17 out of 17 people found this review helpful.
Good GPS - here are some suggestions
Date of Review: Jul 1, 2007
The Bottom Line: A good GPS with reasonable size, cost and driving features, but sometimes unresponsive to menu prompts and it's hard to adjust brightness.
I'm not an expert with other driving-oriented GPSs, but in using my Maestro for the last few months on family and business trips, I have some opinions. Overall, I think this is a good GPS in terms of size, cost, screen clarity, and the AAA database. There are a number of areas, however, where I think improvements can be made (or perhaps I missed something and other users can set me straight).
To begin with, when the unit first starts up, it's unresponsive to the menu prompt - you can push the menu button multiple times and get nothing - not even any kind of an hourglass icon to show the system is busy - just the audible click that the prompt has been received. This also sometimes happens after the unit is fully functional - such as when you are driving along and want to change your destination (I guess the system is busy at that moment, but it should indicate that rather than ignore your presses).
I have also found the edge of the touchscreen to be problematic - it's hard to find the right spot for any buttons near the edge. Perhaps this is common among such touch screens.
The lack of a physician brightness control is also problematic - you have to press to a second menu selection page to access the user options, then select brightness and then make the change - that's at least 5 presses to change the brightness - and then press a whole bunch of times to get back to the map display. Also, in dark driving conditions (lonely road at night), the lowest brightness display is still too bright).
On the map display, although you can easily change the zoom in or out, as best I can tell, there is no way to see what the scale of miles is - does the screen represent one mile or 10 miles or what?
The lack of a physician volume control is also an issue.
That being said, I take the unit with me often and find it really reduces the stress of driving. I just used it yesterday with my family after arriving in a new town and driving to our hotel during a huge downpour at night - there was no-way to read the smaller street name signs out the window - the used the unit to direct us to the hotel with confidence
