the best sat nav

eurotrotter

hey guys
just moved to dublin, from cork
looking for a good sat nav, thats good for all of europe,
i will be travelling back from england next weekend, goin over buying a car and driving it from glasgow down to pembroke id say.
so will need a good sat nav to tell me where to go!
thanks for the help,
Ed

xt40

the key with satnavs is frequency and cost of map updates. ive a magellan which is a great unit but the maps are rarely updated and cost loads. even when i bought it, they were out of date.

Anan1

I use a Garmin Nuvi 660, can't fault it. I don't know what your budget is, but there's a new model - the 860, I think it is - that i'd go for if I were buying one now.

Bluefoam

I would highly recommend Tom Tom, I have a 720 & it is far superior to my previous Garmin.
Also Tom Tom own the mapping company, so it is less expensive to update & they also offer free updates...

faceman

I have a TomTom and I have also used a Garmin. In my opinion the TomTom is much easier to use and better. That being said, Garmin seems to be able to spot short cuts at ease.

However TomTom has a good online facility, offering free MapShare Correction downloads, and GPS fixes.

I have the TomTom One XL

eurotrotter

my budget is 200- absolute mac price though!
wat price are theones ye've been mentioning ?

faceman

eurotrotter wrote: »

my budget is 200- absolute mac price though!
wat price are theones ye've been mentioning ?

You can get the basic Garmin or TomTom for less than 200. It just covers uk and ireland.

Bluefoam

Go in to Halfords, they generally have the best prices. €200 will just about get you European mapping...

http://www.tomtom.com/products/category.php?ID=0&Language=1

martinr5232

Argos have cheap sat navs.

Lex Luthor

faceman wrote: »

I have a TomTom and I have also used a Garmin. In my opinion the TomTom is much easier to use and better. That being said, Garmin seems to be able to spot short cuts at ease.

However TomTom has a good online facility, offering free MapShare Correction downloads, and GPS fixes.

I have the TomTom One XL

have to say I agree here...I found the TT much easier to use.

I also have a TT One but not the XL version. I don't think its worth the extra few quid for the widescreen but up to you

PixelTrawler

No contest

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/09/knight_rider_satnav_confirmed/

Even has the voice of William Daniels

dark_prince

I bought a Garmin Nuvi 250w (circa €170/180) and am very happy with my purchase so far - it's taken me roads I never even knew existed and bought something off Elara and with their GPS co-ordinates delivered me straight to their door without going in a big circle to get there (as I generally tended to do!). Can't fault it, includes UK maps.

Cionád

dark_prince wrote: »

I bought a Garmin Nuvi 250w (circa €170/180) and am very happy with my purchase so far - it's taken me roads I never even knew existed and bought something off Elara and with their GPS co-ordinates delivered me straight to their door without going in a big circle to get there (as I generally tended to do!). Can't fault it, includes UK maps.

Had a loan of this one when I went to France, nice piece of kit, great for diversions and speed camera warnings.
Speed camera warnings don't apply to Ireland, but in France there are thousands of them now. Even warns for mobile camera zones.

It's also good for finding stuff like shopping centres/petrol stations and the likes.

Have not used any other satnav so can't gauge it against anything else, but it did the trick.

cyclopath2001

I've used TomTom all over Britain (on Windows Mobile 6). Ease of use is good and maps were pretty accurate for all the odd places I visited with the exception of Glasgow where everything seemed 100m out. Also, some of the fuel stations it indicated were derelict. It's a good system for easy-to-use point-to-point but not as eay as CoPilot for planning and saving intricate routes where you might want to pick a village to pass through. Another gripe is that it mostly tells you the road numbers you'll be using and not the places you'll be passing through.

One one occasion, the motorway ahead of me was closed due to a FTAC and police were still too busy with urgent stuff to put on fully signed diversions. I found it easier to re-plan by atlas than trust TomTom, but maybe it's just a matter of experience.

In Ireland, TomTom's still a few years behind on new developments and even tried to send me down a well-established one-way street in Clonakilty.

Whatever you buy, get an atlas too for backup. Oh, and check out if there are alternative voice files to add fun to the directions.

G-Money

I have a TomTom One as well, but not the XL version, it has a 3.5" screen. Mine covers Ireland and the UK which is realistically all I will need. I have to admit I quite like it and I find it very useful. As others have pointed out, TomTom provide free map updates from other users as well as GPS fixes/updates for free.

Usability wise it's quite simple and shouldn't provide much hassle. I originally used it in the north so I was able to make use of the postcode feature where you type in the postcode of the address you are going to and it lists the places for you to choose from. I'm not sure if this works in the republic though as the postcode system is different/non-existent

I bought it as I had to drive from Armagh to Derry and I'd never been to Derry in my life and on top of that, I didn't know the route. I typed in the postcode etc and it took me right from my place to where I was going in Derry, no problems.

One of the downsides is that I think even when you choose that you want the fastest route, it doesn't always seem to pick the fastest route. I think I mentioned on another thread that I was driving a route that I know like the back of my hand and I just tested the TomTom to see what it suggested and it displayed a different route that I had never taken before, but which apparently was faster. I decided to try it out and the route it took me was awful. It was small country roads, full of bumps, twists and turns and you couldn't drive any faster than about 30 mph.

I think it is supposed to have some kind of learning feature where if you drive another route that is faster, it picks this up. However I've driven from Armagh to Dublin and back by the best route I know, yet the TomTom always points to another route. I tried it once and to be honest, the road was no-where near as good as the one I normally take. And timewise, both route seems to be about equal.

All in all, I'd buy another TomTom I think. Although I'd maybe prefer to get one that had more features like Bluetooth/phone/iPod connectivity. I think those ones are out now, but I opted not to buy one at the time.

I find it very useful and it comes in very handy, especially for routes you've never driven before. Although I usually check out the route it suggests on a regular map, or on Google earth or something, just to see if it's really the most direct route. Most of the time, it is.

I think if you're going to some place that's a bit remote, you might end up on crappy roads when there are better routes available, but it's always got me to my desination.

faceman

grandmaster wrote: »

One of the downsides is that I think even when you choose that you want the fastest route, it doesn't always seem to pick the fastest route. I think I mentioned on another thread that I was driving a route that I know like the back of my hand and I just tested the TomTom to see what it suggested and it displayed a different route that I had never taken before, but which apparently was faster. I decided to try it out and the route it took me was awful. It was small country roads, full of bumps, twists and turns and you couldn't drive any faster than about 30 mph.

I think it is supposed to have some kind of learning feature where if you drive another route that is faster, it picks this up.

When you select Faster route it generally selects major roads where possible. Selecting shortest route will utilise the shortest distance but it doesnt necessarily mean it will be the fastest.

Re the learning thing, thats interesting. on some routes, my TomTom has "changed" its fastest route from the one that it was recommending to the one i was taking. Has happened seldomly though

Esel

eurotrotter wrote: »

i will be travelling back from england next weekend, goin over buying a car and driving it from glasgow down to pembroke id say.

Hi Ed, you probably have a good reason for going from Glasgow to Pembroke? If not, why not go Stranraer-Larne?