Sat Nav's Which Brand Is Best?

[GAFF]

Thinking about getting one. Don't have a lot of use for one but would come in handy the odd time in Ireland, but more to the point during annual holidays to Spain etc its very useful.

Was thinking about a Garmin but updating the maps gets expensive. Bascially was thinking of one with ireland, UK & European maps (possibly a nuvi250), but if it wasn't too much more expensive I'd get one with US maps (iirc the 760 is the starter US one) as were thinking about heading over to florida next year.

Recommendations please. Also any tips on good places to buy?

[mannyo]

Garmin are OK but I found the user interface to be poor but functional. The market leaders at the moment are Tomtom but the current range is quiet expensive.

[ScottyVrsless]

As above really

I used to have a tomtom one- dead easy to use and it was only 100 quid atthe time but it was the uk only one.

Depends what ya wanna spend really

Garmin are very very good, they do alot of car, offical in car for orm, boat and plan navigation stuff really well respected- but you do pay top doller for them

Navman are ok if abit large and the u.i isn't great- plus ive found there poscade database is cak- didn't even have my mum and dads address in and there house is 1960's ish

Updates are expensive on them all but it depends- id say you need to update the maps once a year at worst- you anly need constant updates for speed camaras etc

[loskie]

Tom Tom sell rerfurbished sat navs from time to time inclusive of European mapping at a prety hefty discount and good warranty. Worth a look on their web site.

[InexEng]

I would have to say Tom Tom - pricey but good features

[a_Duncan]

Brought a TomTom 530 couple of months back I think there still in the shops. I found this one excellent.. speak recognition, easy for the family to use, post codes, touch screen etc. It doesnt have European or American maps but if you know where to look you can download these (free) and easy to install, even speed camera`s which I found very useful to have. If you PM me I will give you more info

[ki_user]

I used to sell the things for a living. Rule of thumb is, if you are looking to go cheap go for garmin as the lower end are better than tomtom, but if you are spending more go for the tomtom. I think garmin are doing free map updates for life on some models, but don't quote me on that. Unless you have more money than sense don't go for the tomtom live range. Cracking idea but think they are over priced.

[mdk1]

Would say Tom Tom myself, I have 2. one for work and one for everything else.

[Decron]

I have an original TomTom Go. Paid £350 for it and that was with 30%staff discount

Still using it after 7 years

[Polo6n1600i]

I would say Garmin - i work for Halfords and i'm the In Car Technology Expert in the branch i work in. We get more customers in with problems with Tom Toms than any other make! the Garmin maps are expensive, but your first one is free when you register and you can buy a lifetime update package for £100 - Tom Tom charge you £40 just to update the UK maps for 12 months!

[lfc958]

Asked my son who works for Comet and he advises TomTom. Despite selling all brands, he bses judgment on customer feed back ( i.e. how many come back either broken or eople trying to exchange because its rubbish)

[Polo6n1600i]

people trying to exchange because its rubbish

You cant do that with Satnav's as they are licenced to the buyer and cannot be exchanged - if you just change your mind you cant take it back!

[sms]

We get more customers in with problems with Tom Toms than any other make! !

With all due respect, everytime ive entered a halfrauds they try selling me a tomtom over garmin and most people i know have a tomtom, so surely this means the probability of one going wrong is higher than garmin... just a thought;)

[ScoobyChris]

I guess it depends what you're planning to use it for. If you're just after putting in a postcode and being directed there I think pretty much all the sat navs are capable of that.

I picked up a Garmin 760 a few months ago and found it much easier to use and much quicker to recalculate than the TomTom's of similar price. My primary use for it was to store pre-defined routes and the Garmin 700 series imho seems better suited to that and comes with mapping software (MapSource) for the PC.

My suggestion would be to try both makes and see which works for you

Chris

[gadgetman]

GAFF,

If you are interested in a refurb Tomtom, then check out HP iPAQ PDA | TomTom GO | TomTom ONE | GPS Sat Nav | Palm Smartphone | Total PDA. All my Sat nav stuff has come from them, with no issues.

