Spec me a sat nav

My older TomTom turns itself on when the battery gets low. Has freaked me out in the middle of the night a few times, being woken up by John Cleese telling me to "turn around when possible".
 
TomTom are rubbish, their management software and update software is pathetic, I have had to call their support about 9 times because during a standard update it has broken halfway through and wiped the device, plus they are extremely expensive to keep up to date, get a garmin with free lifetime traffic and maps and your set, I have a TomTom my father has a garmin and I am exceedingly jealous, so much so that i am going to ebay my TomTom and buy the same model garmin, its just so much better. the garmin management software is better, much easier to use and just works not to mention the navigation device is just better.
 
I have co-pilot for my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note - also works on my Nexus 7 without buying a second copy) and a Tom Tom 5" with traffic smart route thing. Co-pilot cost me about £20 and the Tom Tom cost about £150. I really do like the traffic notifications on the Tom Tom and I like having a stand alone unit. But there is no question that Co-pilot for me is 85% as good for a fraction of the cost and it does have ActiveTraffic if I want to upgrade to it too.
 
Lopéz said:
I'd say it's unlikely - we don't provide our drivers or our sales execs with sat nav, I don't think it's commonplace to do so in the industry.
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I'm very surprised at this - surely for the sake of £99 a van for a courier it would be a no brainer to maximise efficiency?
 
Sygic on your phone -20 euros for UK only. Lifetime free map updates using TomTom maps and offline mapping so no reliance on data when out and about. All you need then is a USB plug for your 12V socket and an ExoMount (or similar) and you have a setup that trounces any lower end sat nav by miles.

I've got the European maps and have used it in Spain, Lanzarote, Rhodes all without any drama.

Only downside is that traffic is 14 euros a year which compared to the lifetime cost for mapping seems steep.
 
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As I mentioned I'm not going to use a phone app as cyanogenmod Google map and gps ddon't play well together on my phone. Borrowed a friends tomtom XL Live to try and go from there. The difference between this 4.3" screen and the 5" is quite noticeable
 
[TW]Fox;25973503 said:
I'm very surprised at this - surely for the sake of £99 a van for a courier it would be a no brainer to maximise efficiency?
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It doesn't maximise efficiency for couriers really - we tend to use route planning software, or the driver just uses local knowledge. Sat nav is used by brand new drivers on the route, but other than that it tends to be cumbersome and slow - remember the majority of these drivers are doing 80 plus stops followed by 20 or 30 collections. Sat nav just isn't practical for those applications.
 
Lopéz said:
It doesn't maximise efficiency for couriers really - we tend to use route planning software, or the driver just uses local knowledge. Sat nav is used by brand new drivers on the route, but other than that it tends to be cumbersome and slow - remember the majority of these drivers are doing 80 plus stops followed by 20 or 30 collections. Sat nav just isn't practical for those applications.
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True, I'm using it more as a rolling Road to get to know the area better
 
If I had that kinda money and wanted a big screen I'd be tempted to go for a 7" tablet. You can get an Acer B1 For £60 or a gen 1 Nexus 7 for about £100.
I'm quite tempted to do a permanent install of one in my next car.
 
I have a Garmin 54LM; this is very slow to boot and load routes or re-route.

I also have a TomTom Go 700. This is really old maybe as much as 10 years but it is still fantastic and has upto date maps.

I would recommend doing the same as I do; using a smart phone with Google Navigation primarily with a TomTom unit as back up, incase for what ever reason I have no data connection.

As stated though, you can't beat local knowledge.
 
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Personally I can't see why anyone would buy a satnav these days if their phone has the capabilities.

There's a bunch of screen mounts for your phone available on Amazon for a fiver. Google maps is excellent plus I tend to keep Waze running in the background (which I see has finally made it to UK) for excellent user based traffic alerts and average speed notifications.

I previously used the MapQuest app before google maps upgraded with turn by turn navigation, so that's also another excellent alternative. Since you already own the phone, give those three a blast and see what you think.
 
If cyanogenmod Google maps and gps all played well together on my phone I'd agree there's no need, but as they don't I'm going to have to use a dedicated unit
 
Flopsy said:
If cyanogenmod Google maps and gps all played well together on my phone I'd agree there's no need, but as they don't I'm going to have to use a dedicated unit
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Sounds like you might need to copy your original radio settings over. Unless of course you've moved from 2.x to 4.x on a Desire HD in which case good luck. :(
 
GPS problems on an Android? Try turning off Google location services and just running on GPS.

On my Xiaomi Mi2S, GLS seems to somehow interrupt GPS, leaving gaps in a GPS trace. On a MyTracks log it shows up as distance covered at zero velocity. It's pretty much perfect with Google Location services turning off.

Google are apparrently aware of a problem affecting lots of handsets and are due to issue a google services update to improve things.
 
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