sat navs

madharry

hi all
anybody have a sat navigation in there camper if so
do you recommend one ,if so which one is best or are all the same and do they all have the continent of europe on them .Thanks

peasant

I've got a route 66 Chicago with the Irish/UK map only
http://www.66.com/route66/products.php?cid=IE&sec=2&ssec=0&prodid=3403

I find it great to help me thread my way through the maze of borreens to some secluded beach that looked good on the map.
Nice big display, good software, good mapping (except for the very latest newly built roads), very fast route calculations.

Not really necessary, but nice to have

This version also comes with a basic Europe map that covers all the main arteries, but if you travel to the continent often (I don't) you could get the next version up.

stapeler

I use a navman bluetooth receiver with a HP Ipaq pda running TomTom, Reliable and easy to use. I also use the Navman receiver with my laptop running Autoroute 2007. This allows me to plot and follow a route, print directions etc. Autoroute maps are very good throughout Europe.

A lot of the SatNav kits come with UK/Ireland preloaded and there can be an additional charge for the European maps.

A couple of years ago I used Navman sortware and didn't particulary like it. The country maps had to be purchased seperately and I got caught out on the outskirts Paris when the map ran out as Paris was a seperate map.

KoNiT

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/658407/art/takara/gp10-gps-europe.html

I've this one, bought it @165, its come right down, one problem is you can't start a route by entering gps co-ords. But for the money, it points you in the direction & sends you down the right road, has all the "booreens" (spelling) too, due to the navteq maps, better detail.

Mine landed with europe general map loaded which was OK & then you load up via PC & the supplied dvd the UK & irish maps, there's room on the SD card to fit a few maps, eg france, germany, etc.

niceirishfella

I have "navig8" software working on my Blackberry -
very good mapping - very handy......and the detail in the rural mapping of ireland is impressive.

works a treat.

chrisblack

I've just got a garmin nuvi 250w (the widescreen version)- pretty basic, no bluetooth etc.. but does the job... I'm using it for work etc... It has navteq city navigator 2008 NT maps, ireland, uk and europe.. pretty good coverage of the back roads here in west cork.

Bought it from the UK £133...- http://www.handtec.co.uk/section.php/23/1/garmin-sat-nav/352828c73a35efb460b50be6ec690a4f

niceirishfella

chrisblack wrote: »

I've just got a garmin nuvi 250w (the widescreen version)- pretty basic, no bluetooth etc.. but does the job... I'm using it for work etc... It has navteq city navigator 2008 NT maps, ireland, uk and europe.. pretty good coverage of the back roads here in west cork.

Bought it from the UK £133...- http://www.handtec.co.uk/section.php/23/1/garmin-sat-nav/352828c73a35efb460b50be6ec690a4f

hmmmm, nice looking gps.......liking the widescreen and the price.:D

*Kol*

I bought a garmuin 360t. Handy for handsfree calling via bluetooth in the MH. Great battery life too.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=334043

sandyg

We use the Tom Tom 910 and found it great travelling around France/Switzerland/England and Ireland. It will even read out any text messages received!! Before that we had the garmin 2610. Would recommend either Tom Tom or any Garmin unit.:D

dowtchaboy

I got a Garmin 250W last week in Germany for €199 on my way home with just-purchased camper. It had v9 maps but Garmin will (soon?!) ship the NT 2008 maps on DVD for loading onto the unit, they have confirmed.
The 250W is excellent though it occasionally decided it couldn't see any satellites for 20 minutes or more on startup even if just turned off a few minutes earlier. That problem may have gone away now that I have updated the firmware (not the maps).

For Ireland you really do need the Navteq NT2008 maps, and definitely not the Teleatlas ones in TomTom especially outside Dublin. Even in Dublin the V9 mapping and the lousy signage in the Port sent me down that Port Tunnel when I actually wanted to go over the Eastlink Bridge and South - thats €6 and an hour of my life gone.....
Unfortunately there's nothing on the outside of the box that will tell you if V9 or NT2008 map are installed.

