Help! Mate has asked me to check out a decent satnav (£200/£250ish). Mine is factory installed but neither of us know anything about the stick-on versions so.....................

who recommends what?

Essentials are:

bluetooth phone connection

coverage UK and France

mpa3 player (or some facility to play music!)

decent size screen (4+ inches)

Reliability!

and possibly:

upcoming lane warning

live updates (yes, yes, we've found out about Tomtom's £8 per month offering!)

I've checked through dozens of reviews (including here!) this afternoon and come to no particular conclusion! Might the Tomtom GO 740 (£200 on Amazon) be a possiblity?

Any tips/guidance/thoughts gratefully received

My personal opinion is that TomTom is the best of the bunch for Navigation (the primary purpose of a Sat Nav) and it's music player whilst basic works quite well, but unless they've improved it, the bluetooth handsfree functionality is next to useless (I last used a 730 though, so the newer 740 and 750 models may be better)

My personal opinion is that TomTom is the best of the bunch for Navigation (the primary purpose of a Sat Nav) and it's music player whilst basic works quite well, but unless they've improved it, the bluetooth handsfree functionality is next to useless (I last used a 730 though, so the newer 740 and 750 models may be better)

Thanks for that. Is it a question of the hands free operation being too fiddly or do connections drop out?

I'm currently using a Tomtom Go920T for work and it's fantastic. It has all the functions your looking for and more. I went for this model as it has the TMC aerial included and the unit will detect and automatically re-route your journey for no extra cost. It has saved me a few hours of traffic jams on my daily commute down the A1 & M11

After thirty nine yearsof faultless navigation on UK and African roads , I can heartily recommend the 1951 Sat Nag version I've got installed in my car . Never a wrong turn , plenty of advice of camera traps , easily spots police vehicles ,and she dont half make a decent cuppa ( and her stew - drool..........).Trouble is that they only made one ,and she's mine -all mine .Bit more expensive than TOM TOM is my JU JU , BUT she cuddles a lot nicer .

Having owned a TomTom 940 live for over a year, I can not praise it highly enough. Good maps, superb routing and accurate estimating of travel time.

It has a blue tooththat works seamlessly for hands free, a FM transmitter so you can listen to music stored on it’s Micro SD card and a recharagble battery which comes insuprisingly useful sometimes.

As for the features that made it stand out for me when I purchased it, where do I begin.

• Road Angel supplied traffic camera alerts
• Live updated alerts to mobile cameras
• Google search for destinations (the unit has a sim card)
• Superb live updating of traffic problems and the usual reroute features (works on A roads as well as motorways and is very very accurate, much more so than TMC etc)
• Very nice display for lane placement at big motorway junctions
• Voice activation (although it isn’t too hot if I am honest)
• Weather reports for you position!
• You can track your buddies with similar systems

It is one of the very few pieces of equipment I have ever bought that exceeded my expectaions.

10/10

I'm currently using a Tomtom Go920T for work and it's fantastic. It has all the functions your looking for and more. I went for this model as it has the TMC aerial included and the unit will detect and automatically re-route your journey for no extra cost. It has saved me a few hours of traffic jams on my daily commute down the A1 & M11

Thanks - most helpful. Not many on sale judging by a quick scan but I'll continue to have a look!

Having owned a TomTom 940 live for over a year, I can not praise it highly enough.

Thanks for the details. I read an earlier recommendation you posted re this model so you seem to be happy with it!

I saw a few adverse comments yesterday on various sites that the card was too small to accommodate map updates etc and you had to go through a tedious process of selective deletions to get the necessary space. Is this a problem?

Like the GO 920 there are not too many to be found on sale but I'll keep looking.

Thanks for the details. I read an earlier recommendation you posted re this model so you seem to be happy with it!

I saw a few adverse comments yesterday on various sites that the card was too small to accommodate map updates etc and you had to go through a tedious process of selective deletions to get the necessary space. Is this a problem?

Like the GO 920 there are not too many to be found on sale but I'll keep looking.

I believe that if you update a huge map and it has a much bigger file size then you have to delete some stuff first. I can recommend their on-line customer support though. I have used them a few times (mainly about the payment methods, but also about buying g a new map) and they get back within a couple of days. Once you have opened a dialogue, they respond usually the same day too.

