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| Magellan Crossover 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Road and Trail Navigator | 
 enlarge | Brand: Magellan
Category: CE
List Price: $599.99
Buy New: $219.95
You Save: $380.04 (63%)
New (7) Used (3) Refurbished (3) from $119.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  106 reviews
Sales Rank: 1585
Format: Cd
Platform: Not Machine Specific
Color: Olive
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Tracks: Unknown
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: Unknown
Display Size: 3.5
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 4.3 x 1.1 x 3.5
MPN: 980890-01
Model: 980890-01
UPC: 763357115703
EAN: 0763357115703
ASIN: B000KMEGDA
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Crossover crosses over pretty well June 26, 2007
181 out of 182 found this review helpful
One the whole, I like my M. Crossover. Generally speaking, it does everything I need it for in regard to GPS. I do not use mine for the audio or visual playback and do not care about those functions. To date, I have done nothing with the computer software either and cannot vouch for that aspect.
The best features to me were in having a GPS unit that I could use to plot courses in the car and yet have a GPS that would work well for hiking. I have driven all over north Texas with the unit and had it mark my travels in both the road mode and outdoor (hiking/contour map) mode. I have not used it in the Marine mode. With just a few exceptions, it has had all the roads I have been on. The exceptions were a couple of very small roads in the middle of nowhere and roads in a brand new development. No surprise. Strangely, it had some dirt roads that I would not have expected. So that was really handy.
In the outdoor mode, I have plotted various key points and had it track my progress, both while driving and while hiking. It has done this all relatively well.
Before I go further, let me say that if I lost this unit, I would not hesitate in getting another. However, it is not a perfect unit and has some shortcomings that are a bit of a bother, but not fatal at all. It has been my experience that all GPS units seem to have various shortcomings, often varying depending on the type of intended use of the unit. I do think the Crossover, with its shortcomings, does enough of the cross over functions to cover my needs sufficiently well and I do not currently see any other units on the market that match it in such versatility.
I have run the unit on battery (most of the time) and while charging in the car. I have charged it with the 120v outlet charger as well. They promise 8 hours of run time and so far I have run as much as 6 on full screen brightness and not run out of power. The 8 hour estimate seems good.
On my recreational property, I have plotted the locations of the property corners, gates, and other specific locations. Subsequent return trips have the show very good match between my previous plots and locations, to just a few feet, well within the unit's specifications. It performs consistently well in this regard, as it should.
The shortcomings...
In the 150+ hours of use with probably 80 or 90 start-ups, I have had it fail to properly boot 4 times. This necessitated the use of the reset switch on the side and after resetting, the unit booted fine.
The green rubber ring around the unit is to help absorb shock if dropped and it probably does help to some extent (I have dropped it once). However, it is prone to slip off when carried in a pocket or pack during periods of lots of motion and the grippy aspect of the rubber can make it hard to extract the unit from a snug pocket if one wants the rubber ring remaining on the unit.
The on screen controls vary with the mode that it is in and as such, the features I like in one mode are not in the same place in the other mode and that can be a bit annoying if you go between modes on a regular basis. This is especially true of the brightness function that is onscreen on the map page in the outdoor mode but not in the car mode.
You can't plot points in the car mode, but if you are in the car mode, the map does not show the icons for gas/food etc. that it does in the outdoor mode. That seemed a bit counter-intuitive.
I have medium-sized guy fingers and sometimes find that I have not been able to precisely press an onscreen button properly. Maybe I need more practice or smaller fingers.
Even on the brightest setting and while out in the sunlight, it can be hard to see the image on the screen. As long as sun is not shining directly on the screen in the car, it does well enough.
As with all GPS units I have used or experienced in the past, letting the GPS decide your route from point A to B should not mean that the traveler should blindly accept the route as the best option, even with the various choices given (fastest, shortest, most use of freeways, etc.). It will get you from point A to B, but what it asserts is the best route may actually be much less than optimal.
I don't know of any other way to charge the unit other than with the accessories provided. You can't take the unit on a 2 day hike and use it all the time without running down the battery and you can't change out the battery. It would be nice if there was a separate battery pack that could be jacked in or a solar charger. Otherwise, the unit is somewhat limited to either sporadic use on multi-day hikes or day hiking because of the battery limitation.
Lastly, while it can track something like 14 satellites, it can lose track of them as well. While hiking in Big Bend with the mountains, signals came and went a lot. It was a bit annoying. No doubt this will happen with other units as well, but the access to 14 didn't seem to make it keep track any more often or continually than with other GPS units I have used.
As I noted above, I would buy this unit again if I had to replace the current unit. I harped on the shortcomings because if you have read Magellan's promo for the Crossover, then you know what it can do and it has been my experience that it pretty well does what is claimed. I only point out the shortcomings such that other potential buyers can make a better informed decision.
 Magellan Crossover GPS sets the standard! June 14, 2007
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
The GPS unit and included software is a bargain in today's market.
TOPO software prices alone, pay for it.
 I had higher expectations June 10, 2007
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I guess I had higher expectations for this product. I bought it to use for road travel as well as hiking an Geocaching.
For the on-road use there were several things that annoyed me. First, there was a delay at some times when pushing buttons. I did not now if I had pushed it or not. Also, to mute it you have to go into a sub-menu then hit a mute button, then save. Should be a single click.
One of the first times I used it by blindly following the directions, it had me take an exit only to immediately take a turn on to the entrance ramp to get back on the same road.
The voice feedback is good, but it reads out every letter when typing in a street name. If I am typing, I am obviously looking at the screen and I don't need it to repeat each letter back to me. Also, for several of the street names it was difficult to understand. I knew the street name but I could not recognize it from it's verbalization.
For hiking use, I could not figure out how to download the coordinate files (loc or gpx) into the system. Maybe there is a way, but after an hour I gave up. It should not be that hard for something advertised as a hiking system. Also, It was not clear to me when I bought it that it includes 90 m (contour lines) topo maps, but the 30 m map is extra. I'll stick with my $100 model for hiking.
For many people this product might be ok but I expected better usability. It almost seems like a knock-off of a well designed product (a lot of advertised features but hard to use), but if that's the case it should be half the price.
The pouch (extra accessory) is very nice and well made.
magellan crossover June 9, 2007
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
great GPS easy to use compact and detailed. this unit came with all we needed windshield mount (really good one, too!) car adapter and ac adapter-- and you can remove the gross green rubber cover when you dont need the extra protection. battery lasts and lasts -- best one Magellan put out
Crossover does just what it says May 29, 2007
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
After purchasing this unit & using it in various applications I have found it to fulfill all my needs. I purchased this unit because of the preloaded Street & Topo maps. I do quite a bit of motorcycle travel and hiking. We have also begun Geo-Caching and found this GPS to work fantastic for that purpose. You can program in a cache location and use the Street maps to drive to the area, then flip over to the Topo maps to hike to the location.
The only downfall I have is that there is no mapping software to install on the comupter in order to layout routes and such, and the multi-stop routing is no mare than stringing all of the legs of a trip together in a row. I would much prefer to have a routing software similar to Streets & Trips that you could do on your computer then upload. But as it is everything is still very usable and reliable.
If you are looking to do Streets & Topo on the same unit, this product can not be beat. Especially for the money.
ALSO: It seems very durable, as I have dropped it and once tossed it over a car by accident. It still works flawlessly.
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