Thumbs Up:
Large 7-inch touch screen; OneTouch menu with frequently accessed searches and destination; well-designed destination confirmation screen.
Thumbs Down:
Slow and inaccurate to lock position in urban areas; large screen may be bigger for small dashboards; short battery life
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The Magellan RoadMate 1700 is a portable navigation device with 3-5 meter accurate positioning. It features automatic day/night mode, and preinstalled POIs. The voice options are street name announcement, and navigation instructions.
The device has 7 inches touch-screen display and standard lithium ion battery that has a life of 3 hours.
The RoadMate 1700 ships with accessories including 12-volt power charger, windshield suction-cup cradle, soft slipcover, multi-language guide, and adhesive disk for mounting.
Razzle Dazzle:
The Magellan RoadMate 1700 is 4.2 inches tall, 7.5 inches wide, and 0.6 inch thick and weighs 10.5 ounces. The major visage is occupied by large touch-screen display and there are only few physical controls available on the device.
Inside Dope:
The Magellan RoadMate 1700 looks like any other RoadMate GPS device. It has 7 inches wide-screen that is larger than 3.5 and 4.3 inches PND displays. The large touch-screen gives more space for accessing menus and maps. $232.94 priced the RoadMate 1700 is taller and wider than any normal PND. Noteworthy that it is one of the thinnest Portable Navigation Devices we’ve tested. On the dark side, it takes a long time to lock down the satellite and its battery life is short.
The power slider is located on the top with settings on, off, and reset. A 10 seconds countdown screen with option to cancel the shut-down will pop-up while turning off the Magellan RoadMate 1700. The device will turn off if no option is selected. A similar 30sec countdown screen will be displayed after disconnecting the power and at low battery level. After that, the PND will enter into standby mode.
The micro-SD card slot sits on the top center; while the charger slot, 3.5mm A/V input, and mini-USB port are located on the bottom edge. We like that the Magellan RoadMate 1700 PND will be charged on USB connection with computer. On the back, you will find the speaker and connection slot for installing suction-cup windshield mount.
Like Garmin PNDs, the Magellan RoadMate 1700 has large icons of View Map and Go To, a cancel route icon, and a bar at bottom that has settings menu with advanced options. The Go To shows destination selection menu with choices of address book browsing, POI search, and address entry.
It is very easy to enter the address and searching the POI due to quick responsive touch-screen and especially with, QuickSpell System that predicts as you type and blanks out numbers and letter to prevent mistyping. You will also get an onscreen QWERTY keyboard.
After selecting a destination, the Magellan RoadMate 1700 will display a confirmation screen with large GO button. You can hit on Go button to start a route or compare various routes. The available options are Least use of freeways, Mostly freeways, Shortest distance, and Fastest time. We like that you can get estimated time for each route and compare them on same screen. More to like – these options are easily accessible on the RoadMate 1700, while other PNDs hide them deeply under menus.
The View Map button shows map screen with volume icon on right side that shows volume slider. There are some soft keys on the bottom that can be customized with options of travel direction, estimated time of arrival, time remaining on route, elevation, current time, and display current speed. You can tap anywhere on the map to enter into exploration mode that can be changed between 3D and 2D views. It also features zoom in and out, touch and slide to move in the map. You can type any location to pin it and see its address on the top. A subsequent touch on the icon located next to address selects that point as destination and takes it to confirmation screen.
The Magellan RoadMate 1700 features text-to-speech turn-by-turn directions in three languages: English, French, and Spanish. However, there is only one voice per language. The graphic lane guidance helps to navigate complex freeway interchanges with a good representation of highway signatures and intersections.
You will get the POIs and maps for Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico and all 50 United States. It has millions of POIs, AAA database of approved TourBook Destinations, branch offices, auto repair shops and other POIs to avail discounts for AAA members. The Magellan RoadMate 1700 also has RoadSide Assistance for the AAA members, but it will require manual dialing as there is no Bluetooth hands-free calling.
The most useful and unique feature of the Magellan RoadMate 1700 is OneTouch menu – a customizable shortcut menu. You can store six links for instant access to common locations and accessed searches. It also features permanent links for Emergency services, GPS status, Local info, Previous Destinations, and Home. You will get the OneTouch icon on the upper right corner on most of the menu and map screens. You can tap this icon to slide-down the OneTouch menu. We are disappointed that there is no traffic mounting included in the box, but you can add FM receiver. There is 3.5mm jack for A/V input to connect video sources like iPods and portable DVD players.
While testing, the Magellan RoadMate 1700 took 30 seconds from power on to home screen. However, it quickly locked our position after selecting the View Map. We were surprised that it took 2 minutes to lock our position in urban areas. The destination selection process is quite similar to other small RoadMate units. It was slower to calculator the routes than the RoadMate 1470 with average time of less than one minute. It showed the four-color coded routes on the same map on clicking the Preview Map button. We appreciated that RoadMate 1700 could calculator four different routes in the same time needed by other PNDs to calculate one time. Even after full charge, the 1700 PND showed low battery message within 20 minutes.
On the dark side, the Magellan RoadMate 1700 tracked our position inaccurately while driving on freeways. It could also lead to wrong turn-by-turn directions. However, other PND did not give such an annoying problem. However, the RoadMate 1700 is quick to locate the GPS under clear sky. The loud speaker is clearly audible even on the road. On the highway, a green large button appeared in lower left corner with icons for fuel, food, and lodging. You can click on these icons to access the available POIs and amenities at the exit.
The Magellan RoadMate 1700 matches the performance of Garmin and TomTom devices for basic functions like positioning, routing, booting, and so on. We like to get large 7 inches touch-screen display. It is big for normal sized windshield in cars, but is best for the RV and tractor trailer. However, the RoadMate 1700 confuses in urban areas, tall buildings, and freeways.
Nitty Gritty:
If you need a large screen PND for your vehicle and can overcome slow speed, then buy – Magellan RoadMate 1700.