The 250W has only one voice (female) but she's OK, and entering addresses especially in UK if you don't know the post code is awkward, but I'd still chose Garmin over TomTom.

By the way - the nuvi 670 with all the bells and whistles and European maps was on sale in one shop for 280 in Germany last week - this has an external antenna connector which could be useful for a camper - the 200 series do not, alas, nor do they have trackback/breadcrumbs facility so you can't record where you have been.

db.

sandyg

Because of the overhead on the cab of our motorhome (coachbuilt) we were unable to get a good signal on the Garmin. We purchased Remote Antenna (purchase it on ebay for about €5) and stuck it to the front of the motorhome. Worked perfectly after that!! Easy enough to update maps via CD and their website.

chrisblack

Just one downside to the nuvi 250w (for me) - the 12v car adaptor is too long to fit into my cigarette lighter socket in the van... so I have to run it on its own battery in the van (4 hours is the suggetsted life)... Just be wary of that.

Chris

peasant

Chris

surely there must be an adapter / replacement plug somewhere out there to fix that "problem" ?

*Kol*

chrisblack wrote: »

Just one downside to the nuvi 250w (for me) - the 12v car adaptor is too long to fit into my cigarette lighter socket in the van... so I have to run it on its own battery in the van (4 hours is the suggetsted life)... Just be wary of that.

Chris

Too long? Is it sticking out of the socket too far?

dowtchaboy

thanks sandyg.
I was wondering about these gadgets - think there are some to compensate for those windscreens with metallic coating too? While I have found the nuvi 250W impressive (the sirfIII chips in these are reckoned to be way better than older Garmins) I do expect that having an antenna up high, preferably on the plane of the camper roof, would be best of all.

I had a look on ebay but couldn't find anything - every one I could find required an antenna connector on the Garmin - and the 200 series left this out.

db.

sandyg

You should give garmin support a ring http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/support/supportcontact

Thats how i found out about the antenna for ours. Ours sits on the bonnet on a magnet.

*Kol*

sandyg wrote: »

You should give garmin support a ring http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/support/supportcontact

Thats how i found out about the antenna for ours. Ours sits on the bonnet on a magnet.

I have used mine in the MH and have had no problems getting a signal even though the alcove overhangs the cab by quite a bit.

chrisblack

*Kol* wrote: »

Too long? Is it sticking out of the socket too far?

Yeah it sticks out too far and falls out... no matter what i do - short of some gaffa tape - I can't make it stay in..

Chris

*Kol*

chrisblack wrote: »

Yeah it sticks out too far and falls out... no matter what i do - short of some gaffa tape - I can't make it stay in..

Chris

Get a doubler adapter. They are normally quite a snug fit when you plug a phone charger/sat nav into them. Plus the plug on them that will go into your lighter socket should be fairly short and not fall out.

I don't understand why things that plug into cigarette lighter sockets are such a loose fit. I don't know how many times i have plugged in a phone charger only to look down after a while to see the light on it has gone out and the phone is not charging due to loose fit.:mad:

chrisblack

Kol - can you point me in the direction of one???

Thanks

Malta1

Lidl doing a multi connection 12V connection next monday for 6 quid. Surely one of these connections would fit the sat nav??

http://www.lidl.ie/IE/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20080225.p.InCarMobilePhoneCharger

madharry

Thanks all loads of info here i see lidl have the sat nav for sale next week does any body recommend they look quite good ,but this is definatly not my ares so i need all the help i can get Thanks all once again

sandyg

I wouldnt say it would work with the phone charger. Aldi/Lidl had (some time ago) 12v extension sockets - Cigarette Lighter Plug

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320219565380&ih=011&category=76066&ssPageName=STORE:PROMOBOX:NEWLIST

That it what u should be looking for!!:D

I would go to Halfords or somewhere like that for the sat nav. Weve bought the Aldi ones before and found it useless (especially when it comes to upgrading the maps). Safer buying either tom tom, garmin or any other popular makes that give u upgrades easily enough. You can buy one in halfords/maplins now for about €200 for a good one.

chrisblack

sandyg wrote: »

I wouldnt say it would work with the phone charger. Aldi/Lidl had (some time ago) 12v extension sockets - Cigarette Lighter Plug

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320219565380&ih=011&category=76066&ssPageName=STORE:PROMOBOX:NEWLIST

That it what u should be looking for!!:D

.

