Garmin i3 Sat Nac back at 99.99 at comet

greyster

It's still the cheapest place I could find it..... i checked 4 price comparison sites.

Woolworths has it on there site at £99.99 but out of stock.

AlastairI

Tharweb wrote:

You would have to buy the maps for France, but they are expensive, costing around £90 per country...however...apparently they are available on ebay...search for 'Metroguide Europe v8'

I just want to jump in here. Metroguide is not a routable map package, you cannot use this on your unit to create a route to and from a location. It will merely display map information and if you select to travel somewhere it will draw a straight line as the crow flies.

The i3 uses City Navigator NT+ V8, V9 should come out early next year. You can buy additional country mapping on microSD cards for about £90 each. Or you could purchase all of Europe (over £250 or so) and an additional microSD card (I believe a Gig has been tested successfully, the whole of Europe is around 1.8 Gig in size) then unlock this mapping and use it on your unit (as much as the card will accept).

I'd strongly advise against buying any Garmin mapping from eBay as many people selling it have already unlocked it on other units, you cannot use these unlock codes with your unit, they are specifically designed for the original unit they were used with. You would actually have to purchase the unlock code, which is the cost of buying the mapping new, Garmin does not support eBay buyers you will not have any warranty rights with the purchase. So you would end up paying more than you bargained for.

greyster

Also note it is likely (but not certain) that will Garmin will upgrade your Navigator software free of charge when new versions come out. They've done it for free up to now.

It involves posting your memory card to them and they copy the new data on to it and post it back.

This was useful when I got the £99.99 deal early this year .. half the units on the shelf were v7 and the others v8.

AlastairI

Hey greyster, Garmin will do this for units purchased with V7 software as V8 is the current and you are entitled to the free update. Definately worth doing.

However V9 will cost, although there's no price for these yet, Europe updates cost $75, so it'll probably be around $45 or similar for the UK.

greyster

I have v8, I sent it to Garmin.

How do you know v9 will cost? They put a price up for v8 when it came out, but let everyone upgrade for free.

AlastairI

I work for Garmin Europe.

Originally there was going to be a charge for V8 for those who purchased units before the mapping was released. But Garmin decided to provide V8 for free as part of their customer support. Unfortunately V9 will have a charge but this charge has not been released yet.

greyster

ah a Garmin rep on the forums, very handy.

Please let us know when you know the charge!

sausagefans

Is the unit supposed to come with batterys? Mine did not but I assume you use standard AAs as the handbook does not indicate they need to be "special"!

Do Garmin allow one map update free as the map on mine seems awfully out of date...

Many thanks

Stephen

sainthalo

sausage, you can use std batteries - manual says they last 6 hours.

my friend bought strong rechargeable 2500mh batteries to use in it instead.

sausagefans

AlastairI wrote:

I work for Garmin Europe.

Originally there was going to be a charge for V8 for those who purchased units before the mapping was released. But Garmin decided to provide V8 for free as part of their customer support. Unfortunately V9 will have a charge but this charge has not been released yet.

Do Garmin provide one free update for maps on a unit? The maps for my area are very out of date including some roads which have been made into cycle paths and footpaths years ago!

Thanks