Magellan Maestro 4350 and 4370 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic

Magellan’s Maestro 4350 and Maestro 4370 GPS portable navigators have identical specifications apart from the resolution of the anti-glare, widescreen display. The Maestro 4350 and 4370 feature Bluetooth, real-time traffic updates, and 2-D and 3-D maps of the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The units are compact and slim for easy use in or out of the car. Above all, these units are most popular for the excellent usability provided by the new One Touch Interface.

Magellan Maestro 4350

The Maestro 4370 has a higher resolution WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) display compared to the WQVGA (480 x 272 pixels) of the 4350. While the display of the Magellan Maestro 4350 4.3 inch screen is more than adequate, a higher resolution display always looks better and so it will come down to a cost choice for most shoppers.

OneTouch interface

Magellan have brought in quite a few new capabilities and features with the Maestro 4350 and 4370 including most notably a new One Touch user interface. The concept is to allow the user to bring access to all their most commonly used searches (eg. find the nearest franchise of my favourite coffee) to the top level of the navigation interface. Hence, the term “One Touch”. It could be considered analogous to the concept of a favourites toolbar in a Web browser except it’s a real world search. Once set up by the user, One Touch significantly reduces the time a driver spends stepping through menus.

The capabilities of One Touch can be summarised as instant top level access to;

favorite businesses, restaurants, banks, gas stations, services, searches and more
specific addresses
applications to play music, make phone calls, or find addresses.
Points of Interest (POI) including the standard POI database and Magellan-exclusive AAA TourBook(R) guide travel information database This integrated searching was not available on earlier models.

Other Navigation Interface Features

Other improvements to the navigation interface include;

3D landmarks and buildings providing drivers with visual cues for navigation
Map information built as layers, with the most-often-used information given a more prominent position
Larger fonts
context-driven touch zones making the whole map display interactive
new address book format including a smart address summary for users to save complete itineraries.
Large on-screen keyboard for easier data entry

Hands Free Bluetooth Wireless Phone Calls

Both these Magellan maestros have Bluetooth wireless technology and built-in microphone to allow you to connect to a compatible cell phone and use your Magellan Maestro as a hands-free device to initiate and receive calls as well as send and receive SMS (text) messages.

Pedestrian Mode

Both models are Magellan’s first pedestrian mode navigation offering. Pedestrian mode naturally optimizes a plotted route for walking and estimated arrival times are calculated based on walking speeds. There is about three hours of battery life available for when operating in pedestrian mode.

Navigating with the Magellan Maestro 4350 and 4370

Magellan have provided a wide variety of methods for entering a destination however, for convenience, any frequently used destination or destination search type should be saved as a One Touch favourite. Destinations can be entered by:

Selecting your home address
Typing in an address (QuickSpell provides a quick auto-complete feature)
Selecting an entry from the address book
Opting for a previous destination
Nominating a street intersection
Searching for or select a POI by tapping it on the screen
Using the Exit POI function to look view POIs that are ahead of you on the freeway
Creating a multiple destination route with the Trip Planner

The Magellan Maestros are equipped with text-to-speech and will announce street names for each turn. It gives confirmation to the driver that they are on track without taking their eyes from the road. Voice guidance can also be channelled through your car’s FM stereo using the built-in FM transmitter.

Positioning your car in the correct lane for turns on multi lane roadways is much simpler with the help of the Magellan Maestro’s Lane Guidance. You can even get some assistance in keeping to the speed limit with the optional speed limit warning.

LIVE Traffic

The Magellan Maestro 4350 and 4370 have a built-in FM traffic receiver and come with a 3 month Live Traffic Service trial with an annual subscription costing about $60 thereafter. Live traffic incident reports allow you to request the Maestro to automatically plot an alternative, time saving route around traffic delays. The live traffic user interface has had a makeover from previous models giving easier access to all traffic information.

Multimedia Player

The Magellan Maestro 4350/4370 feature an audio, video and picture player. The player is compatible with .mp3, .ogg or .WMA audio files and .AVI Xvid MPEG-4 ISO format video files.