Satnav - What to use abroad?

Matt-Page

Matt-Page

Matt-Page

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2004
Posts
3,794
Hi,

Next month I'm driving from Somerset to Barcelona (Circuit de Catalunya) for the Formula 1 in a hire car. The hire car is likely to be a Toyota Avensis estate and has Satnav, but I doubt it has European maps.

Around the UK, I use my phone and Google Maps, which is perfect.

What's my best option here? Obviously If I use my phone, it is likely to use a lot of data which I don't want. My mobile contract gives me 2GB a month but that doesn't include data abroad. Am I better off buying a TomTom or similar? If I do, is it extra to get maps of France and Spain?

Thanks.
 
No it is all offline. You download the country you want and it stores it on your phone.

I'm on 3 so can use google maps in some countries as part of my data - but I still end up using navfree as it does work well. Of course all the notifications and data (live traffic) won't be there if you are off line.
 
here from nokia, its all free, you can download the maps to your phone, covers most of europe. I have only used it locally, but it worked well.
 
Freefaller said:
No it is all offline. You download the country you want and it stores it on your phone.

I'm on 3 so can use google maps in some countries as part of my data - but I still end up using navfree as it does work well. Of course all the notifications and data (live traffic) won't be there if you are off line.
Click to expand...

Hey,

OK thanks, I'll look into it tonight. I'll also get everyone else on the trip to do the same in case my phone dies or gets knicked!

If you deviate from the route, will it have those roads (ie does it download all roads for the country, or just the ones for your route). Also, are the European maps free?
 
I'm on o2 and throughout Europe you get unlimited data for £2 a day, depending on how long you're away for a couple of days it wouldn't work out too bad.

I've used NavFree in my car before and didn't really like it. I now use CoPilot, you get 30 day full trial and you can pick your country and it's all offline maps.
 
I found the Toyota Avensis sat nav (built in) to be adequate, worked a bit like a tom tom...not sure if it had europe maps installed though.
 
Perhaps OP would be better downloading the TomTom sat nav app on the phone. I'm fairly sure the one on my iPhone does not use data.
 
Get a orange payg sim, they do allow you to use your data abroad, it tjink its called feel at home.
 
swain90 said:
I'm on o2 and throughout Europe you get unlimited data for £2 a day, depending on how long you're away for a couple of days it wouldn't work out too bad.

I've used NavFree in my car before and didn't really like it. I now use CoPilot, you get 30 day full trial and you can pick your country and it's all offline maps.
Click to expand...
isn't O2's idea of unlimited something like 20 or 50MB?
 
If you do use your phone with a fully offline app, be sure to disable data connections before you leave. I tend to put my phone on flight mode the moment I'm out of the country.
 
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