I had a big road trip ahead of me. I mean really big, as in two-thirds of the way across the country big. We're talking nearly 2,000 miles from Memphis to L.A. My mission was to fly out to attend the '08 Chevy Malibu introduction and then drive a Malibu back here to Edmunds so we'd be among the first to fully test the car (including getting performance figures at the test track).
So I plucked the Magellan nav system out of the Edge. I'd be on interstate 40 West for virtually the whole trip, as it would take me from Memphis to just outside of L.A. and because I had to make it in four days, side trips were out of the question,. But I knew the nav system would come in handy for locating hotels, restaurants and the like. My thoughts:
- Easy to use. Just plug it in, hit the power button and an intuitive menu appears.
- Voice prompts are loud and clear, so they'll be heard over the audio system, provided you aren't vibrating the windows.
- While logging miles on the interstate, the "Exit POI" function was great for finding gas stations and restaurants.
- The real time traffic function kicked in a few times, such as when a tractor trailer rig went off the road and caused about a two-mile or so backup. Unfortunately, that section of I-40 was in the middle of farmland and had no exits for miles and thus no way for me to bail out.
Dislikes:
- While on the interstate, I couldn't call up the "POI" mode, only the "Exit POI", which was a bummer if I wanted to find a particular restaurant or try to find a gas station (the "Exit POI" mode only shows them within a 25-mile range, so sometime it showed none ).
- No simple volume knob for the voice prompts -- I had to dive into a couple of menus in order to adjust it.
- A few times, after getting back on the interstate, it would briefly show me traveling east, when in fact I was going west. This was just momentary, however, as it would then state "Recalculating route" and get its bearings.
John DiPietro, Automotive Editor
Add a comment