The Magellan Maestro 4350 offers the kind of motoring peace of mind that you will get with the best car navigation system today. As it's been discontinued, it will probably prove hard to find, but it's loaded with pre-programmed points of interest, and offers time savings extras like the OneTouch feature. This helps you program in your favorite spots – banks, businesses, restaurants – so the navigation GPS location can be recalled quickly. One quick touch and you will be guided to your favorite coffee shop, for example, no matter where you are at the time the craving strikes you.
Another thing that adds to ease of use is Bluetooth compatibility. You don't have to worry about taking your hands off the wheel to deal with a ringing phone when you are trying to use your navigation GPS unit to find an address. Compatible phones will integrate with Magellan Maestro 4350 so you can do both tasks safely.
This unit gives you turn by turn directions like all competitors, but it also makes it easy to find your way once you have parked the car with its Pedestrian mode.
Many GPS units include 3D elements but this one makes 3D buildings look more realistic and less cartoonish than the other ones we reviewed. It makes the buildings much easier to recognize. This will be especially helpful if you are in an unfamiliar city and all the buildings have started to look identical.
This navigation GPS unit comes with access to an impressive count of points of interest – 6 million to be exact. Things like restaurants, ATMs and coffee shops are all searchable by name or category, from wherever you find yourself. Thankfully there is no need to know the exact spelling for any of these, either; this unit will auto-complete your search entries and re-spell them for you, if needed.
Magellan Maestro 4350 offers features that can help you deal with every driver's common enemy: traffic. The Live Traffic element can offer real-time information about accidents, road closures, weather closures and more. The navigation GPS unit also has lane guidance for highway driving. This helps you know which lane is best when you are coming up on an intersection, so you can concentrate on moving safely around other cars instead of concentrating on signs so much.
You can also take some tunes along to make the journey more pleasant because this unit offers an integrated MP3 player. And if you happen to get too revved up on a Metallica tune, the unit will warn you with an over-the-speed limit alert.
Should you buy the Magellan Maestro 4350?
We saw units that were bigger and longer-lasting, but overall we think the Magellan Maestro 4350 has a lot to offer anyone who spends any time in the car, if you can find one on sale. This unit will be especially useful for finding things around town with its OneTouch element. We also really liked its 3D graphics. It makes everything easier to recognize.
