I have got a Garmin 1690T with NuLink. It's the competitor to TomTom live and I find it pretty good, the only caveat is that NuLink uses TrafficMaster for traffic updates and intelligent re-routing so whilst it works without fault on motorways, the odd A-Road may be missed out.

It's got an SD card slot, does hands free and has google live services built in, all for free covered by NuLink, the NuLink services work in Europe to. It's not a bad unit at all and I really rate it. Comes in Cheaper than the TomTom but the live services as mentioned are traffic master based, not based on the tomtom system where the units are sqawking out their speed / location over the network.

Get's a thumbs up from me, but the TomTom XL Europe Live may be worth a look for you?

The thing about the traffic updates on the TomTom Live models, is they are astonishingly accurate. I currently have a crude TMC on my BMW SatNav and it’s pants. Quite often showing roads as being a problem when they are totally clear. The only thing it does better than the TomTom is it is very quick and obvious in its display when it finds that a road has been closed. The Live system gives ‘time to traffic congestion’ and factors the data into the arrival time. Generally I find over a 200 miles drive the estimated time at the start is never more than 10 minutes out in reality (congestion figures taken into account).

If only car manufactures would install a system based on a Live TomTom :(

If only car manufactures would install a system based on a Live TomTom :([/color]

You are right Amanda, as much as I love my Garmin (Mainly because I can mount it on the bike as well for longer runs) the TomTom live services are superior. The Pious Nav has a combination of TMC and TrafficMaster so does a fair job of it . The other good thing about the Garmin is using the PC / Mac software to plan your route and upload it to the Garmin, I do this for my German bike trips so I make sure I hit each waypoint with something nice to break for. (There are some free apps that allow you to do this to TomTom to now)

The thing I like about the TomTom live service is that it tells you how far ahead the problem is, so you can make the decision to carry on the current route, anticipating that things will clear up by the time you hit the hotspot

It's just so expensive in the grand scheme of things for an already premium product.

As a side note, has anybody used the Google Maps function of uploading destinations to your nav? I use it a lot, just search an address in google maps, then hit the send button and there is an option to send to GPS. On the Garmin it sends it over the air to the 1690 and it's sitting in the favourites folder ....... nice one google.

Thanks again folks for the latest batch of helpful tips and advice

Still looking and I must have read upwards of 200 (!) reviews on about a dozen models. The comments seem to suggest that, despite costing between £200 and £300, many of these devices are not quite as good as implied on the tin. There seems to be compromise and the current difficulty is deciding what to compromise on!

There's also an interesting situation with some outlets offering 'free' Tomtom updates for a year, others 3 months and Halford's now offering half price subscription for 6 or 12 months on certain models.

An additional query. Is it best to have these facia mounted or stuck to the windscreen? If on the windscreen, where is the best line of sight ie in the centre of the screen or down in the right hand corner? Does the charging cable extend to the right hand side or is an extension needed?

Keep the ideas coming!

Here is my old vRoomster mount for my TomTom 940 Live before it got knicked

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/155610-roomster-sat-nav-options/page__view__findpost__p__1927411

I hate having dangly cables

Thanks again folks for the latest batch of helpful tips and advice

Still looking and I must have read upwards of 200 (!) reviews on about a dozen models. The comments seem to suggest that, despite costing between £200 and £300, many of these devices are not quite as good as implied on the tin. There seems to be compromise and the current difficulty is deciding what to compromise on!

There's also an interesting situation with some outlets offering 'free' Tomtom updates for a year, others 3 months and Halford's now offering half price subscription for 6 or 12 months on certain models.

An additional query. Is it best to have these facia mounted or stuck to the windscreen? If on the windscreen, where is the best line of sight ie in the centre of the screen or down in the right hand corner? Does the charging cable extend to the right hand side or is an extension needed?

Keep the ideas coming!

Personal preference for me is dash mounted on or at the top of the centre console. I hate having them on the windscreen and would prefer for it to be illegal looking at where some people place them right in their line of sight

Also, you need to remove the suction munt and clean the windscreen if you want to reduce the risk of the car being broken into by the local criminal fraternity looking for a cheap buck

Brodit mounts are brilliant (if a little pricy) but don't damage the dash. If you're not driving like a hooligan down country lanes then the non-slip dashtop friction mounts aren't too bad either

It's just so expensive in the grand scheme of things for an already premium product.

As a side note, has anybody used the Google Maps function of uploading destinations to your nav? I use it a lot, just search an address in google maps, then hit the send button and there is an option to send to GPS. On the Garmin it sends it over the air to the 1690 and it's sitting in the favourites folder ....... nice one google.

I do about 20K miles a year on business and travel so some pretty far out destinations, so the TomTom is perfect for me and for me at least, I don’t mind paying for the Live services (saved my bacon a couple of times) especially as the last person on site usually gets the worst job to do .

My BMW can do Google maps destinations over the airways, as it has a Sim card built in. Shame my next car (VAG) loses this feature :(

The thing about the traffic updates on the TomTom Live models, is they are astonishingly accurate. I currently have a crude TMC on my BMW SatNav and it’s pants. Quite often showing roads as being a problem when they are totally clear. The only thing it does better than the TomTom is it is very quick and obvious in its display when it finds that a road has been closed. The Live system gives ‘time to traffic congestion’ and factors the data into the arrival time. Generally I find over a 200 miles drive the estimated time at the start is never more than 10 minutes out in reality (congestion figures taken into account).

