Magellan Maestro 4040 vs Magellan 4250

I bought the Magellan Maestro 4040 on ebay, from buy.com. $99.99 plus tax since I am in California, free shipping.

The unit arrived in three days.
It looks immaculate, but it's marked as a refurb.
It works fine though I have only had it one day so far.

I paired the bluetooth with my phone, that works.
It has the AAA tourbook installed, very helpful.

The screen is much smoother than my old Magellan 2200T, it clearly has a much faster processor and it works much better. The menus and maps are much better and more detailed than the 2200T. The 3D map is nice and attractive, I hardly ever used it on the 2200T. But it's nice on this one.

All in all it's pushing toward Garmin in usability. Quite nice, easier to use than the older models.

One thing that remains is the Magellan sillyness with zip code entry. It still has funky data as to the city zip codes are associated with, and gives three cities for a zip when only one would possibly be correct. Does Garmin do that?

But the onscreen buttons are easier to push with my fat fingers and I am satisfied, especially with the low low price. Good value there.

By the way, Buy.com has the Garmin Quest units for $99 on ebay too. Very cheap for that pocketsize unit, which is reportedly well suited to both automobile use and for walking. I just may order one.

I bought the 4040 last week from Tiger Direct, the unit does have text to speech and reads out the street names as expected.

I would hope so because it is correct. ZIP codes and municipal boundaries are not in any way coordinated. A single zip code often DOES serve addresses in more than one town.

Note: That may not have been true when ZIP first started.....what, 30 years ago.....but it certainly IS true now.

For example 92870 is Placentia, CA. My magellan thinks there are 3 cities served by that Zip. But I don't think that is the case. If anyone can point out that being correct in this particular instance please point to it.

You seem to be the only one worried about it. So visit the main PO for Placentia and ASK THEM.
I'm certainly not going to wast MY time on your fantasy.

PS The Magellan is trying to tell you that there are PARTS of 3 cities that are served by the 92870 zip code; not necessarily the whole city.

I have had the Magellan Maestro 4040 for a few weeks now.

It's certainly more pleasant to use than the older models.

The screen is much clearer and it clearly has a faster processor. It doesn't struggle to calculate routes like the older ones.

The 3D map is actually usable, whereas on the 2200T it was smeary and the street names were either missing to difficult to discern.

The menus work better and it's easier to find things.

Easier to enter addresses with my admittedly fat fingers, though clearly not as easy as an IPhone.