sat nav that can be trusted

Bernie

...and for driving into the unknown, the Garmin is my choice.

We have two Garmin Streetpilots for our cars, a hand-held for walking/cycling, getting back to the holiday hotel and TomTom in both our Pocket PC phones.

The best thing I like about Garmin's software is that if you go off the route it has calculated, it starts calculating the new route from scratch. This is particularly handy if you decide the box has chosen a daft turn/route and you simple drive on by the turn the box chose. I find I have to do this pretty often!

By contrast, TomTom will do it's utmost to return you back to your original route - not desireable if you've changed deliberately to avoid a jam or a pish road! With TomTom, you have to make menu selections to get it to generate a new alternative route - and then it sulks and generates one that deliberately avoids using any of the original route! I find that after I've got past whatever it was caused me to change direction, I have to go back to the TomTom menus and ask it to find a new route again (or go back to the original) to get TomTom to use the original major route it has avoided!

Another feature I prefer in the Garmin units is that the display will zoom out to include your next "turn" and present position on screen. As the distance reduces, the display zooms in with greater and greater detail.

For driving on regular routes, I use TomTom in my Ipaq Pocket PC. This is far more convenient and compact and the continuous short-range display on screen is clear and sharp with road names clearly shown. TomTom has more features (because Garmin for some reason have severely reduced the menus and options available on newer models).

Using way points onscreen, I've generated and saved my "best option" routes when I worked out ways to avoid bottlenecks using smaller back roads. This function is not available on Garmin stuff, they only allow a single "via" point. TomTom eats this, allowing you to insert waypoints at will onscreen to make up your own "itinery".

So in short, I've found Garmin does the job better when routing but TomTom is the better and more useful interface, particularly in making and saving your own optimised routes.

Overall there's no silver bullet in GPS selection. Try your mates kit and see what you're more comfortable with.

Please excuse the babbling - I am a bit of a GPS geek so I can't help it!:beer:

totalsolutions

Garmin for me

IcyEars

TomTom for me. It's the best one I ever used. My last company had a selection of different SatNav's and I've tried them all. We used to drive all over the country and TomTom was the most reliable out of the lot of them.

That being said, check your route before you go (either on a map or the interweb) and keep it updated. They are good but not infallible.

fwor

Like Bernie, I've got both a TomTom and a Garmin.

There's pros and cons to each, but for me the Garmin seems to have a simpler user interface with slightly fewer features.

If I had to buy a satnav for my Dad, I would get him a Garmin.

If prices were the same then I would probably have bought myself another TomTom, but for a unit with an SD card slot and European maps, the Garmin Nuvi seems to be better value than the TomToms, so I bought Garmin.

Incidentally, one thing I would not bother with is widescreen. Having come from a PDA-based unit which could be used in portrait mode, a widescreen shows frustratingly little of the road ahead for the size of screen. The only advantage I can think of is that you can see more Points of Interest on either side of your route, but I'd rather see more of the route ahead...

@ Bernie: The current Garmin Nuvis will now let you set multiple "Via points" on your route.

sco0ter

Bernie wrote: »

By contrast, TomTom will do it's utmost to return you back to your original route - not desireable if you've changed deliberately to avoid a jam or a pish road! With TomTom, you have to make menu selections to get it to generate a new alternative route - and then it sulks and generates one that deliberately avoids using any of the original route! I find that after I've got past whatever it was caused me to change direction, I have to go back to the TomTom menus and ask it to find a new route again (or go back to the original) to get TomTom to use the original major route it has avoided!

Never had that problem... TOMTOM will only keep trying to return you to the route if it still the Fastest or shortest (depending which you pick) that is available. Drive up a road for a while and when a new route that is faster or shorter becomes available it will replan for it.

My only grumble with my TOMTOM was with the TMC reciever but now with them being available for £25 and a better version that is now compatible with Navcore 7/8 it is less of a problem. Also since I modified mine I get a lock in under 10 seconds and can get the signal in places I couldnt before.

hansi

For what it's worth, I've had a Trafficmaster system installed whose sat nav system talks you through the route. No need to take your eyes off the road, and nothing visible in the card to nick!

sco0ter

hansi wrote: »

For what it's worth, I've had a Trafficmaster system installed whose sat nav system talks you through the route. No need to take your eyes off the road, and nothing visible in the card to nick!

Dont all sat navs talk you through the route??? They also have an option to switch maps off when the car reaches a certain speed.. so therefore nothing to distract you.

hansi

But they're still nickable if you forget to take them out!

sco0ter

As is anything (handbags, jackets,radio/cd player, money) If you are foolish enough to leave things in plain site

hansi

Site????:rolleyes: My point was that with most St Nav's you have to remove the screen when you leave the card to avoid it being nicked! With TM ,you don't have to worry about forgetting it