Considering a new Sat Nav

Conanius

Conanius

Conanius

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18 Oct 2002
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Currently got a TomTom VIA 120 Live with full Europe Maps/Speed Cameras/Live Traffic/etc etc

I've had to renew the maps and live traffic once already, and I appreciate this is how companies stay in business. The units are relatively cheap, and the maps etc cost money to do. Fair enough.

However, I've noticed a few units now being sold that do livetime Live Traffic and Map updates (that are TomTom, not cheaper alternatives) and I'm tempted to buy a new unit... and then not have to keep paying to update the maps and traffic.

Curious as to what else is out there, and what people recommend. Other option of course is to just buy a Factory fit nav, acquire the new maps each year (seem to go on eBay for about £20 through legit sources on an SD card) and just use TMC for traffic. It might be slightly worse than TomTom, but then I don't have a seperate unit to deal with either.

Thoughts?
 
1 Month TomTom HD Traffic subscription is £2.99, 12 months is £23.99. I've never tried it though personally.

If you do buy it on your iPhone, try to get a hold of some discounted iTunes vouchers. When I got mine, Tescos were doing £25 iTunes vouchers for £12.50 in Clubcard vouchers.
 
I thought that no matter what TomTom unit you bought (dunno about the iPhone app, mind you), you still had to pay £30-£40 to renew the 'Live' subscription after a year?

Is this not the case any more? Maybe my Live 820 needs upgrading. It's not that old though.
 
Howard said:
I thought that no matter what TomTom unit you bought (dunno about the iPhone app, mind you), you still had to pay £30-£40 to renew the 'Live' subscription after a year?

Is this not the case any more? Maybe my Live 820 needs upgrading. It's not that old though.
Click to expand...

I recently picked up a new TomTom GO LIVE 1005M HDT Europe with lifetime maps and 3 years live subscription for around £275

Looking at the orange site now there are better and cheaper deals with lifetime maps and lifetime traffic if you buy a 5000 / 6000 series tom tom.

Ps. Anyone else find it laughable how little sat nav has improved since the old tom tom 510's - its almost frozen in time apart from live trafic, even the route processing speed it still poor, so many mistakes on the maps all sorts of faults
 
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That's what I'd noticed too.

My unit is only 2 years old too howard, I can't seem to do a one off lifetime purchase, so an extra 30-40 seems to secure a newer, potentially better unit.
 
Personally i use the built in google maps sat nav on my Android phone, whatever the latest one in Android 4.3 is very good for everything i've used. it'll show up live traffic info by the looks of it but i don't really do enough motorway driving to see how well it works with the nearest motorway being a good 50 miles away!

The main thing i noticed compared to my old tom tom (which broke after about 15 months:mad:) is having it overlay the route on satellite images made things a lot easier to work out
 
Been looking into this.

It appears that the TomTom 'Go' Range is the best to go for. You get Lifetime Maps and Lifetime Traffic updates with these models. Speed Cameras is a 3 month free trial, and then yearly subscription after that point.

The models appear to be

TomTom Go 400
TomTom Go 500
TomTom Go 600

All available with either UK & ROI or UK, ROI and Europe (Full). These need your smartphone for the live traffic to work though via Bluetooth. Number basically is the screen size in inches.

TomTom Go 5000
&
TomTom Go 6000

Again, model number refers to screen size, but these have built in mobile network connectivity, so no Bluetooth pairing needed. They cost about £100 more than the ones that do need to pair for respective screen size. It looks like the 6000 6" model might also have a slightly better screen.

Interested to know if anyone here has one of these. Part of me thinks the 400 is sufficient (£144.99 on the orange site), but I don't want faf with my iPhone pairing with the car and the Sat Nav.

It looks like bluetooth should cope with up to 8 simultaneous devices, and with the Nav being a data connection and the car kit being audio I don't think it should cause issue.... interested to hear first hand experiences though.

If this won't work flawlessly, the 6000 is currently cheaper than the 5000 on the orange site (£259.99 down from £300 RRP).


£259 is obviously a fair amount more than just another year or two's worth of Map and Traffic updates, but the bigger, better screen and lifetime updates mean its barely over 3 years before it starts being cheaper. Seems a shame as there is nothing really wrong with our existing device.

It feels to me to be at the price point where £20 more is the Skoda Amundsen+ (RNS 315+) headunit in my Fabia. Which means no windscreen mount faf, a nicer finish, plumbed into my car speakers nicely, will just work, etc. The only downside is acquiring map updates each year.
 
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Interesting info. The idea of a 6" screen is appealing but the price isn't lol. My Go Live 820 is absolutely fine in reality!
 
I've got a Garmin that I bought in 2007 on holiday in the states... still working fine. I once, after having it about a year, bought lifetime maps updates and they've been true to their name. Garmin send me an email whenever there's new maps available (usually six to twelve months IIRC), and then I just plug it into the computer and download them for free :).
Only downside with it is that I have to chose between installing the North America maps or the Europe maps - the license covers both but the unit hasn't got enough storage to fit them both unless I stick an SD card in. Doesn't matter as before going away I'd be plugging it into the computer to update the speed camera database anyways so can just chose which continent I want.
 
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