That looks good - as long as I don't have the same issue of the plug being too long and falling out.

Chris

*Kol*

chrisblack wrote: »

That looks good - as long as I don't have the same issue of the plug being too long and falling out.

Chris

That's exactly the one I was thinking of. I was thinking of wiring one of those up to the leisure battery for powering the TV and DVD player on 12V when we are parked up and not hooked up to 220V.

stapeler

I'm not sure if the Lidl phone adapter will give sufficient current output.
As reguards the extension adaptors, I picked up one for about €5 in a service station while travelling in France, all the shops seem have them. On the plug it had the wee spacer that allows it to fit in the smaller 12v sockets. If mounting one I'd suggest mounting it face fown to prevent coins ets falling into it and blowing a fuse...

ASTRACLUB

all right, here is my 2 cents.
Was going to France/Italy from 12-25th Feb on Motor homes so decided to buy a GPS as renting of GPS from Dublin shop was coming as €10/day. You dont really need GPS in Ireland but for EU,yes you need one. So, went to do a small spin to Blanch shopp and been to all --Maplin, Currys, Dixons, Harvey Norman, PC world, Peats, Argos and DID and Atlantic. After 1 hour, found that Garmin 250w was the choice to be, Maplin has some via-michellin but the looks is horrible. Here is a bit of pricing from shop
Dixons/Currys/PC world: all selling for €299.50
Maplin: did not have the 250W.
Harvey: Living in some other world, selling for €303
Now, i dont like peats as such but just went in to see the price and the fella told me €249!! What...i could not believe it...249 damn good price. Meanwhile almost all shop customer reps were useless and they have no clue of what customer wants and in my view 80% of them should be fired from shop..anyway, thats my own opinon and not necessoraliy be all. But this guy from Peats was sound and straight on the point, within 5 minutes he explained all the features and i got convinced and told him that will come back in next 5 min. So, went to Dixons so called price match policy, Dixons shop is only 3 shops ahead of peats in blanch. Explained the person in shop and asked whats thet price difference matching, He told me that difference +10%, i said wow, but he priced me €245 (Price difference + 5 as 10% of the difference price)....Anyway, asked him to bring one and he dis-appeared for 10minutes to bring it from stores, after 10 minutes, he started to print the 3 page invoice, suddenly the manager asked him to wait so that he could check with peats, at this time, i had enough, i slammed the guy and manager as why the hell they could not walk 10 meters to peats to check the price before and only doubting a customer. so i refused to buy and went back to Peats and bought one from there. Nice peice, worked well, full Europe map already loaded. came back and started preparing for my Europe tour on Motorhome. Next day, my friend (was also coming with me with extra motorhome on same route) wanted to buy but due to late evening, we went to Argos and 250w was not in stock, however we found that SONY had few in argos, so check one, The model U93 was a sexy looking peice with sony and a great product. It was for sale for €333 but wasn't there in navan argos. so next day i went to Peats again and return the Garmin250w (it did not have blue tooth) and bought SonyU93 for €369.
Next day flew to Nice and collected Motorhome from AVIS
From Nice drove on this route:
Nicec-Monaco-Ventimiglia-Lake Garda-Venice-Florance-Roma-Pisa-Nice
Excellent tour for 10 days and an excellent GPS. The we took train to Paris and used same Sony GPS in Paris-Disneyland-Beauvius and it just worked fine.
I recommend this to all as it has been tested in all small street of rome, florance, venice, paris, nice, and Italy. Great buy and it has blue tooth also.
As Chrisblack has some issue with car charger, the sony GPS car charger worked very well in Motorhome, car, train, by foot, everywhere and above all its 4.8 inch screen and sleek and sexy and all europe map is pre-loaded. Just for info that i dont think it takes GPS cordinator as entry but yes, it shows the GPS cordinators setting of current location. It took less than 2 minutes to reach a seatalite even in fard beachy locations of venice.
Great set, i love it..
www.peats.ie and look for Sony NV-U93TW
argos link: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/0390301/Trail/C%24cip%3D1500011159.Garden%2C%2BDIY%2Band%2Bleisure%3EC%24cip%3D1500011295.Sat%2Bnav%2Band%2Balert%2Bsystems%3EC%24cip%3D1500013201.Satellite%2Bnavigation.htm