I ordered the new UK map recently and thought it would replace the UK map installed in the Europe wide map already on the device. It doesn’t and caused a lot of bother as I had a right palaver to get my favourites moved to the new map (I definitely would not recommend buying a new map like this, just buy the replacement for the Europe one). But the new UK map has downloaded into the device as a separate and new map and it still has a little memory left. So I would not worry about memory too much. As for the Mini SD card, I am not sure what the maximum size that is supported comes to, but it hasn’t been an issue with me.

If you are willing to pay the supsciption and drive high miles, then I would urge you to look at getting a TomTom with the HD, IQ stuff, all the 'Live' TomToms have it (I think) and it would be hard to live without it all now.

it would be hard to live without it all now

Thanks again for the helpful info - much appreciated.

I think the new models have a 2mb card and this is causing adverse comment re the small size.

I sped off to the wilds of PC World, Halfords and Currys this afternoon to see what they had on show. Pretty poor to be honest and very lmited - I strongly feel someone should tidy up the displays and have demo models that actually work!

There's a promo on at the moment whereby certain outlets are offering 12 months free updates of maps etc for the 'live' models. Said to be worth around £95. Problem is that not one of them has the same closing date for this Tomtom promo. Some are tomorrow, others the end of June! Hope the Customer Services teams are better than their marketing people!

Will put Google to work again and narrow down who is selling what.

Thanks again!

The maps are stored on the TomTom’s memory, not the SC card, so memory isn’t really a major problem for me. I don’t really have any use for a big card in the TomTom as I have an iPod plugged into my car.

I have read that my current phone (HTC Desire) should be able to play stereo music directly to my next car via Bluetooth (if the car ever gets built :( ) so I would have almost no reason to use the memory card at all. I do have a few pictures on it and use the TomTom as a mini slideshow screen sometimes

Thanks for that. Is it a question of the hands free operation being too fiddly or do connections drop out?

The operation wasn't too bad, but it often hung when used with my iphone and would require a reboot. It was a bit more stable with a Nokia E61 but still not great. Looking at the comments regarding the 740 from Lady E it would appear that they've resolved this issue...

Just wondering if they've made the speaker any louder though as the other issue I had was I couldn't hear the other person when I was at motorway speeds...

The operation wasn't too bad, but it often hung when used with my iphone and would require a reboot. It was a bit more stable with a Nokia E61 but still not great. Looking at the comments regarding the 740 from Lady E it would appear that they've resolved this issue...

Just wondering if they've made the speaker any louder though as the other issue I had was I couldn't hear the other person when I was at motorway speeds...

Thanks for the helpful info. I think both would be a serious problem for the guy who is wanting one (he's never off the phone!).

Will now focus on the GO940 - still think it's going to be difficult to justify the £95 a year for the updates!

My HTC TyTn II sync’d perfectly and never had a single issue with the 940 (I think it’s now the 950). As for the updates, I think they work out at about £70 per year if you buy them in a lump. That includes the sim card stuff and camera data base, but not free map upgrades. you do get one free map if memory serves correct and you can join 'map share' which is a free thing that updates your map with other peoples corrections (once verified by TomTom)

Do any of 'em have a built-in camera ?

So you could do you're own "Street-view" type pics for important way-points/destinations ? (You can't have enough pre-warning about the how to avoid accidentally getting on the peripherique in Caen)

Do any have a USB slot ?

I'm thinking camera on a stalk.

Nick

Edited 4 May, 201016 yr by Clunkclick

Do any of 'em have a built-in camera ?

So you could do you're own "Street-view" type pics for important way-points/destinations ? (You can't have enough pre-warning about the how to avoid accidentally getting on the peripherique in Caen)

Do any have a USB slot ?

I'm thinking camera on a stalk.

Nick

IIRC some of the Navman units have a built in camera

I've got the Navigon 4350. Will do all of the above but won't stream music AFAIK.

Navigon 4350

Really nice piece of kit. Loads of functions and add-ons, such as 3d citys and landmarks etc. Voucher in box gives two years of map updates for about £16.00. Any review on the net couldn't praise it highly enough.

Thanks for the helpful info. I think both would be a serious problem for the guy who is wanting one (he's never off the phone!).

Will now focus on the GO940 - still think it's going to be difficult to justify the £95 a year for the updates!

