mac compatible, user friendly sat nav?

pigeonpie

just hung on for Garmin CS for 1/2 an hour with musak and hung up.
I am bewildered by the no of models of Satnav. My budget is £120 odd maximum, hopefully less.

I need one that:
fits ok in a small car, on the windscreen;
has good battery life and can be charged by car cigarette lighter, mains or usb;
is mac compatible without jumping through hoops ie easy to do;
works well in UK (incl London), France and Spain on motorways and smaller roads;
has up to date maps and doesn't charge a lot for map updates but has map updates offered on a reasonably frequent (but not required too often) basis;
is really easy to use as I am not good with gadgets;
can be carried around with me when am not in a car;
preferably with speed camera detection fixed.

I am told Garmin's simpler to use? My head's spinning with the choice so please help! I need it before next weekend. thanks

Chartered_Eng

I use a Tom Tom with my Mac and can vouch that they are compatible even though it is an old model (the Tom Tom, not the Mac which is running Snow Leopard). You can download the Tom Tom Home application that does all the communications / downloading of maps etc.

The application is used to do the map purchasing including speed camera updates. Tom Tom Home makes updating and backing up the unit on your Mac very easy and intuitive. The same cannot be said for the unit itself. To do the basics is not hard and pretty straight forward. It's the labyrinthine menu system that can make things hard if for example you want to change the announcement voice or the configuration of the screen.

I have found the speed camera alerts to be not always accurate but it errs on the side of caution listing cameras that have been removed (completed road works for example). Apart from that it works well and a good aid to driving safely. I have used it in the UK and Canada with a high degree of success saving time and petrol. Maps can be purchased for extending the areas it can be used in or for updates. Tom Tom run a subscription system whereby maps are updated regularly. See the Tom Tom web site for details.

InsideInsurance

Also use a TomTom with a Mac with no problems, wouldn't say the map updates are cheap though last time I looked.

pigeonpie

any basic model recommendations please? There seem to be so many of them and Garmin with little apparent differences, or differences that I don't understand how important they could be as have only ever used a very basic Garmin in South Africa once. thanks

Hammyman

+1 for Tomtom. They have the easiest to use interface by far both for the Satnav and the computer software. I got a Tomtom XL with Western Europe maps for under £120 from Halfords.

pigeonpie

apologies for another question; I should ask them all upfront!

How big is the Tom Tom? My car's small (Twingo) so don't have a big windscreen or dash to fix it to. And do they stay up ok?
sorry that's 2 qs

thescouselander

I use a Garmin with my mac with no problems. I prefer Garmin to Tom Tom but its all down to personal preference really.

ghostsarereal

is the tomtom via 125 live compatible with macs because i seen a really good deal at mynewgps.co.uk for one and want to buy it just need to be sure its compatible with my imac

thanks

Bruno

pigeonpie

I'm waiting for this to arrive http://www.amazon.co.uk/TomTom-20-Europe-Satellite-Navigation/dp/B004W1GQ92/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316095736&sr=8-1

It had better be mac compatible and have a usb charger in the box! I didn't buy a mains charger...never used one before but do you normally leave it plugged into the cig lighter in the car? (hope it reaches). I hope it's easy to use and doesn't cause great marital disagreements :-O

samwsmith1

But for £5 more (see cashback offer down the page) than the one above you could have had a via live 120 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/TomTom-VIA-LIVE-120-UK/dp/B0048BPRIM/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1316138525&sr=1-2
I bought this a couple of weeks ago and it's been great, and it's mac compatible.

Presuming the boxes have the same content mine came with a usb lead for the tomtom and a cigarette lighter usb adaptor.