Sat NAv
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To be fair, Tomtom or Garmin are going to be the least painless. There are many manufacturers, but Tomtom and Garmin have the best reputations.
But at the end of the day all sat-nav's will navigate, which is why so many people argue over it!
I prefer Tomtom, I've got access to most, we have 3 different makes in pool cars at work, and for speed of update/useful 3d view, ease of use, most people just get on with them at work.
Soldato
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Can be used for anything, here's how it looks, oh and screenshot mode also rocks on Garmin, useful for keeping screens of locations/settings etc.
Great but half that info you dont need and it requires a press on the screen to see. The TomToms show you what you need to know on the map screen without having to do anything to the screen.
Garmin 'detour' button is useless. However run into a jam on the M42 for example on TomTom, hit avoid, then chose one of the roads on your trip. Ie in the M42. Far better.
So far in the last 12 Months I've had or still have
TomTom 720T
TomTom 520T
GarminXT on Mobile
Navman S90i
TomTom 530T
Navigon 2100max
The Navman crashed the most, TomTom has some nice features like the voice entry etc but had some major issues with v7 of navcore, most of which are improved in v8 which is installed on the 530T.
I currently have the Navigon 2100max and 530T and to be honest they both do very good jobs. If you can live without the bluetooth handsfree and FM transmitter I''d say currently at £99 for the basic 2100max you can't go wrong. You can add traffic updates for £40 and it does a good job of receiving and actioning them and for £15 you get text to speech which works as well as the TomTom or Navman versions.
TomTom 720T
TomTom 520T
GarminXT on Mobile
Navman S90i
TomTom 530T
Navigon 2100max
The Navman crashed the most, TomTom has some nice features like the voice entry etc but had some major issues with v7 of navcore, most of which are improved in v8 which is installed on the 530T.
I currently have the Navigon 2100max and 530T and to be honest they both do very good jobs. If you can live without the bluetooth handsfree and FM transmitter I''d say currently at £99 for the basic 2100max you can't go wrong. You can add traffic updates for £40 and it does a good job of receiving and actioning them and for £15 you get text to speech which works as well as the TomTom or Navman versions.
I think it depends on how much you use it, and if you need extra features..
The new 730's we had 4 weeks ago seem very impressive, Lane ASssist and traffic built in are nice and the bluetooth integration with the phone is top notch, reads all your text messages to you, syncs easily, and is a half decent handsfree kit., but it's £270..
For occasional use, the One XL or One series are cheap and yet retain all but the lane assist/IQ routing of the more expensive models, but the look/use of them is identical, which to say is extremely easy.. and ONE's can be as cheap as £100
The newer technologies (Lane Assist and IQ routing) are handy if you navigate a lot to large places, as these help you know which exact lane to get it, so rather then just telling you miles before a roundabout/junction that you need to turn right, it will tell you in some cases, which lane to be in exactly (which in the middle of London is a godsend), and the IQ routing has a database of road speeds to time of day for busy routes, so is a bit better at navigating through rush hour traffic in larger towns/cities.
As I said, end of the day, all sat-nav's will 'nav'.. so I am sure everyone will be quite happy with their own solutions, and there aren't too many that are useless..
Thats not quite right, they don't have text to speech, bluetooth, FM tramsitter and voice address input. The basic software and the maps are the same thou.
Well I picked up the Navigon 2100 MAX this morning and used it to route my way to work (21 miles via the M27).
I have to say I am impressed. The stuff I find pretty neat compared to the Garmin 200W are:
- Emergency Services button displays your current location name and Lat/Long incase you get stranded somewhere
- The speed warning feature is more customizable, you can set warning thresholds for example for both built up and motorway driving/
- The lane assist feature is pretty neat; I can see it being useful in complex cities like London and Basingstoke (as I found out the other day with much lol)
- When entering a new destination it automatically finds as you type and greys out keys that are not applicable to the partial name you’ve entered and only keeps active keys that would fit in that name/post code – handy as I sometimes found myself accidentally pressing an incorrect key and having to backspace it out
- The favourites area is better, allows more control of location saving and is more logical than the Garmin
- Route directions on the motorway and A/B roads etc are spoken giving the name of that part of road, eg: the lady will say “Please take the 1st exit at the roundabout onto the M27””
- More information is displayed onscreen whilst on a route so no need to switch between Odometer and map view to view extra data
- The GUI is faster than the Garmin 200W, key presses are near instant which was impressive.
