Hi everyone,
Having just started traveling to the North of the UK and Scotland in addition to the rest of the UK I feel that I need to bite the bullet and get a Sat Nav unit.
As I still have yet to work out the video at home, what I am looking for (I think) is pretty basic.
I want to be able to:
1, Type in postcode onto the screen and then be directed to my destination.
2, Transfer the unit from one car to another as we may share it in the office for journeys to customers we have not visited before (unless they are really cheap).
3, It needs to do mainland Europe pretty well (France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland) - I managed to take the wrong route roung Brussels 3 times yesterday.
4, Do they charge from a 12V socket in the car or are they just rechargeable-at-home AA batteries?
5, If it covered speed camera locations this would be a bonus.
A recognised brand is preferable (Tom Tom, Garmin, Navman?). A key issue is price. The cheaper the better. Can I get all of the above for £200?
If so, what model do you recommend and where should I buy it from?
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TomTom 7 or above will:-
1. Yes
2. No Problem
3. Most upper end TomToms do this
4. Yes or from the internal re-charge batteries which will last about 4 hrs according to SWMBO
5. Downloadable as extras and works well
May cost you more than t£200.00 though for all the features you want. I know nothing about other makes. By the way your local BMW dealer will rent these out (not TT) for a quite reasonable rate.
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TomTom One Europe - not sure if it does postcode (outside the UK postcode is fairly pointless anyway because postcodes are generally town, or district level, rather than street) but it does everything else. Speed camera locations are downloadable or subscription based if you prefer via Bluetooth on your mobile, although it's not capable of working as a hands free car kit.
Can't be done for £200 but it can be had from Dixons online for £225: www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/editorial/TomTom+GPS+Sat+...m
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This might be worth a look - the price is right:
tinyurl.com/yfo6r7
Have no knowledge of them.
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I agree that Tomtom ticks all the boxes, very easy to use and intuitive. However all the features you want are unlikely to come for £200. I bought the software on a CD, including europe at street level and put it on my mobile phone, which I now use with a screen mount and a bluetooth gps receiver. Total cost around £180. I have been round France and Germany with it no problem. The downside is a lot of faffing about as I use an O2 XDA and at the time it was a newish model and it took me a long time to set it up as there were bluetooth connection issues. Works fine now though. A friend of mine did the same thing but simply put it onto an old mobile phone with a biggish screen which he uses only for sat nav. I believe you can download a speed camera database free of charge from one of the discussion boards but i have never bothered. Personally I would bite the bullet on cost, after all a tank of petrol is £50 now, and think how much time and aggro is involved in trying to find somewhere.
MGs
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Do you already use a Windows PDA? If so, you can fufil some of your criteria (not #2 working for your colleagues as well tho) by getting TomTom Navigator for your PDA.
Works very well, does postcodes in the UK, can get free or subscription speed camera databases, and is available for well under £200.
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Agree with MGS on the cost. SWMBO uses hers to locate addresses in towns/cities she doesn't know well enough. She reckons in time alone that this has paid for itself over the last twelve months. She says that she is less irritated when she arrives - believe me you need an irritated accountant like you need a TomTom permanently screwed to your head.
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If your car has a heated front screen (Ford) or an athermic screen (metal partcles in the glass to reflect heat, Peugeot etc) you will need to budget for an aerial on an extension lead which is about £30. I have this problem with my car and the aerial sits nicely on the non-moving bit of the rear parcel shelf and picks up a good signal there.
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I have just got a Navman N20 from Costco for £140. Unfortunately it has now gone back up to a tad over £200 but it ticks all the boxes you mention.
In the box was the unit, a PC cable that doubles as a charger, an in car charger and windscreen mount. The whole of Western Europe is included on several CD's, with the exception of Portugal, Switzerland and the ROI. It has an expandable memory slot (SD card, around £15 for a 1 GIG card) and safety camera data is loaded up for 1 month free, there after you need to subscribe if you want it to be up to date. Although there are several websites that offer the info for a lot less than Navman charge.
is it any good?
Yes it is. I have a Ford system in my Mondeo that because it is fixed in, is convenient and of course has a bigger screen. And those are it's only advantages over the Navman unit. I got the Navman as my wife will use it occasionally and I do distance trucking on the odd weekend ( a kind of hobby ). The Navman scores on so many levels over a fixed unit. Not least the portability factor. It is cheaper to upgrade - it would cost me more for a new DVD for my Ford system than I paid for the Navman. The description of the route is so much better than the Ford unit, which can be a bit vague sometimes. It is also possible to upgrade specific points of interest you may find a need for.
I am sure TomTom and the other portable systems offer the same to a greater or less degree, it is all down to a matter of choice.
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AS,
My sister has one for her Puma which has a heated screen, not a problem.
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Pugugly - I may be wrong about heated screens ie wires in the glass - I accept what you say re the Puma. Athermic screens will certainly block the signal. Apologies for duff gen and/or any confusions!
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No problem, I honestly didn't expect it to work, it does and pulls in quite a strong signal.
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Athermic screens will certainly block the signal. Apologiesfor duff gen and/or any confusions! does my 02 renault Master have an athermic screen? It is fitted with aircon if this info is pertinent.
TIA..........MD
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I thought this too but for Ford's at least not a problem.
I bought Navman software for my PDA about three years ago with a separate Navman BT GPS Unit. My logic for this was if it didn't work near the windscreen it would work in the rear of the car. But no problems at all.
And newer receivers often use SiRF III chipset which is far more sensitive.
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"newer receivers often use SiRF III chipset "
This may be the key - my cheap Medion from Aldi (£149 for unit and UK mapping, all West Europe extra £79) works with no sign of signal reduction in the 4 cars in our household all of which have those heat reflective(?) screens.
