Magellan Maestro 4700 4.7-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
The premium Magellan Maestro 4700 GPS device boasts the acclaimed and exclusive OneTouch favorites menu and an ultra-slim 4.7-inch color touch screen. Preloaded NAVTEQ maps and six million points of interest for the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico make the Magellan Maestro 4700 GPS product ideal for both business trips and vacations. Easy-to-use premium features, such as AAA TourBook, voice command, highway lane assist, predictive traffic, and Bluetooth compatibility for hands-free calling, give you confidence on the road and deliver an exceptional navigation experience. Exclusive OneTouch Favorites MenuEasily bookmark favorite destinations and searches with personalized bookmarks so you can find them anywhere you travel. Find your favorite cafe or restaurant in any city with a single touch. The Magellan Maestro 4700 device definitely delivers “your favorites at your fingertips.” Exclusive AAA TourBook Guide No membership required. Invaluabl (Special Offers & Product Promotions…)
With an occupation that keeps me on the road, a working navigational tool is a must have. Having gone through my fair share of slow and inconsistent GPS products ranging from Garmin, TomTom and yes even Magellan through the years, one must really do their homework. After researching several systems this model kept popping up on my radar screen.
Coming out of the box, this unit worked perfectly without the usual hiccups of other systems. Installation is simple. Powering up is a breeze. The download time for entering starting point to destination is about 45 seconds. The One Touch screen is on the money. The menu allows for editing for one’s own personal choices. I really have come to like the Predictive Traffic feature. In short, it creates alternate routes for known traffic tie ups.
The Maestro 4700 measures in at over 5″ wide x 3.5″ height and weighs about 6 ounces. The biggest draw for me personally is the large 4.7″ color touch screen, predictive traffic, and the lane guide arrow features. Unlike previous models that I have owned, the Maestro 4700’s screen is viewable in all lighting conditions. The user friendly one touch interface is definitely a winner.
Even though this system is primed for Bluetooth, not all mobile devices are compatible. The Maestro 4700 paired well with two out of three cell phones. As usual, my personal phone did not pair with this system. Granted, I am sure that it is a great working feature with the right phone. Even if it did pair up with my go to phone, I don’t see myself giving up my wireless ear piece anytime soon.
Like every GPS system before it, Voice Command is give or take at best. Without question, this feature alone receives a failing grade from me. On the other hand, Spoken Street Name Guide with text to speech is clear and precise. The 3D Landmarks add on is a nice touch. I have yet to use the Find My Car feature. The free, no membership required AAA Guide is loaded with great up to date information.
Quick Spell automatically fills in the blanks and makes locating a destination easy. One of the sweetest features is the lane guide arrows (Highway Lane Assist) program that sounds a bell when my next turn is coming up. It quickly guides me into the correct lane without the usual “Oops, how did I miss that exit?”
The Maestro 4700 comes preloaded with maps of the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico. Additional maps can be stored on board via SD Card. Included accessories are a windshield mount, storage pouch, dash mounting disk, car power adapter, handbook, USB cable, and an informative CD. I recommend buying a good protective case. Magellan loses major style points for not including an AC power supply plug. Unplugged, the battery provided me a little over 2 hours of power.
As with most electronics, this system includes the standard 1 year warranty. If it is returned within the applicable warranty period, Magellan will replace the defective it. However, most likely the buyer will receive a reconditioned unit of the same model or at their discretion another model equal or of lesser value. I know this from personal experience not only from Magellan but Garman as well. Keeping that in mind, I strongly advise all buyers to think extended warranty packages.
I found that one continually overlooked offering is the warranty plan offered by most major credit cards. For me personally, my credit card warranty has been a worthwhile, cost effective investment. With pennies on the dollar, it is a warranty that backs up my products one hundred percent from the date of purchase.
Even with its minor flaws, the Maestro 4700 clearly delivers up to date, on time information. For me, that’s enough. Without reservation, I recommend this fine NAVAIDS tool.
I got the Magellan Maestro 4700 from BestBuy before Amazon had it in stock. Immediately opened the box to use it for my trip back home. It rings a bell in advance before your next maneuver, allowing ample time for you to make a lane change.
