traffic report. No free map updates. No bluetooth remote control. No variety of voices. In other words, the Magellan is a basic, yet very functional GPS with a large, high resolution screen. We have been using the TomTom for about 2 years and took it to Hawaii in June. It was great until it routed us in a perpetual loop near Pearl Harbor. Other than that, the TomTom is a lot of GPS for the money, BUT…

The Magellan is soooo much easier to see b/c of it’s much larger size. The menus are simple to navigate (not so many endless optional settings as the TomTom) and it includes the AAA travel guide, which we have used in book form for years. Street names are presented in easy-to-read-at-a-glance fonts, for those of us who actually look at the GPS while driving. The screen is plenty bright enough even in bright sunlight to be easily read, even through dark sunglasses. Not so, the TomTom. Also, I like the auto turn-to-night feature, which changes the screen colors to suit nighttime driving. And did I mention, I love the BIG screen! I plan to buy my wife a portable DVD player for Christmas and the Magellan will accept composite video from the player and give us two screens if we choose (but not while driving).

Here’s an important feature: the Magellan comes with a very functional windshield suction cup mount which works like one of those small hobby vises you’ve seen that uses a lever to really fasten the suction cup to a table top. That’s necessary since the GPS is naturally heavier than the smaller units. I’m now satisfied that it will hold the device securely after several trips.

The lane change feature should be handy in unfamiliar cities. And did I mention the HUGE screen? Of course I did. BTW, the big screen does have a couple of drawbacks. For one, if you plan to use the windshield mount, you’ll have to mount it as low as possible so that it won’t interfere with your vision. Mine is mounted so low that it is supported by the dash, which allows me to see over it easily and also takes out the vibration of the unit which occurs on bumpy roads when mounted this way. The other thing I am concerned about is that a passing cop may be drawn to the large “thing” sitting on my dash because of it’s silver color (only the back).

So, will I ditch the TomTom? No way. But if I am not traveling by air to a remote destination (it’s easier to pack, perhaps) and don’t need the convenience of the MP3 player, I’ll use the Magellan. It’s really more practical and both will probably route me similarly. In this case, bigger really is better.

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Over the last ten years or so, I’ve owned at least six GPS units and have quite a bit of experience with them. I rely on my GPS at work to get me places quickly and efficiently and if the unit has navigational or usability flaws, I have very little patience with it. My last GPS, the TomTom GO 720, was loaded with features and gee whiz stuff like MP3 capability and bluetooth, but in the end, I hated it because it did a million things and none of them very well. When it comes down to it, I need a GPS to get me somewhere with the least amount of hassle and the Tom Tom just didn’t cut it for me. When I found saw this unit at Best Buy, I was instantly drawn to it for its huge screen and simple user interface. Best Buy is usually priced a little high, so I checked Amazon and found it for $217.00, including shipping, from Car Toys. It arrived within a few days and was packaged very well.

In regards my satisfaction with the Magellan, I can honestly say this is the best GPS unit I’ve ever used. The maps are accurate and seem up to date and the ease of use is fantastic. The huge screen makes it easy to do simple things on the unit while driving without being a big distraction. It doesn’t have a lot of frills, but it does what it’s supposed to do and does it very well: get you from point A to point B with little drama.

What I particularly like about it is the fact the display is large enough that it can show the street names for most of the surrounding streets, which is something most other GPS units with smaller screens just can’t do. I find nothing more aggravating in a GPS than for it to show you a street, but no street name- that’s not very helpful, to say the least. I also like that it shows elevation, which is something a lot of other vehicle GPS units don’t do, for some reason. I live in a mountainous area and it’s nice to know my elevation a lot of times.

When I read complaints about the screen size being a problem in some cars, I can’t help but wonder what the h*ll the person was thinking when they bought it! I mean, did you NOT buy it in the first place because it has a gigantic screen? Why are you shocked that it won’t fit in the same places your old GPS did? Unbelievable. I think those are the same people who complain because they bought a huge SUV and are shocked to find out it doesn’t get the same MPG their Camry did. Life is about compromises, people.

If I had to pick one annoyance with this device, I’d have to note that the unit is a little slow to keep up sometimes; i.e., it will show an intersection a little ways ahead of you when, in reality, you just passed it. Annoying to be sure, but something you can compensate for after a little time with the unit.

All in all, I highly recommend this device!

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A little flaky setting up trips with multiple destinations but otherwise it is just great. You can actually see it too!

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I absolutely love my Magellan RoadMate 1700. I can get lost making a U-turn and this product has saved me many headaches. It has opened a whole new world for me. I’ve always hated getting off the beaten track for fear I’d get lost…no more!

I was concerned that I wouldn’t find a spot for it in my car since the screen is so large. I have a Cadillac and I found a great spot for it next to the glove compartment using the stick on base. The only problem I found is that the base did not hold the Magellan up for too long, the base fell off since it was on a vertical surface but I’ll find a way to stick it back up there if I have to nail it in! I love this thing!!

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Good buy, performs well, only issue is that it is to heavy to stick to the windshield.

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Great, my wife enjoys the ease in which to put in the information. One thing is the voice, it is difficult to understand the street name, the voice sounds like she has a nasal problem. It is our first GPS and are very happy with the Roadmate 1700. Just wish the voice was clearer.