Magellan RoadMate 700 vs. Magellan RoadMate 760

We have had a few readers ask about the main differences of the Magellan Roadmate 700 vs. the RoadMate 760, and is it worth upgrading for a few hundred dollars. Teh Magellan RaodMate line has been around for some time and has been a favorite of the Mobile GPS world. With their NeverLost system used at Hertz as a great way to introduce travelers to GPS units, they have gotten some great name recognition as well as solid learning about how to make simple easy to follow.

The Magellan Roadmate 700 starts out as a solid GPS with a lot of features to offer for the price. Its trusted NAVTEQ maps of North America can get you to where you need to go without delay and cause for worry. The RoadMate 700 also has about 2 million Points of Interest (POI's), which is a bit low for what I would like to see. If you upgrade to the RoadMate 760, you'll get around 7 Million POI's. This can make a big difference if you want to find locations and then navigate to them, like to closest store of some sort.

The Magellan RoadMate 700 also has voice prompting to let you know when to turn, but the RoadMate 760, upgrades this to include Text to Speech capability meaning that it will tell you not only when to turn, but tell you the streetname that you will be turning onto. This is a solid feature, but one that is found on other mid-tier models, so it's too bad you need to upgrade up to the RoadMate 760 to get it.

The RaodMate 700 has the ability to store addresses in its addressbook, as does the RoadMate 760, although you get about twice the room in the RoadMate 760. These addresses can then be places you get to navigate to. If you are trying to input names, both have the QuickSpell feature that thinks ahead as you spell a town or a street eliminating letters that can't be next in the word. This makes typing in a location a lot easier. As you navigate, you have the option of picking quickest route, shortest route, and include any exclusions that you don't want - like not wanting to travel on a toll road. Both models have this.

There are a couple of premium features that you may consider worth paying more for in the RoadMate 760. It has what Magellan calls the SmartDetour feature that allows it to recognize that you are sitting in traffic, and can recommend a new route for you to get around the traffic. This is not real time traffic updating, but a nice feature anyway. The RoadMate 760 also has multi-destination routing, which allows you to type in several destinations that you need to go to and it routes you on the most efficient route possible. Some nice touhes on the RoadMate 760 are the fact that it has a Night mode that can automatically come on when the sun sets so that the bright GPS doesn't light up the entire interior of your car. Also, the volume of the voice prompting is speed sensitive, getting louder above 45 MPH.

I think these extra add-ons make the RoadMate 760 a better choice if you really don't mind investing the money. Actually, I am a sucker for lots of POI's, so to have a more complete database is really important. If I am in an unfamiliar area, and want to navigate to a local shop or place to eat, I would really love to rely on the GPS to help me out. This is where the value of Points of interest comes in, and I would pay for the extra 5 million to make sure I was covered.

March 1, 2006

Magellan RoadMate 700 vs. Magellan RoadMate 760