Magellan gave its navigation units a new crowning model today in the RoadMate 1700. The GPS mapping device is one of the largest in the US and has a 7-inch, 800x480 display that's both easier to read from a distance and which provides more information onscreen. A video input jack helps exploit the extra size as an external display for a portable media player.
Product pages for an unannounced Magellan GPS, the RoadMate 1700, have leaked on several online retailers such as Tiger GPS. The 1700 matches many of the same features as the rest of the RoadMate series, but adds a larger 7-inch display. Otherwise, the GPS offers a AAA TourBook, 6 million points of interest, text-to-speech and multiple-point routing.
Magellan today produced a quick but important hardware revision for its RoadMate line. The 1475T improves on the earlier 1470 with free traffic updates that help re-route drivers around congestion. Magellan's approach is ad-supported rather than subsidized and helps keep the GPS device's price down.
Portable GPS unit maker Magellan at the CTIA show last week quietly showed off three new RoadMate devices with new features that were carried over from the flagship Maestro series. One of them, the 4.7-inch Magellan RoadMate 1470, is already available for purchase online at Amazon. This particular unit includes the company's OneTouch interface that provides shortcuts to favorite features and allows users to search for points of interest from the main display and not have to dig for them inside sub-menus.