- The map movement in 3d is very smooth, smoother than the TomTom ONE/XL V3/V4 series. It’s virtually real time. The Garmin 200W has a slight offset based on current position and what it shows as your current position so you’d need to compensate in your head before making a direction change otherwise you’ll find yourself in the wrong exit if there are several exits very close to each other. I think Garmin fixed this in the 205W which has a faster CPU to cope with the real time updating. 205W was £150 at Halfords (ex dispay/returned or refurbed at my local)
- Speed sensitive volume is a nice feature I wished I had on the Garmin before!
- New destination menu has 3 custom direct access areas for airports/railway/petrol etc
- The settings are more vast than the Garmin, there’s lots to change around and play with.
Having said all that though the real test will be how it manages to cope in guiding me to London on the 2nd October. The Garmin 200W coped very well in London, it managed to get me to Commercial Road without a hitch all the time so if the Navigon can manage the same then It’s an absolute steal at £99 for the features it has and performance it gives!
I have to say I am impressed. The stuff I find pretty neat compared to the Garmin 200W are:
- Emergency Services button displays your current location name and Lat/Long incase you get stranded somewhere
- The speed warning feature is more customizable, you can set warning thresholds for example for both built up and motorway driving/
- The lane assist feature is pretty neat; I can see it being useful in complex cities like London and Basingstoke (as I found out the other day with much lol)
- When entering a new destination it automatically finds as you type and greys out keys that are not applicable to the partial name you’ve entered and only keeps active keys that would fit in that name/post code – handy as I sometimes found myself accidentally pressing an incorrect key and having to backspace it out
- The favourites area is better, allows more control of location saving and is more logical than the Garmin
- Route directions on the motorway and A/B roads etc are spoken giving the name of that part of road, eg: the lady will say “Please take the 1st exit at the roundabout onto the M27””
- More information is displayed onscreen whilst on a route so no need to switch between Odometer and map view to view extra data
- The GUI is faster than the Garmin 200W, key presses are near instant which was impressive.
- The map movement in 3d is very smooth, smoother than the TomTom ONE/XL V3/V4 series. It’s virtually real time. The Garmin 200W has a slight offset based on current position and what it shows as your current position so you’d need to compensate in your head before making a direction change otherwise you’ll find yourself in the wrong exit if there are several exits very close to each other. I think Garmin fixed this in the 205W which has a faster CPU to cope with the real time updating. 205W was £150 at Halfords (ex dispay/returned or refurbed at my local)
- Speed sensitive volume is a nice feature I wished I had on the Garmin before!
- New destination menu has 3 custom direct access areas for airports/railway/petrol etc
- The settings are more vast than the Garmin, there’s lots to change around and play with.
Having said all that though the real test will be how it manages to cope in guiding me to London on the 2nd October. The Garmin 200W coped very well in London, it managed to get me to Commercial Road without a hitch all the time so if the Navigon can manage the same then It’s an absolute steal at £99 for the features it has and performance it gives!
Install fresh maps from the navigon site, it'll download an application update to take you to 7.0.10 which seemed to improve the speed of things further.
Oh and there is also a 30day map guarantee and Q3 2008 is due soon if not already out.
Oh and there is also a 30day map guarantee and Q3 2008 is due soon if not already out.
Thanks for the info mate, just updated from 7.0.9 to 7.0.10 and also Q3 2008 map update
Edit* arf, I created a backup to save my favourites etc and then restored the backup after update, it restored the previous software version too so I had to update again…
Have to say the Navigon updater software is much nicer to use and look at than the Garmin Web updater!
Do you know how I get the Q3 2008 map update free? I clicked to update and it says it’s not free ?
BTW I think know why the Navigon is faster than other devices, I noticed a powered by Windows CE sticker on the box.
I just clicked on it and hey presto got the same message