Sat Navs

pollyanna24

I posted on here a while ago about Sat Navs you can buy as an app for an iPhone 5 and I downloaded a few of them, but they only seem to tell and show me where I am at the present time, and not how to get to where I am going! Plus it does the fading out and going to black screen when you don't touch it for a while.

So now I'm in the process of trying to get myself a cheap Sat Nav, but I don't have the first clue of what is a good one to buy. Cos it is only very rarely I use one, I'm thinking I need just a basic one, but there seems to be loads out there.

Anyone help me?

Lagoon

I have the Navman Ezy+, and it's excellent. I bought it for the low price, but love all the additional features including the detailed lane navigation (pictured). Stuff that you don't need, but it's just useful for time saving.
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_892653_langId_-1_categoryId_165685

Ultrasonic

pollyanna24 wrote: »

I posted on here a while ago about Sat Navs you can buy as an app for an iPhone 5 and I downloaded a few of them, but they only seem to tell and show me where I am at the present time, and not how to get to where I am going! Plus it does the fading out and going to black screen when you don't touch it for a while.

I'm sure you've just not got the apps set up properly. What apps have you tried? I'm also sure the screen turning off is something that can be prevented with an appropriate phone settiing change.

Alexd52

The Google Maps Navigation works as a satnav, it is free and the screen does not turn off when this app is running. There are plenty of others, both free and paid for, which would work just fine

Richard53

I tried the Google Maps app a couple of days ago, when I was out and needed directions, but had left the TomTom at home. Unless I was doing it wrong, the route kept stopping at the next junction, and not updating until I stopped and did the whole routing thing again. It may be fine and I just need to work at it, but it was not intuitive.

I would say get the cheapest TomTom you can find. The modern ones work well, and you can use them out of the box without reading the manual, they are so user-friendly. I have no experience of the 'bargain basement' satnavs, but I think you can get the basic TomTom for under £100 now. That would give you maps for the UK and Ireland - if you want Western Europe maps obviously you will need to pay more.

If you want a free navigation app, NavFree is pretty good. But I haven't found any phone app to be anywhere near as good as a dedicated satnav unit.

sillygoose

pollyanna24 wrote: »

I posted on here a while ago about Sat Navs you can buy as an app for an iPhone 5 and I downloaded a few of them, but they only seem to tell and show me where I am at the present time, and not how to get to where I am going! Plus it does the fading out and going to black screen when you don't touch it for a while.

So now I'm in the process of trying to get myself a cheap Sat Nav, but I don't have the first clue of what is a good one to buy. Cos it is only very rarely I use one, I'm thinking I need just a basic one, but there seems to be loads out there.

Anyone help me?

Personally I think phones make poor Sat nav's in general, unless you have a charger cable plugged in the car it eat the battery, the voice isn't that loud and so on, OK for odd emergency use.

Get yourself a proper Sat Nav unit far easier to use and very cheap now, you just need a basic unit for your use.

This one gets hundreds of decent reviews on Argos and is available on their Ebay clearance store for only about £30! with 1 year warranty.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190835576174

(On Argos itself its £50 currently!)

wba31

I echo what Ultrasonic says about the set up. I have used Apple maps navigation and the TomTom app and on neither did the screen go off.
If you are prepared to spend £££ on it the TomTom app is just like any normal TomTom. The MSE bit is that as long as you have a working iPhone you have a TomTom, my actual TomTom device broke after 18 months however...

wba31

Richard53 wrote: »

I tried the Google Maps app a couple of days ago, when I was out and needed directions, but had left the TomTom at home. Unless I was doing it wrong, the route kept stopping at the next junction, and not updating until I stopped and did the whole routing thing again. It may be fine and I just need to work at it, but it was not intuitive.

I would say get the cheapest TomTom you can find. The modern ones work well, and you can use them out of the box without reading the manual, they are so user-friendly. I have no experience of the 'bargain basement' satnavs, but I think you can get the basic TomTom for under £100 now. That would give you maps for the UK and Ireland - if you want Western Europe maps obviously you will need to pay more.

If you want a free navigation app, NavFree is pretty good. But I haven't found any phone app to be anywhere near as good as a dedicated satnav unit.

I found the TomTom app to be exactly the same as my old TomTom, the advantage was that I only had to take my phone out the car and not a phone AND a sat nav.

Revv_2

Richard53 wrote: »

I tried the Google Maps app a couple of days ago, when I was out and needed directions, but had left the TomTom at home. Unless I was doing it wrong, the route kept stopping at the next junction, and not updating until I stopped and did the whole routing thing again. It may be fine and I just need to work at it, but it was not intuitive.
.

The annoying thing with Google maps on iPhone is, when the routing starts, it will pause if you touch the screen. Touching in this case will include zooming in/out. It just gets some tome to get used to it.

If you can live with a SAT NAV app that doesn't save favorite locations, then Google Maps is hands down the best free app. To be honest its better than most paid apps. Another issue with Google maps is also the fact it doesn't save the entire data locally, i.e. when you want to start a route you need to have a data (3G) connection.

About the screen, I just disable screen lock inside the car. Also, using your phone as a SAT NAV will drain the battery quite fast, as having Location services (GPS), screen, route calculation (processor) and the data connection (3G) enabled at the same time is quite power consuming. If you dont have a USB charger, your battery will make about 2 hours max.

HTH,

NeverEnough

I use Navfree on my iPhone when I don't have a satnav, it works perfectly and is just the same as a standalone satnav, but it kills the battery very quickly unless you have an in car charger. Change the iphone screen settings so your phone doesn't go into power save mode.

But if its standalone satnav you want, then fair enough, each have their uses.

pollyanna24

Thanks for everyone's answers.

It is for a one off trip to Bognor Regis next month which will take me about 2 hours from just north of London.

I've downloaded NavFree and Google Maps and M8, but I just don't seem to be able to get along with them. I'll give it another go and do that screen lock thing and see if I can get it working.

Another thing to consider is that I don't actually have an in car charger. Does it come with the phone? I have an iPhone 5 and still have the box that came with the phone (thinking about it, the headphones are probably in there and I've just recently realised that I can play songs through my phone - yes, the iPhone is wasted on me, I know!).