Very pleased with unit - ticks most of your boxes
See
www.medionshop.co.uk/
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Phil
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SiRF Star III and comparable newer GPS chipsets can even work indoors!! You have to understand the signal from a GPS satellite is weak (as low as 0.0000000000000001 Watt I think) and the satellites are 12,600 miles away.
One reason these newer chipsets work with weak signals better than older one is they can process more channels. SiRF Star III can handle 20 channels and there's a Fujitsu GPS chip that does 32. Now you might say hang on there are 24 active GPS satellites so why the big deal... well although:
- You cannot see all satellites at once with a GPS receiver because they are meant to cover to globe. Bank on around 8-9 if you're lucky
- There are urban cannyons and foliage (ie. tall building and trees) block the signal
The latest ones process and make use of reflected signals as well. So of the 20 channels received some will be for the same satellite signal bounced off your surroundings.
The algorithm in these also process time-to-first fix so much quicker - it can handle 200,000 correlations a second. That's fast. And I think it even uses GSM and 3G network signals to improve accuracy.
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rtj,
I was going to mention that ..............!!!!!!! ;-)
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Phil
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"rtj, I was going to mention that ..............!!!!!!! ;-) "
Sorry I got in there first :-)
Sat nav at the moment is prerry accurate. But as some of us posted in another thread, wait for the solar flares to render GPS a lot less accurate ;-(
Back to the OP...
I really like TomTom's interface. Have it on my PDA and my Smartphone. Very good and I think the interface even better with a keypad. But a smaller screen on a phone. I did buy Navman for Europe on the PDA but the interface was poor compared to what was TomTom 3 at the time. TomTom 5/6 so much better so can only assume others have caught up?
If I were buying now and didn't need some higher end features of TomTom 510/710/910 I'd go for the sleek NEW TomTom One with UK maps (take a tour at www.tomtom.com/products/product.php?ID=233&Categor...1 and can be had for less than £200) . You can always buy Europe maps later. Although I also run Memory Map Ordnance Survey maps on the PDA too. TomTom does speed cameras too but the TomTom One cannot use the new RDA traffic add-on for the widescreen TomTom Go x10s nor remore controlls.... or act as a bluetooth handfree kit.
If the OP and others want a good GPS related website check out www.pocketgpsworld.com. The ones that used to have a free safety camera database but now charge a little. But if you submit a new camera you get lifetime membership free - I just managed that with the new SPEC cameras on the M60 around Stockport :-)
P.S. Did anyone realise it probably costs hundres of millions of dollars to maintain the GPS system each year. Glad we don't pay it.
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Well my sirf starIII chipset was utterly useless in the back streets of rome and venice. Not enough view of sky to get two sats locked on. Had to use maps.
Worked well on the TrenItalia Inter city trains tho, The train from Roma to Firenze topped out at 118MPH.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I've recently seen a navman on sale in tesco's for <£100, but I dont know what mapping it has
Will investigaste on the way home
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Go on, get out of the car...
www.mikes-walks.co.uk
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Navman ICN330 with mapping of GB + Eire - £99.99, I think
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Go on, get out of the car...
www.mikes-walks.co.uk
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I just tried my Navman N20 in my Mondeo and it picked up a signal and calculated, a route no problem at all. Althought the signal strength indicator was showing 75%.
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Many thanks for the detailed responses.
I will trawl through them in my coffee break and then see what to get.
This place is a mine of information! Thanks again.
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I saw the TomTom 910 for £360 somewhere over the w/e (on t'web). That's the top of the range with Bluetooth, MP3, this, that, the other AND satnav!
Dixon's, IIRC, inc some kind of 10% rebate.
I can re-research if needed - but it was probably limited time offer.
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Without wanting to draw too much attention to myself, I posted the link further up the thread:
www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/editorial/TomTom+GPS+Sat+...m
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I have an older Tomtom Go 500 which covers all the requirements posted nicely.......i should imagine that someone in my position that wants to upgrade to a newer one would need to sell the old one (E-bay?)and it would be a bit of a bargain.....
be careful though, there's shed loads of nicked ones about.
The Go 500 and 700 are Europe compatible. Mine does it automatically to a degree i.e. main roads.........if you wanted more detail than that than that you'd have to pay for it and swap the little card over.
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Interesting idea.
I will have a snoop on Ebay.
So for more detailed maping in europe I buy a plug in card?
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So for more detailed maping in europe I buy a plug in card?
yes........or the States etc........have a look at Tomtom's website
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On the older models the 700 has a 3gb hard drive which included all Western Europe maps in the original package. For the 300 & 500 you'd ned to get (buy?) the Europe maps on an SD card, like for the PDA. I think the mapos are about £80 on eBay, from a German seller. (Also illegal copies available, but they are best avoided!)
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I have the Navman 750.
It has been used across the UK, Sweden, Norway, Denamrk, Germany, Belgium, The Hetherlands and France. In all areas it is very good.
It has loads more features than most, and a small camera to take a photo - should you want to navigate back to a particular viewpoint.
I like it better than TomTom et al because it has a few "hot" keys that enable me to find the nearest carpark or fuel station at the press of a button.
I have added a traffic alwert facility too - and one can download speed camera locations - though with my elderly computer I have found this problematic.
Would I recommend it? Definitely. Is it good value? Yes.
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Amazon have Navman 750 for £299.99 delivered.
Is it worth spending this bit extra over a budget system?
Seems to do everything I need (and more) at a bargain price.
Comments appreciated.......
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Don't forget you have to pay another £60-70 for the traffic add-on for the Navman units if you think you might want that, although like all TMC based satnavs at present, it's patchy at best.
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