Customer Reviews
not as good as I expected 
2008-07-15
This is my second Magellan GPS. Although this has better features like allowing me to enter an address by zip code. The map doesn't seem to match the voice prompts so I have found myself passing streets.
I would still reccomend it but I would look at some of the higher end models.
Magellan Maestro 3250 
2008-07-14
This item is very nice and we have been very pleased with the performance of the GPS. It has many more options than we thought it did when we purchased it.
Great GPS for the money 2008-07-12
I love this gps. It has little quirks that I have seen described by reviewers of much higher priced devices but overall I am very pleased with the unit. It is compact and stylish. Easy to use. The spoken names are great. The voice recognition is a neat feature as is the bluetooth. You have to wait a couple of seconds after the unit asks what you want but then it works fine. I got a free year of traffic service but haven't really used it as I haven't been near a major city which is the only place it works I think. I highly recommend this gps.
A Nice Talking Unit That Works 2008-07-11
Magellan Maestro 3250 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
Unit works very well. Very clear screen and excellent detail. You can ask the unit to give the nearest gas station or eatery, or ATM. If your a Tripe AAA Motorclub member they are giving an extra year warranty coverage until the end of July 2008. Call Triple AAA get the code and register it on line through Tripe A. Magellan is offering a Free year of traffic service find it under the traffic enabled units on there website. Really a neat unit and works well. If you listen to a loud radio you may need to turn it down to ask Magellan questions. Gets you to where you are going with ease. Have not used the Bluetooth yet but it wanted to pair up with my phone. I have heard positive words that feature works pretty well meaning most phones. I have a Garmin C330 and this Maestro 3250 is much nicer.
Best GPS in town! 2008-07-07
Awesome product! I have used Tom Tom, Garmin Nuvi before; this is by far the best of all. It has a very wide variety of points of interest. Love the voice command feature, however at times its easier to use the tocuh screen. The only bad point is sometimes it takes time to boot up. Otherwise, higly recommended!
Great little navigator! 
2008-07-24
I purchased the Maestro 3250 as a replacement for the Road Mate 300 I've had for a few years. The RM300 worked fine but it's obsolete - no new maps. The 3250 has the same size screen but does not require SD cards for maps. All maps are internal. There IS an SD card slot which is used to backup user settings and the address book.
The screen is very bright and quite readable on a bright sunny day. The suction cup base works great on the provided disk that I put on the top of the dash. It is much easier (than the RM300) to set up a location to route to and/or enter the location in the address book. Text to speech works real well. Some names may be harder for the unit to pronounce than others but all were understandable. Although limited, I really like the voice response capability. It worked quite well while driving. The built in battery is a nice touch and makes the unit portable with about 3 hours battery time. All in all, this is a very good device for the cost.
I did run into a problem during set up. It locked up and wouldn't clear using the reset. After using Ask Maggie on the Magellan website I was able to correct the problem by pressing and holding the power switch for several seconds. There was a firmware upgrade that I later installed that addressed some problems, including this one hopefully. Hasn't locked up since.
Great unit; traffic registration is a pain 2008-07-23
The other reviews discuss the unit in some depth. I will give a few observations, but then move on to the part that is a pain.
First, I chose Magellan because when I looked at a broad variety of units, it was the fastest. It boots quickly, syncs to satellites quickly, and the POI locator is really fast. You can very quickly find the nearest gas station, grocery store, park, or whatever else it is that you need. It is an easy to use unit, with all the features you could want.
I bought this one instead of the wider screen 4250 because of the incredible price on amazon. At the price I paid for this unit, it was impossible to resist. Plus, it will be very easy to carry with me when I am walking through cities and don't want to get lost.
Another thing that is great about the unit, and like any GPS, is that people with guy genes don't like to ask directions. I will hardly ever stop to do so. But, I am very happy to ask a gadget for directions. Thus, if you are a man, you can get great directions all the time and not have to fight against millions of years of genetics. Instead, you get to use a guy-toy. If you are a woman, this makes a great present for a guy. He will love it, and not realize that you are simply saying you are sick of him being lost and not stopping for directions. Everyone wins.