[mdk1]

Tom Tom charge you £40 just to update the UK maps for 12 months!

I just updated mine on Friday via TomTom Home shop and paid £20 for 12months.

[gadgetman]

I just updated mine on Friday via TomTom Home shop and paid £20 for 12months.

They also do a rolling subscription which supposedly offers you the latest maps and one or two 'holiday' maps each year.

TomTom, portable GPS car navigation systems - Map Update Service?

[GAFF]

My heads about to explode with the different brand, variations and maps. Dunno what to go for.

When they say European maps, do they mean including UK & Eire?

[Daveclar]

Hi Colm.

European mapping is inclusive of Uk and Ireland. I have Nuvi 250 and I've used it in France and England and it never missed a beat. I also heard from a couple of people that Tom Tom mapping is not great over here.

Regards,

David

[mdk1]

They also do a rolling subscription which supposedly offers you the latest maps and one or two 'holiday' maps each year.

TomTom, portable GPS car navigation systems - Map Update Service?

That is what i signed up for, but was only charged £20

[gadgetman]

If you get a UK only model, they have memory only big enough for the UK map so you're stuck. Better to pay the £20-50 extra and get euro maps. You'll also get extra spac to add an additional map usually, so if you goto say the US or NZ you could get that map too.

[Burnsey]

If you get a UK only model, they have memory only big enough for the UK map so you're stuck. Better to pay the £20-50 extra and get euro maps. You'll also get extra spac to add an additional map usually, so if you goto say the US or NZ you could get that map too.

The navman one I've got has a SD card slot for adding extra maps or pictures or phonebook for phone. It's been fairly reliable, although sometimes can take a minute or 2 to find your location if you've been in an underground car park overnight in a city.

It's re-routing is decent, ie if you know a better route it will automatically use this once you've made a turn into the alternative route. Not bad for £100, inc bluetooth for phone, so also doubles up as a handsfree kit, although the sound quality for the other person is only good enough for a short call to get messages across. The speaker is reasonable - i can certainly make out better than the other person can - but what else should you be doing when driving. Have to say I wouldn't be without it, but then I drive a lot to different offices on my own, so it's much safer than trying to use a map or multimap directions which was the reason I got it. It also has the speed camera alerts which were preloaded. I'll probably update both later this year now that some new roads have been built on my usual routes.

If your not using it often it probably doesn't matter too much which brand you go for.

[daveclayton]

ive got a road angel one. love it for all the other stuf on it! saved me afew times with speed cameras lol

[ultra_joel88]

I got a ChomChom from Hong Kong eBay.

It's OK, but only has maps for China.

Better than my mates Wao-min though, that only has North Korean maps.

[Evening Star]

I've got a TTG 720 which has UK, Ireland & most of the EU on it, it's very good too.

What you can do to it, is install a 4Gb SD card into it and then buy a new map, like I did last year, you can then take advantage of quarterly map updates for substantially less than the cost of an annual update; Now whether that's any good I don't know as I've heard some very mixed reports about the updates, some being accurate, some completely woeful!

The one thing I do advocate doing is getting a subscription to the PocketGPSWorld speed camera database, you can buy a subscription for £20 pa, which is very cheap considering you get an update every couple of weeks & if it stops you getting a single ticket, then its already paid for itself. Its saved my skin a few times too!

The next generation of TTGs are the x40 (LIVE) series: 940 (Worldwide), 740 (EU), 540 (UK/RoI) they all come with live traffic information (subscription) or you can go for the x30 series which is the same as x40 series sans the live traffic service.

The IQ routes function is quite good, you can also plug in a TMC aerial into some of the units, which to say the least isn't brilliant, as it didn't stop me sitting in a traffic jam on the A303 recently.

Try to avoid the XL/Classic series as there's no card slot so there's no possibility to expand the system.

So there you have it an explanation of the TTGs.