i have heard that it may be cheaper by 60 euro in Newry or NI dixons but did not have time to drive. worth looking for
let me know if anyone need any help or suggestions on motorhoming in france-italy
Made my decision for life:::: will never buy anything from Dixons
bye

dowtchaboy

I'm impressed with my Garmin nuvi 250W, especially now that they sent me the NT2008 mapping update (the data is probably from late 2006 though - alas that's an unfixable problem with ANY GPS unit - the mapping data will always be at least a year out of date). However - specific to Womo/Campervan/MotorHome useage - this unit, and all the nuvi 2xx series, have some disadvantages that might be worth considering:

No external antenna connector - that might be a problem if you have a lot of metal above and behind you. There may be solutions to this eg remote or reradiating antenna.

No choice of vehicle type - i.e. it does NOT have a truck setting so it could conceivably send you under a low bridge.

No NMEA output - Garmin seem to be dropping this for all their lower-cost units - so you can't feed your position into a laptop or whatever (for tracking your route or say wardriving purposes) - so far I haven't found any way of using the USB connector for this.

No "breadcrumb" or tracking facility - i.e. you cannot say "take me back the way I came" or make it learn a better route you have come up with - it will always try to get you to follow what it thinks is the "best" route. You CAN mark a position as a waypoint of course so you can find your way back there, and you can save these to your PC later on. You can't have this happen automatically and for fun/anorak reasons or to bore your friends play back "great routes I have travelled" at some later date!

Many or most of these disadvantages will apply to other low-cost units of course - I am dead impressed with the nuvi 250W and would recommend it, but be aware of the downsides.

db.

Hagar

Excellent reviews guys, really helpful.

A couple of questions though:

Can you change the language on units bought in France to English?
If you can, do both the voice and screen messages change? Thanks.
I know some advertise radar trap warnings, are they static radar traps on the map or more like a radar detector?
How do you get map updates? Buy a CD or download from web?

dowtchaboy

Hagar wrote: »

Excellent reviews guys, really helpful.

A couple of questions though:

Can you change the language on units bought in France to English?
If you can, do both the voice and screen messages change?

yes, yes and yes! (at least on my nuvi...) However - the entire menu changes to your language choice so if you, for fun, pick Czeck or even something with strange characters like Arabic or Japanese or something make sure you remember how to get back to the language selection menu later on - it will be in Czeck or.....! Otherwise you may have to do a hard reset.

Thanks.
I know some advertise radar trap warnings, are they static radar traps on the map or more like a radar detector?

AFAIK it's a collection of stuff sent in by users - sometimes you pay for it (search GPS forum http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=889 for info). In UK it is the published position of cameras plus known police patrol car ramps and feedback of known likely spots from users. In Ireland the law is different and it's more anecdotal. The big get-around is that it's NOT a "detector", it's a ummmm safety warning or something.

How do you get map updates? Buy a CD or download from web?

For Garmin you get free updates within a certain period - but it's only if you buy a stale unit with mapping that is older than what they are shipping at present - you don't get "upgrades for a year" or anything.