To be honest, if someone intends being on the phone a lot when in the car, a "proper" handsfree kit would probably be a better bet. You get full duplex and sound from the car speakers with a Parrot or Bury system which means you have to concentrate less on hearing the other party and can therefore concentrate more on the road ahead.

I would say that the handsfree function on a Sat Nav is for occasional use or for backup use (when not in your own car) rather than good enough to be the only handsfree kit. I realise other people may disagree with my viewpoint, but unless they have seriously increased the volume from the current range of Sat Nav systems I would imagine your friend would spend half his life straining to hear the other party on the phone conversation..

To be honest, if someone intends being on the phone a lot when in the car, a "proper" handsfree kit would probably be a better bet. You get full duplex and sound from the car speakers with a Parrot or Bury system

Very valid comment, if I may say so. My own satnav was factory fitted and phone operates courtesy of Parrot. I'm sure if you turned it up full volume you could have incoming calls sounding as if they were coming via a very loud pa system!

It seems that the volume (or lack of it) from the sat nav/ bluetooth set-ups is a problem common to many models so it's perhaps time to have a rethink for this particular case.

Knowing the guy's main mileage is a daily commute of around 50 miles, I'm not even sure all the 'live' info, frequent updates etc merits an overall outlay of £250+ in addition to the £75 or so for annual updates.

No matter, I can now give him the very useful comments and opinions from this thread!

Thanks everyone for all the info - much appreciated

Edited 5 May, 201016 yr by westerdam2

Little bit late ,but might be of some use - over on Freeview ,Fifth Gear have had a program on various sat navs ,and it's been repeated over the past few days( like much else on Freeview) - might be worth looking out for .

Edited -the double post bug strikes again - mods please remove .

Edited 7 May, 201016 yr by VWD

Stumbled across this:

http://www.orangeaccessories.co.uk/strabo_satellite_navigation_system.html?txtsrc=snooper

Dunno anything about it - someone on MSE linked to it.

...might be worth a punt at a tenner delivered??

Just ordered one, even if It pants it'll go on the bay

Been using a TomTom Go910 since it came out and always been able to update it to latest software/firmware version to keep it up to date.

These can still be purchased from places like totalpda for approx £99 and you get most of the features you want plus an internal 20gig hdd(16g useable)

and if you dont like the idea of an internal drive you can always replace it with an sd card mod ! :yes:

I have a Tom tom 720T ,brilliant , i have the 4 maps update a year and , cameras which updates every week. The bluetooth is brilliant clear auto answering and reads out your incoming texts! The t part stands for traffic , you plug lead into back and it shows you hold ups on your route and how much delay and alternative route , and it costs nothing, unlike Live. Has western europe map. Bloody good for rural france in the dark with no signposts!

Edited 10 May, 201016 yr by bluvrs2

I have a Tom tom 720T ,brilliant , i have the 4 maps update a year and , cameras which updates every week. The bluetooth is brilliant clear auto answering and reads out your incoming texts! The t part stands for traffic , you plug lead into back and it shows you hold ups on your route and how much delay and alternative route , and it costs nothing, unlike Live. Has western europe map. Bloody good for rural france in the dark with no signposts!

I had a 730T when I last had a Tomtom and my boss has a 720T but we couldn't see any differences in the hardware apart from the colour of the case and once updated his 720 had all the features that my 730 came with out of the box. The one thing we both agreed on however, was the handsfree calling wasn't loud enough. It's fine round town or on a nice smooth tarmac road (I think I found one once in this country ), but generally, once above about 50-60 mph you can't hear the other person... I suppose it's possible I'm deaf, but last time I had my hearing checked it was fine

Also, the text reading depends on the phone, it doesn't work with 3 different Windows Mobile phones or an iPhone, but was fine on an old Nokia I tried. As far as I'm concerned, that's no great loss...

I'm currently using a Navigon 4350max and happy with it. It doesn't have live, but does have the TMC receiver so gets the same traffic updates as your 720T, and I got 2 years of quarterly map updates for £15 +vat which is a bit of a bargain (without the voucher it's £80 for the two years so on a par with TomTom). It has the bluetooth handsfree which works well, but again, it's not loud enough. Not sure if it reads texts, but didn't look as I know the iPhone won't support that feature anyway