Directroute questions, Magellan response (or lack thereof)

I'm pretty frustrated with Magellan.

I own a Meridian color and recently purchased Directroute V3 on DVD. I
had V2 on CDs, but had understood the maps on V3 were updated.

I installed the software Thursday and all went well until I got to the
point where I was supposed to log onto the magellan website and "unlock"
my copy with the code provided on the sheet inserted with the DVD. It
didn't work. It said an item had been removed from my shopping cart and
when I tried to manually place the correct item in the cart, it said it
wasn't available.

A call to Magellan support provided a technician who said the server was
down and that I should try again in a day or two. He said it would be up
by the weekend at the latest. I tried again yesterday to unlock the
software and of course it didn't work.

So I called them again and instead of this weekend, the new technician
said it would be two weeks before the website would be back on-line.
When I told him that was simply ridiculous and unacceptable and I wanted
to hear alternatives to waiting that long, he put me on hold and
connected me with his supervisor.

When the supervisor came on she was also very calming and apologetic,
but not very helpful. She said the website could be up as early as next
week, they weren't sure. I expressed some curiosity about whether or not
the unlock could be done any other way and she assured me that it could
only be done on the website. Imagine.

Here's the most confusing part -- she said that the software on CD could
be run without the unlock process, but the software on the DVD had to be
unlocked. (That seems correct.) I told her that I was upgrading from V2
which was on CD and ran fine, but that I had wanted access to the newer
maps that came with V3 -- and she said the maps in v2 and v3 were
exactly the same, that the later version isn't any newer.

That is not only in direct opposition to what the seller said in his ad
about V3 (and what I had understood from other sources as well). I asked
her specifically about this point, and she repeated the same statement
several times, each time telling me how sorry she was. She said the only
difference was that V3 would enhance the operation of the Explorist
series, and since I'm running a Meridian Color, I wouldn't see any
benefit at all.

Can anyone help me make any sense out of THAT? Or is that an oxymoron --
making sense -- and Magellan technical support?

This is enough to make me want to go out and buy a Garmin, you know???

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

- Dave

David Shaffer wrote:


My last Magellan was a Meridian Color. When I looked at upgrading to
the then new eXplorist line (with the eXplorist XL being the primary
candidate of interest), I found it was less capable than the Meridian in
many ways. Both the hardware and software were inferior to the Garmin
offerings and I would also be losing the ability to use the BlueNav
charts I had on CD-ROM with the XL.

I looked at the Garmin handhelds and bought the 76Cx. I have since
added optional street/highway, topo, and marine mapping software
packages to that and am very happy with the Garmin. The Magellan
handhelds don't even come close to competing with that Garmin.

Changing from Magellan to Garmin was a little painful financially but
I'm better off for it.

Jack

David Shaffer wrote:
Dave, same thing here. I've been waiting about 2 weeks now to be able
to unlock my DirectRoute v3 so I can install maps on my explorist 500.
Same BS from tech support, depending on which person you talk to, say it
should be up in a few days or a few weeks. Meanwhile my already paid
for $100+ software sits idle because I can't unlock the stupid thing.
When i asked why was there no arrangements made to be able to manually
provide unlock codes during the computer transition period, I got kind
of a "huh?" reply. I've only owned to Magellan product for a few weeks
and I'm already regretting it.

Man, that's totally insane. That's it -when I'm done with my Meridian Color
Playing- I'm goin Garmin. What a hoot they are.
Dave

Matthew wrote:

When I ordered V3, they sent V2, and now I am VERY glad. In spite of
the software being a tribute to bad user interface design, it does serve
the purpose, although ever time I have to use it my language
deteriorates. Running the application on my laptop is a study in
patience, and I often have to leave it running for 30 minutes or so
while it churns out a region, but at least I CAN get the data onto my SD
card.
Why companies that make this kind of product don't allow for user
subscription to automatic periodic updates of the database is a mystery
to me.