Magellan RoadMate 2500T Crossover Auto GPS

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I bought this because it touted both road and outdoor maps for the whole US and Canada. I have not been disappointed. It also does marine maps but I have not needed them. I went to a remote part of the Sierra Nevada mountains (California). It got me to the turn-off from the main road... no problem. The rest of the trip was on dirt logging roads with which I was familiar. The "road" maps even knew about the logging roads I was on. I set a single waypoint at my destination. Later, I gave the waypoint coordinates to a friend with a Magellan GPS like mine. He was able to drive right to the destination, even on the old logging roads with never having been there before.
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<br>I have geocached in remote areas with this unit. The "road" maps get me to where I can park my car. The outdoor maps take me the rest of the way. I cannot input geocache coordinates from my computer but they are a snap to enter by hand with the touch screen. It almost makes geocaching too easy.
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<br>My daughter lives in Spokane on Upriver Drive. The GPS was pronouncing it "Yoop Reever Drive." My 12 year old grandson picked right up on the funny pronunciations and was immitating the GPS voice.
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<br>For a while it was pronouncing highways with an "8" in them as "hate". For instance I-80 became "I-hatey." Magellan had me update the firmware. I think the firmware update just shortened the timing of the text-to-voice feature so the "h" on the front of "8" sounds more like "ate" now. There are still some funny things like "California 85" sounds like "Californiar 85" all run together.
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<br>There is one other thing that has to do with routing of a trip. Occasionally the GPS routes a trip to a freeway off-ramp only to put me back on the freeway at the same interchange on-ramp. Magellan tells me it is the "map provider" (not Magellan) that needs to correct their routing. They want me to send an email with all discrepancies to the map provider. At least, I will never be lost even though it routes me through some funny turns.
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<br>As new roads are added and freeway interchanges are re-routed, the maps need to be updatable. I am told my unit is too "new" to have any map updates available yet.

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Great for the road, but you will need to buy the latest updated maps for larger cities where new construction is always changing the roads. This is true of both the Magellan's and the Garmens. I recently borrowed a Garman and took a trip from Corpus Christi to Austin and kept them side by side. I found the they routed very differently. The Magellan allowed me more choices when setting my rout, which came in handy when I was surrounded by new construction. POI navigation and time of arrival estimates were better with the Garmen though.
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<br>I have had it out on a two day back country hike and found it worked great as well. I was able to map several trails and explore areas off the trail and had no problems. It has a feature that is not advertised but is very needed on extended hikes. due to the internal battery only, battery conservation is a must when you are going to be away from a power source. On the lower left side, there is a "hold" button that will turn off the screen but still allow the unit to continue to track and function normally. The company advertises 8 hour battery life, but using this button I was able to extend the life to 14 hours.
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<br>I have not have not used it in the water yet. But I have a friend that uses his for kayaking and has no problems with it.

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I haven't used it enough to say whether it will do it's job adequately. The one I have needs firmwear upgrades which I have been unable to get from the Magellan website. After following their automated phone system I was connected with the wrong department 3 times in a row (no I did not hit the wrong buttons it just isn't setup right). It took 6 calls and over an hour on hold to find out the website is under construction and won't be back online for a week. If that had been put on the website it would have saved a lot of frustration.

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We love having a GPS that does both roads and trails and we use it all the time. We never returned it for a refund, so I guess we would suggest it to others, but they have to be aware of several things:
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<br>Magellan's customer service is proffessional on the phone, but their returns take almost two months to get a new unit. They kept telling us they were out of stock and the replacement unit they sent us was far worse than the original one we received. we still have the faulty unit and it has calmed down some, but still has some major problems for a $600 piece of equipment. I'm sure that's why the price is plummeting. There is a short in the unit that causes it suddenly die or stall while you're in the middle of the woods. We find "gently whacking" it near the power input helps. That is the only major problem, but I've seen at least 3 similar reviews.
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<br>CONS: You cannot download waypoints, you must manually enter each one. There are sofware updates regularly, but each time you download one it erases all of your saved waypoints and addresses.
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<br>PROS: It is the only unit I've found that does both roads and trails well. It only takes a few minutes to change from road to trail mode or lock on to satallites once you've turned it on. There is a large color screen with pretty green X's for waypoints. There is an internal compass that is pretty reliable. We use it for geocaching and the waypoints appear in road mode, even though you have to switch to trail mode to guide you.

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I have used this on search and rescue mission and it has proven out very well.It is very easy to operate.

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Obvious to me that Magellan did not bother with product design. The people there never actually USED the product. One of intended uses was for geocaching; I was looking for a product to get me there both on the road, and on the trail, all in one package. The crossover failed to do both. On the road, it was inconsisent -- in one direction it failed to identify turns, but strangely going in the other direction it worked correctly. Download of geocaching was very cumbersome, requiring 5 applications (web page to Excel to Notepad to magellan's software), and a complex process to get the cache information from the web into the GPS (compared to 1 click with the competition). The worst was the inability of the crossover to recognize the geocache both on the road AND in the hiking mode. If magallan had actually DESIGNED the product, POIs/waypoints would be available to all views (on road, marine, outdoors), but instead you have to type in the GPS coordinates. This is akin to buying two GPSs and simply duct-taping them together and calling it "integrated". Overall this ia a poor product, without much thought in the design.

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What was initially introduced as the Magellan RoadMate 2500T has changed names before its launch and is now known as the Magellan CrossoverGPS. No changes other than the name are apparent, the price remains $549.99 and availability is still expected in De...

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alaTest has collected and analysed 24 reviews of Magellan Roadmate 2500T from international magazines and websites....