The Bluetooth had a few kinks while connecting to my LG Shine, it took two tries after it froze the first time, but worked perfectly afterward. The sound quality is fine, the person on the other end said it sounded too soft, so one might need to speak a little louder than usual.
Voice recognition was very bad. It takes too long to understand what you are saying and it is useless, I turn it off permanently. A list of voice commands can be found in Magellan’s online manual. However, it does not explain how to use the “Find your car” feature, so I am in the dark to how to use it.
Lane guidance is pretty useful, but there was one incident when exiting, there was two signs to I-90 E, and I-90 W, with three arrows pointing up, confusing to know whether the middle arrow leads to E or W. Overall, guidance is very good as text-to-speech helps to let the driver know which street to turn on.
The unit can be very slow at times while searching for a route or starting up. It takes about a minute from start to set your destination. The AAA guidebook and Magellan’s POIs are great. Predictive traffic was quite useless as well, having not encountered any incidents which let the feature prove itself worthy. The windshield mount works badly with the charger, you have to mount the unit on the car, and then plug it into the port at the bottom of the unit, right next to the base supporting the unit. Quite a hassle as you cannot see the port and you have to guess on the location. Should have just put it by the bottom right corner? By the way, the battery lasts for less than two hours.
Overall, a reliable unit from Magellan… now I won’t lose my way again! A tip: if anyone as a USB wall charger, that will work to charge the unit so you do not have to get the AC charger or sit in the car and wait for it to charge – you cannot plug it into the computer to charge for some reason… the screen stays on.
UPDATE
I have contacted Magellan on how to use the Find your car feature with pedestrian mode over two days ago but no reply! Nothing on the manual about pedestrian mode either.
I have had this unit just over 2 weeks now, got it the first day it was released. I replaced my old Magellan 1412. Over all, I have been pleased with the functionality for price ratio.
It worked right out of the box, finding the satellite signal within a minute. I immediately liked the large screen yet a reasonably thin design. I took it to the car, and found mounting it to the windshield was a snap. So far so good.
I used immediately used it on a trip to go from Washington DC to Winston-Salem NC. It worked perfectly in terms of directions heading both up and back. Here are the things I really liked:
- The lane directions were very helpful when navigating highway interchanges. The lane directions popped up well in advance to find the right lane
- The spelling fill in function is also helpful.
- I really liked the “closest gas” button on the map screen when you are driving. I used this to locate gas (and restrooms) and it worked flawlessly. I also liked using the one-touch menu to find rest stops, resturants, etc. The nice thing is that after arriving at the interim destination, the gps then asks you if you want to continue to your final destination. I also like that you can set up your own custom one touch destinations.
- AAA points of interest are seemingly limitless.
- I found the distances and directions to be very accurate. This is a big step up from the Roadmate 1412, which often put destinations on the wrong side of the road, or would deliver weird ways to get there.
-The maps are very well laid out and easy to read. Very simple to zoom in and out on a map, and switch to 3D or 2D maps.
- Volume seemed about right to me, even with road noise at 65+ miles per hour
- The Bluetooth synced with my iPhone relatively easily. It didn’t work the first time, but I rebooted the gps, and it worked right away. I was easily able to import my phone book from my iPhone, which is nice to be able to leave the phone in my pocket. If you have addresses in your phone book, you can also easily load them and map to them quickly. Volume on the phone function is ok. It could be a little louder in my opinion
- I also like that it would offer multiple detours through the Predictive Traffic function. I was able to use this on I-95 twice and it really helped to detour off a side road for a while.
Things that need Improvement:
- The Voice Command is spotty at best. I can get it to “go home”, but pretty much any other command doesn’t work, or the GPS gets confused on how to confirm the command. Not helpful.
- Some of the set up functions are hard to follow. For example, it’s not intuitive how to navigate around in all the menus. I’m sure I’ll get used to it over time, but I felt Magellan could have done a better job here.
Over all, very pleased as it’s a nice upgrade over my last unit. For all the features, I feel it’s very well priced.