If only car manufactures would install a system based on a Live TomTom :(

Does anyone know who the provider is for the TomTom live information? I'm fairly sure that iTIS provides the info for the TomTom TMC receiver so would assume that the live services use the same info.

TMC (in the UK) comes from either (RAC) Trafficmaster or iTIS and as long as the TMC receiver has reception (it's main weakness) the information is as accurate as the service that provides the information. I have experienced issues with Live reporting events that are not there too, presumable pointing to the information supplied to it being incorrect....

At the end of the day, the system is only as good as the information it receives and the TMC can be as effective as live. The biggest issue on this is most TMC receivers only check every 15 minutes whereas the TomTom live update check is more frequent (or can be configured to be more frequent at least)

Navigon uses Trafficmaster (and does so for it's higher end version which have a service similar to TomTom live) and seems to be a lot better than when I used my Garmin 660T but whether that is down to a different supplier of information or the fact that I used the Garmin on a regular basis a couple of years ago when the technology was more in it's infancy I don't know. (I believe Garmin use iTIS, although in the past they did supply receivers that used Trafficmaster)

TomTom use Road Angel for cameras and Vodafone for traffic. They track Vodafone mobiles as they move about (triangulation) and so have access to a couple of million traffic ‘informants’. TMC I believe use about 50, 000 units placed in company vehicles like Stobbarts etc. One advantage of the TomTom system is they can accurately cover A roads (no specific information about the Mobile phones is given to them). They also get information from the usual source for road closures etc and you have a button on your unit to report cameras (mobile and fixed) to TomTom for them to add to their data base. In theory within 3 minutes of having a new mobile camera reported and verified, every 'TomTom Live' should get the update directly sent to their unit.

Wonder if I can start a campaign for every vodafone user in the UK to leave their phones at home for a day (on the same day of course)

TomTom are offering a full refund if you buy and register a current TomTom Live before June AND England win the World Cup. The offer is also available in Brazil if you buy your TomTom there, so it might be a better bet to get a cheap flight out there really.

TomTom are offering a full refund if you buy and register a current TomTom Live before June AND England win the World Cup. The offer is also available in Brazil if you buy your TomTom there, so it might be a better bet to get a cheap flight out there really.

Now somat else for Lady E to get a laffat - I've been married abat 40 years , and in that time ,my sat nav has become a sit nag - her indoors gets me there - I hand her a map - tell her where we're gong ,and ,Hey presto - she comes up with a route -

no maintenance - she does it out of love -

Now somat else for Lady E to get a laffat - I've been married abat 40 years , and in that time ,my sat nav has become a sit nag - her indoors gets me there - I hand her a map - tell her where we're gong ,and ,Hey presto - she comes up with a route -

no maintenance - she does it out of love -

Goes to show we can read maps

At least while going North

Tom Tom's speed cameras are some of the worst available as in accuracy, absolutely dire & I most certainly wouldn't pay for them!

If you're considering a new unit then be quick as Tom Tom are stopping the ability to add 3rd Party POI's with a proximity alert, so existing units shouldn't be affected, however the next generation of units WILL!

I've just tried & returned a Garmin 3790T (their latest "Flagship" unit) and this is what I put in that thread:

I've just bought & returned a Garmin 3790T (That's the latest one!) as unfit for purpose.

The reasons being:

1/ POI's - Proximity Alerts - There's a software glitch in this unit which means that if you install a Custom POI & activate it, the unit will promptly deactivate it & no matter what you try they will NOT stay activated, so precludes the use of your own speedcam & other personal POI proximity alerts.

2/ Start up - Slow & you'll have to deal with all of the copyright junk & keep pressing OK each time.

3/ Satellite acquisition - I tried it on a warm sunny day, with not a cloud in the sky & it took 15-20 mins to get a satellite lock, it wasn't much better when I restarted it a 2nd & 3rd time later, it still took a good 5 mins then.

4/ Software update - You'll need a good fast ADSL connection, it updates all of the firmware/software/voices etc, I've been told the update is somewhere in the region of 3Gb, so it maybe an overnight chore.

5/ Car power cable - It's thick & unwieldy, it also has a receiver unit (non removable) + wire connection for traffic updates, so unless you like a thick (wide) wire across your dash, then forget it.

6/ Fingerprints - It's a fingerprint magnet, you'll always be cleaning it!!!

7/ No case - You'll need to buy a travel case for it, it doesn't come with one.

8/ No Mains Charger, You'll need to buy one!

All in all it's damned expensive, unreliable & utterly useless. [/quote

So make of that what you will.

Tom Tom are still offering their 12 months worth of "Live" services for free, which may seem tempting, but if the speed cameras are part of it then I'd rather not bother, as I have my own subscription to speed camera alerts which are superior to TT's, so much so that 3 road atlas publishers (Phillips, Collins & A-Z) have decided to use them in their paper road atlases for 2011!

Who is it? None other than: http://www.pocketgpsworld.com £20 for a bi-weekly UK/ROI, EU, US & AUS update.

TomTom use Road Angels camera database. I have found it pretty good. Not perfect, but as good as any other system I have used.

Being quite honestly blatant in saying in over forty years ,I've never needed one ,and in the past almost forty years I've had the perfect system - a "JUD JUD2 -after mrs( My Sit Nag) . We've done over a million miles on the UK network ,and if i hand her a map and give a rough location , she soon works out our location . Detours -a piece of cake .Begrudgingly, I'd have to say that any sat nav should be programmed with female characteristics .But I wont be buying one( except as a present for our daughter ,who has not got wife's sense of direction)