Satnav
 

I noticed a thread from about 2 years ago asking for satnav buying advice. Is Garmin still the preferred choice or have things moved on a bit?

Cheers

Alan ;)

garmin i have never liked

tomtom for me

I'm a Garmin guy, their mapping is as good as any bodies and their actual GPS technology is amongst the best

Tom Tom are very good...

Ive had mine six years now without any problems..

Some smartphones do it better than stand alone systems now. I drove to the alps and back just using my windows phone, worked perfectly. My satnav, admittedly old, didn't work properly once up in the passes.

as above, I use the satnav in my windowsphone (Lumia800).
never failed me. did my trip to Ireland and back with it and numerous site visits for my job.
the only time I ever had an issue was walking with it in the center of London. narrow roads with tall buildings interfere with the GPS signal, but I guess that would be the same with any satnav

Got a nice new tom tom with live updates8-)

I run Sygic on my Android phone, think it was about £20 and is really good, never tried it abroad but will need to invest about £20 in the Europe maps for next year. Alternatively I think you can pick up a large screen Tom Tom now with GB and Europe maps for around the £100 mark.

I've managed to borrow the inlaws' Garmin nuvi for the weekend so I'll have a play with that.

I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to mobiles and only have a cheap/free 7 yr old handset and a £5 payg sim ;)

Thanks for the feedback ... keep it coming as this will probably end up on my xmas wish list :)

I'd invest in a decent quad core android smartphone and kill two birds with one stone :). Google navigation/google maps stuff is fantastic. And it is all free!!!!

I use a map and work out where I am going before I leave, then have a map in the car.

However, I would appear to be even more of a luddite in this regard! :lol:

+1 for me :agreed:

Garmin....
Who also provide the maps for JVC double din head units.

If using phone then 'Sygic' is very good and much better then Google Navigation and crappy txt to speech prompts, such as "Exit left signed Reading" (as in a book).

Always been a TomTom man, but the free Google Navigation is excellent on my android, especially when combined with the live google traffic info :)

Not tried Sygic but then i'm tight so if its not free... :lol:

I normally turn the audio down i must admit, prefer to just keep an eye on the screen now and then.

Doesn't Google navigation need a data connection to download maps on the go?

I believe all Sygic maps are provided by Tom Tom. There is a free trial if you go to the Google Playstore.

Shane

Yep, that's what I do ;) However, I've been to a couple of meets where roads where closed and the map I printed wasn't able to re-route :lol:

I guess so... not a problem in most of the UK, but good point - would cost a lot at current roaming charges if you used it abroad.

Although aren't roaming charges being abolished soon?

google maps is NOT ideal unless you are always in a good 3g coverage area, for free satnav apps I'd vote for NAVFREE i have it on my iOS devices, but Android version here https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ndroid.OSM.ALL

garmin IMO have always had clunky GUIs

Went for the Garmin nuvi 52LM. £89.95 at Argos. Only unboxed it so far and updated the maps etc. First outing on wednesday when I visit Surrey Rolling Road.

I use Navfree on iphone, used it across Europe without any problems.

generally don't use satnav very often.

I've got a Garmin too with free map updates and traffic updates. It seems to work well and if I'd chosen to take notice of it on our Spa trip it would have taken me past the traffic around Brussels. It seemed to work almost identically to Tim's Tom Tom