Garmin or Tomtom?

netman

I can't make up my mind, I'm in a market for a GPS having used one recently, and I'm going to Germany for a year and plan to do a lot of travelling. Mainly exploring the neighbouring countries and making a couple of trips over to Croatia.

I've narrowed my choice down to two manufacturers, based on the maturity of their products and the user feedback: Tomtom and Garmin.

I'm looking for a device with:
- Full european coverage
- A nice clean mature interface
- Eastern Europe a bonus (Croatia, Slovenia)
- Ideally something that I can use when I come back to Ireland, so decent Irish maps a bonus. Major roads and cities are fine, I don't travel much in Ireland.

I've heard of Tomtom issues with maps of Ireland. If I use it here it would be only for major cities. From what I could gather it doesn't have maps of eastern europe but has a better interface.

Garmin seems to fit my map requirements perfectly but I've heard that the interface is slow and cartoony. (latter doesnt bother me that much).

Bluetooth, traffic updates, speed camera locations etc are all nice features but I doubt I'd use them and I can really live without them

Money isn't an important factor in my choice, I'd rather spend 400-500 euro on a device that I'm happy with rather than spending 300 euro on a device that doesn't do the job. And vice-versa, I'd rather pay 300 euro for a device that does all I need, rather than spend 500 on something that has extra features I don't use

After checking the prices it seems that Tomtom Go 910 is the best value for money, with the full-warranty refurbished units going for around 350 euro on ebay, 390 on Komplett. It has maps of US which I'll never use, dubious coverage of Ireland and it's a hard-disk device, so I figure it's more prone to failures.

I've narrowed my choice down to Tomtom Go 910, Garmin 250W and Garmin 660. There's also Tomtom Go 720 coming out in a few weeks that would fit the bill. I'm heading off to Germany in September, so I could wait and get the 720.

Any suggestions or advice to put me out of my misery?

At the moment I'm leaning more towards Tomtoms, one fellow boardsie spoke very highly of a Tomtom One device.

sharkman

Tomtom Go 910

dak

I bought the Garmin 660fm after my 300 nuvi was stolen in Spain. I find the widescreen much better and the bluetooth for the phone is excellent. Maps are good. I drove in Spain a month ago with no difficulty! Couldn't fault it really. Size is good - still fits in the shirt pocket !