Aldi Sat Nav instore again on 17th

v10

HERE
This new technology allows the user to roam freely, without wires, by foot, cycle, car or motorbike. Includes maps of the UK and Ireland on the 256Mb MMC Card, and maps for major roads of Western Europe supplied on one CD-ROM.

Voice output, coloured map and arrow navigation
Satellite supported position sensor with distance indication and distance bars for directional change
3.5" touch screen TFT display with 65,536 colours
Samsung 266MHz processor
Built-in MP3 player
SD-MMC cardreader
Simple menu operation
Route calculation
Acoustic direction guide
3D detail sections
Weight approx. 177g
With huge accessory package: Including USB synchronisation cable, car fixture with suction cap, bike fixture, 12V car charging cable, mains plug, bag, outdoor bag, stereo earphones, memory card, extensive software package, stylus pen

tred

Anyone ever buy this product of aldi before?

sandyg

Yep. Bought it a few months ago. It was €340 then. Great piece of equipment. Found no faults with it.:D

techie_2006

sandyg wrote:

Yep. Bought it a few months ago. It was €340 then. Great piece of equipment. Found no faults with it.:D

Looks the business. Is it better suited for Dublin or is it good all over the country, directions wise?

daveg

Can you add maps to it say for the States? What software does it use? Can you add Tom Tom software and maps to it?

sandyg

You get Ireland and England maps preloaded and some of eu countries. You also get cds with european countries on it which you can just buy a card and load them up. From time to time they will have upgrades which you can buy. Its for all over Ireland not just Dublin.

In the motor section of the boards.ie there is also a thread on these sat nav from the last time they were in Aldi. It may answer some of your questions on it.

techie_2006

Thanks sandyg :-)

dubal

does it say what maps and what version anywhere.

Up until last year anyhow, Dublin was the only place covered with any degree of confidence.

sandyg

If you ring Medion on the number that was enclosed with your navigation they will tell you what updates are available to what version you have. Its about €75 for the cd update.

demosuzki

i have one.

don't find it much use in ireland 'cause the routes are pretty obvious.
it is good in dublin.

i've just been around the english midlands on my own in a car.
nottingham, birmignham etc.
lots of motorway intersections etc.
found it excelent.

my dad has a tom tom 700 and its not much better
but comes with the full western europe maps.
at 549 sterling !!

/ds

sandyg

The medion sat system that is on sale in aldi on Thursday was over €500 in Halfords the last time when i was getting mine.

blahblah06

can you give more details on this lads ?

Eoin

blahblah06 wrote:

can you give more details on this lads ?

From what I can tell, the NavTeq software that runs the mapping is the only one that is remotely useful in Ireland. It is supposed to be good for Dublin, and national roads, but most of the rural areas and regional roads are not included.

The unit itself is actually a PDA that has been changed slightly. You can actually hack it so you can access the Windows CE operating system if you need to. I am not too sure how easy it is to upgrade the maps as this technically comes under the "Portable Navigation Device" rather than "PDA GPS" category, so that could have an effect on whether you can upgrade or not. If you go to the navteq site, there seems to be no option to upgrade, but I could be wrong on this.

I don't think this review is exactly the same model, but it looks close enough.

I am very tempted to get one, but there is no Aldi anywhere near me, and I doubt there will be any left after Thursday morning

demosuzki

eoin_s wrote:

From what I can tell, the NavTeq software that runs the mapping is the only one that is remotely useful in Ireland. It is supposed to be good for Dublin, and national roads, but most of the rural areas and regional roads are not included.

I have one and I'd disagree with this.

There is better but its not bad for rural areas. at least on the ones I've tried.

- my dad has a tom tom 700 for work and it is certainly better for rural areas.
for example we've tested them on new roads in carlow. there is certainly a difference. we were surprised with the tom tom's detail. the aldi one might show the road but the tom tom had the street name.
granted its much more expensive (550 sterling?)

-the aldi one
it is excelent in dublin but not bad on rural towns.
i did a drive up from dingle through carlow to dublin and it didn't miss a beat in limerick or portlaoise which I was checking as we did a little detour

eoin_s wrote:

The unit itself is actually a PDA that has been changed slightly. You can actually hack it so you can access the Windows CE operating system if you need to. I am not too sure how easy it is to upgrade the maps as this technically comes under the "Portable Navigation Device" rather than "PDA GPS" category, so that could have an effect on whether you can upgrade or not. If you go to the navteq site, there seems to be no option to upgrade, but I could be wrong on this.

the maps come on a compact flash card.
new maps can be bought.
my worry is the actual software. it should be upgradable.
my one has the 4.75 (april 2005) software but i can't see how to upgrade to the later 5.x that is out.

eoin_s wrote:

I don't think this review is exactly the same model, but it looks close enough.

its not the same form factor but i think the software looks about right.

eoin_s wrote:

I am very tempted to get one, but there is no Aldi anywhere near me, and I doubt there will be any left after Thursday morning

i missed the last sale in aldi but picked one up afterwards off someone who realised he didn't use it. we'll keep our fingers crossed for you

Eoin

demosuzki wrote:

I have one and I'd disagree with this.

There is better but its not bad for rural areas. at least on the ones I've tried.

- my dad has a tom tom 700 for work and it is certainly better for rural areas.
for example we've tested them on new roads in carlow. there is certainly a difference. we were surprised with the tom tom's detail. the aldi one might show the road but the tom tom had the street name.
granted its much more expensive (550 sterling?)