Now to the annoying part.
The first thing I wanted to do was install the live traffic reports. I live in Seattle. Our traffic is terrible and the roads are constantly under construction, so I figure the unit will pay for itself if it helps me avoid traffic from two ballgames.
First you need to register to get a code. This involves signing up on the website and then typing in the long annoying registration code. Which then gives you the access code. I didn't check if they are the same, but I have a feeling that they aren't.
In order to register you need to type in the unit serial code. This is printed in microscopic print on the back of the unit. You have to type it in twice (copy and paste works...). For me, figuring out which numbers were 8's and 6's almost required a magnifying glass. You might need to find someone who is too young to drive in order to read the digits. Wouldn't hurt if they printed it just a little bit larger.
Next, you get the code, but there is a warning saying you need firmware 4.6 to use traffic reports. My unit came with 2.3. Believe them. Being a guy, I tried the code anyway and it gives a nice message "invalid code". This doesn't mean you typed it incorrectly. It means you have to upgrade your firmware to the latest version.
This might be why the units were at such a great price... In short, if you want traffic, you need to upgrade the firmware.
To do so, you need to go to the Magellan site and download the firmware. They tell you the unit has to be fully charged and this can take 4 hours using the car charger. Wow. That is about $50 of gasoline these days... Since it doesn't come with a wall charger, you can charge it from your USB port. In my case I used a phone charger ... it takes the same miniUSB connector that Blackberry's, Motorola's, and many other phones use. Maybe the gps charger you pay for works much faster... for me, after charging overnight, the battery still wasn't fully charged.
Next, you need to download the software. This is easy enough to do. Note that the software says XP or 32 bit Vista only. I figured maybe they were being overly cautious. Since I mostly run Vista/64 I thought I'd try that. Nope. They mean it. The installer hangs Vista/64 nicely, tying up the machine until it finally decides your hard drive is full. On XP, however, it runs quickly. (It is a 75M download... make sure you have a broadband connection to download it)
Once that is done, upgrading the firmware is a snap. It said it could take 20 minutes or so, which is why they want the battery fully charged. For me it took about 3 minutes.
Now it is time to type the magic code in again. This is a 24 character alphanumeric string. On a keyboard, these strings are annoying enough. But on the GPS, typing MJ2PQ4 isn't 6 keystrokes. It is M J [123] 2 [ABC] P Q [123] 4. Thus, 24 characters to type is closer to 36 characters to type. That is a pain.
Using mixed alphanumeric rather than just alpha adds a lot more security to a password. For example, for a two character password it is 1296 choices rather than 676. But note that a three character alpha only password would give 17576 choices. Thus, if instead of making us type in 36 characters going back and forth between the alpha and numeric keys, Magellan made the magic code alpha only and a few characters longer, they could have the broader security they want and we could type in far fewer keystrokes. Also, it isn't as if anyone is going to try to crack the code with the GPS keypad. The security is a bit overblown, and again, could be more secure and easier for users at the same time.
In short. I really like this unit and it is a great deal for the price. Getting traffic reports to work will take effort.
Magellan Maestro 3250 2008-07-21
I've been using it for a month and love it. I've done a lot of research about GPS'in general, and this model really stands out. Very intuitive, great POI selection, and for me being an AAA member is a great way to communicate in case of an emergency. I really love that the next turn announcement spells out the street name to make a turn on(so many other GPS'don't).So far I didn't have to use the dreaded customer service support, so I can't tell hoew this works. Overall very satisfied.
Worth trusting 2008-07-21
When I relocated to Ohio ,Magellan GPS really came in handy. It rerouted me when I needed to be. And I swear it never failed me. It may have problems with turning the unit on at times but other than that, Magellan 3250 knocks out all its competitors.
Great little GPS 2008-07-15
I like the GPS a lot. The voice recognition needs some refining, but I dont use that option often. Has gotten me everywhere I need to go, and can recompute the route quickly if I choose to ignore the original directions.