They are way too big to download - NT2008 was 5G - wouldn't even fit on a normal single layer recordable DVD. So they post out DVDs, or you can load up from a mate's BUT you will need an unlock code supplied by Garmin - and that's what you pay for, unless they give you one as a freebie. I guess TomTom is the same and some others - there is some question as to whether the lesser known brands, and say the LIDL/ALDI specials will have update facilities. You can't just get the maps from Navteq or TeleAtlas and load them on to GPS units.

Search the GPS forum on boards.ie - the Garmin and others map update issue has been discussed MANY times!
hope this helps - db.

Hagar

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Search the GPS forum on boards.ie - the Garmin and others map update issue has been discussed MANY times!
hope this helps - db.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.
[noob mistake]I'll check out the search before I ask anything else[/noob mistake]

ASTRACLUB

Hager
answer to yor questions
Yes, Sony has all of it and you could even download more language from site (There are 37 langauage preloaded at the moment)

dowtchaboy, i agree 250w is one of the best and actually it was my choice also and i could not found a negative thing in it and thats why i bought it, though when i saw SONY, i just fell in love with the shape and overall features. The blue tooth features and calling directly from the map was the best (For example, you find a garage on map, you can dial it directly)
Also, Sony has 5 settings for route (Standard car, Truck, long car, foot, bike) so it will tell you the desired route.
the maps as you have already mentioned are already 1 year old and that is understandable. For example, my map does not recognise the new bridge in front of ardboyne hotel in Navan :-)So i think both set are OKAY and its upto an individual to buy as per the need,
I would recommend both 250W and Sony U93
but my recommendation, Please see both hand to hand in Argos or Peats before buy,,,must se before buy...

I have tested mine and all harsh Europe conditions and very happy with it, i actually checked it in Venice Ferry also and it worked for water ways too :-)

For radar i have got a TMC wire and 1 year free updates, i have not touched it yet, will check it tomorrow and let you know. Also i have not used anything from box yet, all was pre-loaded and i just went Europe with it.

ASTRACLUB

Just found this even cheaper €338 at pixmania
http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/648976/art/sony/nv-u93-gps-europe.html

and a new one from Blaupunkt
http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/575654/art/blaupunkt/lucca-5-2-gps-europe.html#fichetechnique it seems cool too as plays MP3 and video also

dowtchaboy

ASTRACLUB wrote: »

I have tested mine and all harsh Europe conditions and very happy with it, i actually checked it in Venice Ferry also and it worked for water ways too :-)

Cool! Wonder how they mapped the Venice waterways, and did they set a wide/non-aggressive "rubberband" for them?
On the subject of water - one possible avenue I am exploring is to see if marine navaids can be "obtained" from somewhere and downloaded to nuvi's - this would make them even more useful to me (and other impoverished ummmm... sailing folk - not "yachties" - they already have every GPS goodie known to Man).
db.

dowtchaboy

Hagar wrote: »

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.
[noob mistake]I'll check out the search before I ask anything else[/noob mistake]

Sorry Hagar - I didn't mean to sound like a d**khead there - if you had asked those same questions in the GPS Forum, well then there might have been a reason point out how MANY times etc., but all I meant was to let you know that (a) there is a forum dedicated to GPS and (b) that the Garmin map update question gets a lot of coverage there. db.

Hagar

No apology necessary. I look in on this forum all the time as I'm interested to see what boardies might be down my way as I live in southern France. It never even occurred to me to look for a GPS forum I just jumped into the topic without thinking. I've been looking at various units for a while now but all the technical info is in French and I'm afraid that I might misinterpret something and end up spending my cash on the wrong thing. For instance this week they have Silvercrest units in Lidl for €179. I know Silvercrest is fine for DVD players etc but they are a bit of an unknown to me otherwise. I know of the Garmin and TomTom brands and I have absolute faith in anything Sony has ever produced. It's a minefield and I'm really appreciative for the helpful posts.

ASTRACLUB

my advise:--
Never buy GPS from Lidl or ALDI,
Good to see this thread with so positive information.
Waiting for more positive information.