I have to say it’s been a pleasure working with the Magellan CrossoverGPS (RoadMate 2500T). With so many personal navigation devices (PNDs) on the market, it’s hard to find something unique in the sea of sameness. But Magellan has done it with the CrossoverGPS.

I have been working with several PNDs in the last few weeks. Navigating to basketball/baseball practices/games, social events, etc., I used them all in our different vehicles as well as rental cars. One of our vehicles even has an in-dash navigation system which I used to compare performance of the map database and processing speed of the PNDs.

So when it came time for business travel a few days last week, I only had room in my laptop bag to take one unit, and the CrossoverGPS was it.

It came down to two reasons: packaging and battery life.

Yes, the POI (points of interest) database, the street-map database, the user interface, screen readability, etc. were important, but most of the leading manufacturers have paid attention to those features and do a reasonable job.

Packaging: on the CrossoverGPS, there is no pop-up GPS antenna. The antenna is integrated into a high-impact plastic case. If you didn’t know anything about GPS, you wouldn’t know the antenna existed. When you hold the unit, you feel its tough construction and have confidence it can take a hit. I had no qualms about tossing it in my laptop bag, which is not necessarily a safe place. It doesn’t have that Ipod-ish, fragile, “handle-with-care” sort of feel to it.

The CrossoverGPS comes with a windshield mount, but honestly I used it only once to set it up. The beauty of the CrossoverGPS is that you carry it from vehicle to vehicle, throwing it on the seat or setting it on the steering column before grabbing it and taking it with you when you leave the vehicle. I never had a problem with receiving GPS signals when using it this way.

Battery life: I love the 8-plus hours of battery life. When I took it on my three-day trip last week, I left the charger at home. I hadn’t used a PND yet that I had the confidence to do that with. It sets a new standard for PND battery performance.

The CrossoverGPS has separate menus for vehicle navigation, boating, and outdoor (hiking, camping, etc.), thus the Crossover name. You can download topo maps for hiking/camping as well as BlueNav charts for boating.

If you’re looking for a vehicle navigation unit that will predominantly stay mounted in your vehicle, the CrossoverGPS can do that job and do it well. But if you keep it affixed, you’d really be missing out on the grab-and-go flexibility of this unit. It’s built to go where you go: in your vehicle, in your boat, in your backpack, and in your laptop bag.

Key specifications:

• environmental: rated waterproof to IPX-4 standards
• size: 4.3″ x 3.4″ x 1.1″
• weight: 8.5 oz.
• battery: rechargeable Li-Ion. 8-plus hours of use.
• memory: 4GB hard drive pre-loaded with maps of the 50 United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and topographic maps of the 48 contiguous states.
• display: 3.5″ color touch-screen display.
• data storage: SD card slot.
• MSRP: $499.99

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