Best sat nav with lane guidance for the UK?

dalin80 · 4 Sep 2013 at 19:19

So with some time off coming up I have decided to visit a few places in the UK I have always wanted to see, I have me, a car and the time but there is one thing which is greatly lacking... a sense of direction

Seriously 5 minutes after setting off from middle England I will be drowning to death in a Swedish lake. So I'm looking for recommendations for a good UK based sat nav with lane guidance upto £100.

Cheers.

wildman_33 · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:00

I had a tomtom xl of some variety (I think it was the live one but i didnt use that feature). It was very good with lane guidance etc although I found it a little annoying sometimes, constantly telling me to keep right etc but you might find you like that if you have a poor sense of direction. I think you can get one of them under £100 and the map updates were free if i recollect correctly. The speakers in it were loud enough to be heard over my music too which was nice.

If you have some kind of smartphone you could always get an app for that, personally I dont like that as I like to use the phone for music so would have to exits the maps etc which is a bit of a faff when driving (plus illegal).

Rybo89 · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:03

Just get TomTom for your phone, that is if you have a app phone with GPS.

tom_nieto · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:11

Maps.google.com.

Enter route and profit.

theNude · 5 Sep 2013 at 00:16

Getting lost is something I enjoy during a road trip

matthab · 5 Sep 2013 at 08:35

My TomTom is very good, Cost about £100 only annoying thing is the touchscreen isnt very sensitive.

Imy · 5 Sep 2013 at 10:52

I like the TomTom app on my iPhone. It's a better experience than the separate TomTom unit I had before.

Also, the map updates have been free so far. I think they were £5/quarter on my old unit and they were incremental so if you updated after 3 years, you'd still have to pay £60.

Sasso · 5 Sep 2013 at 10:53

I've been looking at some apps that have lane guidance..... there are a few out there, Tomtom being one, there are a few others.... most of which you have to pay for

(and £40 for a phone app is a bit much... not likes it's battlefield or anything...

)

but for simplicity I'd probably get a standalone unit, as then you have more options to use it abroad rather than churning though data roaming xD

only used a mates tomtom a few years back (didn't have lane guidance) but i remember it being as matt said and having to push quite firmly to get the touches to register... suppose that's good or bad depending on how you look at it, good that won't accidentally start hitting options, bad when trying to put something in quickly?

I'm sure there's a few shops which will have the models out on display for a play

Imy · 5 Sep 2013 at 10:55

If you shop at Tesco they often do £25 iTunes voucher for £12.50 in Tesco vouchers. That's how I purchased my TomTom app.

The touchscreen is miles better on my iPhone then it was on my old TomTom unit.

Sasso · 5 Sep 2013 at 11:26

actually just a thought, the tomtom (and other apps) usually have the maps stored locally on the phone? so you wouldn't really need to use data abroad unless you were using traffic updates or something>?

robj20 · 5 Sep 2013 at 11:34

Copilot on smartphone, prefer it to tomtom.

Duke · 5 Sep 2013 at 12:26

Another vote for Co-Pilot.

[TW]Fox · 5 Sep 2013 at 12:41

Sasso said:
but for simplicity I'd probably get a standalone unit, as then you have more options to use it abroad rather than churning though data roaming xD

Not true, the Tomtom iPhone or android map is offline and works just fine with no data connection.

rossk26 · 5 Sep 2013 at 13:05

[TW]Fox;24890328 said:
Not true, the Tomtom iPhone or android map is offline and works just fine with no data connection.

So too does the NavFree app. Which is free to download, and free to load pretty much any country too.

Saved me loads of time on my recent holiday abroad.

Rybo89 · 5 Sep 2013 at 13:10

Pretty much all the good satnav apps have offline maps.

rather pointless if they didn't have them.

matthab · 5 Sep 2013 at 13:13

When I used my smart phone the best app I found was co pilot.

Hyburnate · 5 Sep 2013 at 13:13

Duke said:
Another vote for Co-Pilot.

And here.

ganesh · 5 Sep 2013 at 13:20

rossk26 said:
So too does the NavFree app. Which is free to download, and free to load pretty much any country too.

Saved me loads of time on my recent holiday abroad.

It's also pretty rubbish and plans terrible routes, it may be ok for free, but it's not got a patch on TomTom.

Sasso - Buy the TomTom app, it is in fact better than the stand alone units for the simple fact that you get map updates for free (Apple rule - no company can charge for an app update). So while the guys with stand alones will have to pay for new maps you will always get them for free. It's one less thing to carry around/get stolen, it doesn't use any data as all the maps are offline and the lane guidance is superb. (I have no sense of direction or navigational skills and the TomTom is the best trust me).

Imy · 5 Sep 2013 at 13:45

ganesh said:
It's also pretty rubbish and plans terrible routes, it may be ok for free, but it's not got a patch on TomTom.

Agreed. I tried NavFree before TomTom and gave up when it tried to send me the wrong way round a roundabout. Some things aren't worth it even when they're free!

Sasso · 5 Sep 2013 at 13:46

[TW]Fox;24890328 said:
Not true, the Tomtom iPhone or android map is offline and works just fine with no data connection.

yea I should have edited my post instead of just making another, was just thinking of google maps xD /facepalm .... but even that now can have offline maps for gps positioning.... just not live navigation