-the aldi one
it is excelent in dublin but not bad on rural towns.
i did a drive up from dingle through carlow to dublin and it didn't miss a beat in limerick or portlaoise which I was checking as we did a little detour

the maps come on a compact flash card.
new maps can be bought.
my worry is the actual software. it should be upgradable.
my one has the 4.75 (april 2005) software but i can't see how to upgrade to the later 5.x that is out.



its not the same form factor but i think the software looks about right.




i missed the last sale in aldi but picked one up afterwards off someone who realised he didn't use it. we'll keep our fingers crossed for you

Fair enough, the TomTom site shows absolutely no coverage for Ireland, so I thought NavTeq was the only one that would be of any use over here...

That's cool that the maps can be upgraded, the software is supposed to be pretty good so not being able to upgrade that may not be a disaster.

demosuzki

eoin_s wrote:

Fair enough, the TomTom site shows absolutely no coverage for Ireland, so I thought NavTeq was the only one that would be of any use over here...

a friend of mine did an interview for tom tom in amsterdam.
they said that they didn't want to claim 'ireland'
when they thought it was still lacking in at least 10% of the country.
and hinted that they are working a deal with a better map source.
i'd say that tom tom could be viewed as the 'professional option'

eoin_s wrote:

That's cool that the maps can be upgraded, the software is supposed to be pretty good so not being able to upgrade that may not be a disaster.

it seems fine and i've only noticed it freeze or get confused a couple of times.
one bug is that it seems to switch language now and then.
the interface is in english but the points of interest say things like
"aerporto di dublin" ???!!!

Eoin

demosuzki wrote:

a friend of mine did an interview for tom tom in amsterdam.
they said that they didn't want to claim 'ireland'
when they thought it was still lacking in at least 10% of the country.
and hinted that they are working a deal with a better map source.
i'd say that tom tom could be viewed as the 'professional option'

Apparently we are so far behind Europe in GPS because the OSI price their maps out of the market. I think the government want to change this, and either privatise them, or make the maps more affordable to 3rd parties.

demosuzki wrote:

it seems fine and i've only noticed it freeze or get confused a couple of times.
one bug is that it seems to switch language now and then.
the interface is in english but the points of interest say things like
"aerporto di dublin" ???!!!

That wouldn't bother me, but you were saying that it doesn't have street names for Dublin?

demosuzki

eoin_s wrote:

Apparently we are so far behind Europe in GPS because the OSI price their maps out of the market. I think the government want to change this, and either privatise them, or make the maps more affordable to 3rd parties.

the new 3D/walking maps the OSI have published are impressive.
quite expensive. (90 euro per county ?)

eoin_s wrote:

That wouldn't bother me, but you were saying that it doesn't have street names for Dublin?

it has all the dublin street names as far as I can see

however my parents moved to a new house in carlow about a year ago.
the street is about 3 years old and is just a small line
but with no name on the aldi map.

the tom tom unit had it.

you need names to use the navagation features.

/ds

ozmo

demosuzki wrote:

the new 3D/walking maps the OSI have published are impressive.
quite expensive. (90 euro per county ?)



it has all the dublin street names as far as I can see

however my parents moved to a new house in carlow about a year ago.
the street is about 3 years old and is just a small line
but with no name on the aldi map.

the tom tom unit had it.

you need names to use the navagation features.

/ds

I previously used a Medion Pocket pc with software 4.2 - This version was very good with my house on it and the M50 is complete right the way to Bray. PocketPC also ran TomTom and I had lots of maps for it.

Good - But it wasnt portable - only worked when plugged into car - wires, gps pods etc everywhere.

I got one this week in Aldi - it has Medion software 5.1 on it ... upgrade
but the maps are older eg. the m50 is only complete up to Dundrum.

The maps are easily upgradable - you just replace the ireland.map file on the memory stick using a pc card reader or activesync.

You cannot install software on this - its hackable to get to the desktop,but its not a full WinCE os - missing several dlls, so apparently wont run tom tom for example.

Great device still - works fine & looks really good being totally self contained with no wires.

Navtec were supposed to have completed a whole scan of ireland last January - havent seen the maps yet.

*please contact me if anyone knows of a newer version of ireland maps in .map format (you can tell its recent if Dublin M50 is complete).

Eoin

just noticed this site here: http://www.satnav.ie/contentv3/ (seems to be a branch of merlin motors)

They are now advertising 100% coverage for Ireland with the Garmin StreetPilot units.

podgeandrodge

can anyone confirm which is the best for Ireland then - navteq or Tomtom - anywhere I've read tomtom does not cover ireland but the above posts are very interesting - weird that they would not claim at least partial ireland though?

Anyone know anything about the new Tomtom One?

thanks

trance2004

Have one of these from aldi.
The only fault I found with it -is when travelling from limerick to dublin the sat-nav got lost for a couple of minutes on m50.-otherwise great piece of equipment

podgeandrodge

thanks! can you tell me more - overall how good is the ireland map ? when it lost you on the M50 does that mean it doesnt have the m50 on its map? more more please thanks!

chicken_food

from about firhouse exit to the ballinteer exit- we were/are completely off the map. Its strange. Other than that the navteq one is accurate to about 15ft. Its amazing. Highly recommend it!