I'm about to buy a 2014 Octavia MKIII Elegance how good are the on-board satnav systems?  The new car has one installed - Europe wide and apparently free lifetime updates.  I am an enthusiastic TomTom user and have used a TT for years and its kept me safe and on-track through some fairly involved journeys in many countries.  I wonder at the user friendliness of the on-board system and if it will be able to do all my faithful TT unit can.  I wonder if anyone else that may have used both would have any thoughts as I've never used an on-board satnav system in a car before.

I think the TT is better.

I agree the TT and Garmin have their advantages but the convenience of the satnav option is superb. I find the Amundsen II in my Yeti invaluable.

I also have a 2014 elegance the built in sat nav is fine

I have a Columbus and find the satnav very useful, however, in my previous car, which had no in-built satnav, I had already parked the TomTom in favour of my Android phone running Waze as the maps, traffic and safety cameras were always up to date and free instead of the TomTom wanting me to keep subscribing to keep up to date.

I would say the Columbus (MIB1) SatNav is fairly good compared with others (the BMW system I have is terrible) & at least you are able to update the maps yourself.

Are you sure you get "unlimited" updates because it used to be "3 years" from manufacture date of the car.

 

If it comes free with the car, its fine & functions very well.

Is it worth the 1000gbp upgrade, definately not.

I have MIB1 Amundsen in my 2014 Octavia Elegance, its perfectly decent. Not great at dynamic re-routing but neither was the TomTom I used prior.

I have MIB2 equivalent in a late 2015 (MY16) Golf GTD and bar better screen res and mapping detail functionally its little or no different.

I think id probably pay to have at least Amundsen in an Octavia just for the convenience....Columbus nice as it is, is overkill IMHO.

The built in Columbus is convenient and the large screen is brilliant, however there a are a few things that I don't like about it:

• few updates, and even then not up to date (at least here in Australia)
• no speed camera warning
• no current speed display
• motor way turn guidance images not as good as our Garmin
• no bread crumbs
• I loved the way the Garmin could guess where you were going on regular routes
• POI database is woeful

The most brilliant thing with the on board satnav is how well it work in tunnels. Simply brilliant!

Built-in sat nav is better than some POS stuck to the windscreen however, functionally you won't enjoy it very much if you're used to a TomTom

The most brilliant thing with the on board satnav is how well it work in tunnels. Simply brilliant!

 

Built-in sat navs can typically make use of data from the wheel speed and steering angle sensors to provide pretty accurate dead reckoning for vehicle positioning while the satellite signal is lost.

Built-in sat navs can typically make use of data from the wheel speed and steering angle sensors to provide pretty accurate dead reckoning for vehicle positioning while the satellite signal is lost.

Yep. And it works like charm.

I think Columbus is pretty much as good as you'll get in a built in unit at the moment unless you upgrade to one of the Merc/Audi web integrated ones. I moved from Garmin - which I loved - and while the POI and screen isn't as good, the integration and general routing is pretty decent. I miss being able to programme the unit in the house and then take it out, rather than having impatient wife and kids all going crazy for George Ezra while I try to remember the name of that pub near Sheffield Park.

 

The integration of music, nav and car data can be a pain at times, when my other half decides she has had enough of Abba and then turns the unit off, just as we get to the A205/Westway interchange or something. But otherwise its great and I like the dead reckoning and night screen in tunnels too!

 

Also, if I'm really bother about traffic (bank hols, etc) then I use Waze on an iPad - I think its the best you'll get for traffic guidance and has saved my bacon several times (usually getting across West London when Chelsea home games are on Saturday and everyone is also trying to get to Westfield).

Edited 4 March, 201610 yr by London Les

Amundsen is slow and never any Street data. Poor graphics to even Vauxhalls system is better

Thanks all, I think the sales-person referred the on-board system as a Columbus (though it may have been an Amundsen) - he was the one that said it was unlimited upgrades - it was something I specifically asked about as I have unlimited upgrades on my TT unit - it is already installed in the 2014 Octavia I am buying.  I think the point about being able to do stuff to a satnav in the house is well founded.  If I am driving on the continent and about to do 12+ on the road I do like to spend some time sanity checking routes and sorting out POI info to ensure I am going where I want to rather than where TT thinks is best for me to go - these are not necessarily the same.  I also think TT does the real time traffic thing (I pay the subscription) quite well too - it's got me out of some do-do at times and I am amazed at how accurately it knows where the queues are, I have also grown to like the pictures of the junctions and the lanes needed at motorway turn-offs on the TT.  So I might not dispatch the TT until I am happy with the on-board system - the screen doesn't appear to look as good in the car either and I fancy my Brodit mount puts the satnav at a better angle and closer to see without taking quite so much of a glance away from the road as you would need to do to see the car screen. 

The best thing about the built in sat nav is the turn by turn instructions on the maxi dot display. For me google maps is a better sat nav. I also found the Amundsen unit seems to work better when I've used it in Europe. It was able to navigate me straight to my sisters front door in Amsterdam.

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Edited 4 March, 201610 yr by snowjoe

The best thing about the built in sat nav is the turn by turn instructions on the maxi dot display. For me google maps is a better sat nav. I also found the Amundsen unit seems to work better when I've used it in Europe. It was able to navigate me straight to my sisters front door in Amsterdam.

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Must admit I like the Maxi dot NAV display as well, similar to the Audi's but no supprise there.

 

I hired a few Fabia's with CarPlay and had the iPhones MAPs directing me and would of gone for the same in my Octavia if Amunsden SAT NAV wasn't standard on the vRS ( I know they bumped up the price a bit).

Having had my Scout with he latest Amundsen for 4 whole days and moving over from a Renault with built in tomtom I can honestly say that my reservations have been blown away. It is fast and accurate. The touch screen works well and the turn by turn on the maxidot is just brilliant. I'm very impressed. Now it could be perfr=ect if there was a way of adding speed camera warnings, although I have a tomtom app in my phone for that...

bigiainw - ah, so no ability to add speed cameras - sounds like TT may still be required.  Mind you I'll certainly give the on-board system a try - it will also be a 'nice to know is there' on those occasions where I may have forgotten the TT or the TT is playing up - which they sometimes do esp. as the units get older.

I have MIB Amundsen which came with the car and a TomTom Go Live.

 

While the traffic on the Amundsen is good, it can't match the TT for traffic updates and speed cameras.

 

So much so, that I will be updating my TT to the latest version later this year which will include map, speed and traffic updates for life.

I have Amundsen and I never use it now, prefer to use my iPhone, so much easier to speak into Siri and get reliable directions taking into account very up to date traffic. (This is not a my phone OS is better than yours, I'm sure the Android version is just as good if not better - I don't care :P )

 

For my next car I will not pay extra for Sat Nav.

Do the Skoda systems have the same problem as the SEAT ones where they revert to Germany every now and then. I was travelling to liverpool airport last week and my Leon was convinced it was on a ring road just outside Wolfsburg!

Not seen that in the 8 months I've had mine

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Mine had only one issue in two years. I was in France and the Amundsen was showing the position wrong for few hundred meters.

bigiainw - ah, so no ability to add speed cameras - sounds like TT may still be required.  Mind you I'll certainly give the on-board system a try - it will also be a 'nice to know is there' on those occasions where I may have forgotten the TT or the TT is playing up - which they sometimes do esp. as the units get older.

You can add speed cameras as a custom POI and have them show up on the map.

 

What you can't do is get an alert like you do on the TT.