What road biased SAT-Nav are you using?

[sae70]

Since becoming a Community First Responder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_first_responder my poor old Road Angel Adventurer has let me down alot Not so great when your looking for an 8min response time from call origin to being with the casualty My good old faithful Road Angel is excellent at navigating me 200+ miles from point A to point B with fair accuracy and a pretty accurate estimation of arrival time and the Memory Map feature has been faultless with its OS maps when off-road and laning But when used in my own local town to navigate to a certain address with good accuracy I'm affraid she is woefully poor at this and has cost me and the unwell alot of what I feel to be unessesary wasted time from pulling me up to short or in a road parallel to my desired destination or taking me down a dead end that was once a through road I'm sure that alot of this could be cured with the latest update of mapping info as I've never updated my poor old Road Angel But I've been having a look around at new Sat-Nav's and they are offering some pretty interesting features and as I'm going to be buying an iPad3 when they are released around Easter and using this for my off-road Memory Map navigation all I desire from a road biased Sat-Nav is excellent, precise destination location If such a thing exists

The one thats caught my eye is the TomTom Via 125 http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165685 with Bluetooth hands free and Voice command and control Or is it I'd be interested in hearing from anyone thats used the Voice command and control on the TomTom Sat-Navs, is it any good, does it work well

Another one that has caught my eye is the Garmin Nuvi 1490LMT http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... 65685#dtab This looks as though its pretty much the same spec as the TomTom but without the Voice command and control (that I really do like the idea of) but does come with FREE Lifetime map updates and Traffic information The only thing that concerns me about the Garmin is how good the mapping will be for accurate local guidance

WHY and why?

 

[Paul]

I've always had Tomtom and been very impressed with them even in places like America and Australia, just change the maps and go.
That is until i replaced mine recently, i always buy the best one they do and let it run for a few years, works out at quite a good price but the last one was not too good. Mapping was as usual, but things like recalculating routes when you have to go a different way is very slow, and the new map corrections software they have added downloaded lots of road updates including removing part of the M1, M42, M6 and detouring you a very long way round. Can take a very long time to find a signal, especially when getting off a ferry or tunnel, which is generally when you need it quickly.
I still also have my tomtom rider for use on the motorbike that i have had for a couple of years and it outperforms the newest tomtom easily so now i have that in the car. Dont know why it is so much better, but much faster and finds signal in seconds even on a cold start.
I am looking with interest at the new Truckmate that Tobyjug sells. Its really for trucks but has a car setting, he has told me there is now a new software that makes it very good, large screen too which might be helpful if trying to find somewhere in a hurry.

 

[TonyP]

I have a GArmin Zumo (Waterproof Nuvi) that I use on the bike and in the car. IT has been faultless and always gets me to my destination, even in Russia it was spot on.

However it is a bit quirky...... I generally plan my routes using the Garmin PC app (Mempry Map) and then push these to the Zumo, and it then faithfully follows the planned route, however if I set the destination on the Zumo itself, it will sometimes for no reason route me off the motorway and down some A and B roads....

WOuld I buy another Garmin product... yes I would, but I guess folk who hav e TomTom's would also say the same....

To be honest I think all the manufacturers have been adding so m any extras to the devices that this can make them a bit quirky

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

My Garmin chooses some very strange routes, like coming off the motorway for a junction, or down some back street to cut a corner that's more trouble than it's worth! Haven't had that sort of problem with Navigator 11 yet which lets you assign preferences and average speeds for lots of different road types.

 

[Chas]

I started off with a Road Angel because IIRC it was the first one to provide speed camera warnings, I later changed to a TomTom that but was so annoying in it's routing (I remember once coming from Bournemouth to London and it was telling me to exit from EVERY junction I came to on the motorway, even though I tried changing the settings from shortest to quickest route)
So I then got a Garmin Nuvi 5000 which has been perfect . . . . . . . until a few days ago that is, after I updated the European maps it doesn't seem to know where it is, it shows me as being NEAR where I actually am but not on the correct road, but at the same time it knows EXACTLY where the speed cameras are, so if it knows the position of the cameras why doesn't it know what road I'm on

 

[fridayman]

I have a tomtom with iq routes that is pretty good except the battery is rubbish (it has to be plugged in). I have now downloaded the tomtom app onto my iPhone and very happy with it. Will also be loading it on the iPad as well as Memory Map.

 

[sae70]

Mmmmmmm This seems to be a very subjective subject...............I guess what I need to establish is which manufacturer offers the riches maps with a full post code location as my main objective is good/excellent individual address location in my local area and I'm not so interested in whats going on 50 miles away from me or points of interest etc.

So still nun the wiser then

What I have found out is that the free lifetime map and traffic info offer made by Garmin for some of thier models is only for the lifetime of the model as offered by them and the one that I was looking at above has just been discontinued although it's still available in the shops, so I assume it want be long before they no longer offer free lifetime map upgrade etc Unless anyone knows any different

 

[Paul]

Tomtom was the same even with the paid for updates, when the unit was a couple of years old it gave a message that updates were no longer available for that model.

 

[Paul_Humphreys]

Tomtom was the same even with the paid for updates, when the unit was a couple of years old it gave a message that updates were no longer available for that model.

Try http://gpsunderground.com for the latest updats

Paul

 

[Ecoman]

I have an old TomTom Rider Mk1. Takes some abuse and is completely waterproof. It has no speaker on it, so no monotone voice to annoy me with but if I want spoken directions I connect it to a bluetooth headset or visor mounted speaker. I have updated all the maps and sofware along the way and it hardly gives me an ounce of bother. Although as with all satnavs I have used it does tend to send you in some odd directions at times. It once took me off the motorway, around the block and back on at the same junction...wouldn't have been bad but it was in the centre of Glasgow so not that picturesque

 

[SimonD]

If you have a Best Buy near you get down and take a look as they have Garmins at almost half price in some models as they are shutting down in the UK. The Croydon branch (A23) shuts on Jan 15th and they are even selling the fittings. The locals are concentrating on the TVs and stereos but the Garmin section looked like it had stock yesterday.

 

[sae70]

Well I took the plunge yesterday in Halfords after speaking to a couple of very knowledgeable lads

Went in to buy a TomTom Go 820 and came out with a Garmin NuVi 1490LMT for many reasons but the main one being that when you go to the enter a postcode the page that the numbers and letters are on is the same page so you don't have to keep scrolling between pages to enter address information as you do with a TomTom It was also a good price and has the Lifetime Free Maps and Traffic, Bluetooth hands free, 5" screen and it's black the same as the interior in my Passat

I'll let you know how I get on with it, but so far I'm very impressed. I spent an hour or so last night driving around my local town entering destinations from one end of town to the other with house numbers and even driving in the opposite direction than the thing was trying to take me and it pulled me up right next to the correct numbered house each time and even told me what side of the road it would be on in relation to my direction of travel