Sat Nav or Maps on iPhone

Stoke

Mr_Mink wrote: »

Whilst I agree the Garmin are great Sat Nav's, my one and a half year old one that came with my car can only go about 5 mins under it's own steam since the battery is so hopeless. In the on-the-go regard, mobiles do have one up on a Sat Nav.

Mine is aftermarket that is built-in to the dash headunit. So no, only in the case of stand-alones.

Phone sat navs aren't brilliant imo.

Iceweasel

Mr_Mink wrote: »

Whilst I agree the Garmin are great Sat Nav's, my one and a half year old one that came with my car can only go about 5 mins under it's own steam since the battery is so hopeless. In the on-the-go regard, mobiles do have one up on a Sat Nav.

That just has to be a faulty example - my Garmin Nuvi can run for 4 hours when I disconnect it from the 12v feed.

It also charges quickly from my lap-top USB connection.

Mr_Mink

Iceweasel wrote: »

That just has to be a faulty example - my Garmin Nuvi can run for 4 hours when I disconnect it from the 12v feed.

It also charges quickly from my lap-top USB connection.

Well it did come with my Faultswagon so I wouldn't be surprised if I have to add another thing to the 'Does not work properly' column.

custardy

Iceweasel wrote: »

That just has to be a faulty example - my Garmin Nuvi can run for 4 hours when I disconnect it from the 12v feed.

It also charges quickly from my lap-top USB connection.

Yup,same for mine

Richard53

I would say using a smartphone with a free app (such as NavFree, best I found) was fine for occasional use. But you really can't beat a dedicated satnav for functionality. I've never had a car with satnav built in, and I really can't see the point. I have a portable elderly TomTom which suckers onto the screen, and I can't see how it could be better. It transfers between cars, and I even have a waterproof case so I can use it on the bike. It gets a lot of use.

If it knows where it is (i.e. switched off in same place the night before), it takes about 30 seconds to acquire satellites and be ready to go. In a new location, can be as long as 1-2 minutes. If you deviate from the route, it recalculates in seconds. I had a very bad experience with the first TomTom I had, but this one (GO720, sent to me FoC from Holland when I complained in 2006) has been faultless. I always use it on a power lead and I must have fried the internal battery, as it will only stay on for about 30 seconds under its own power. But that's not an issue for me. It has endured Denmark and back at three-figure speeds on the back of a Honda Pan European, and got thoroughly soaked in a rainstorm in the Black Forest, cured 100% by a night on top of a radiator. It's a brilliant bit of kit. At 7 years old, it owes me nothing, but until it falls apart I won't think of replacing it.

One issue I have found, though. If you subscribe to map updates, work out a way of saving your favourites in a different file. When I last updated, the new map wiped all the old favourites off the device. TomTom are aware it does this, but do not warn customers about it before purchase. With the help of Google and some forums I was able to restore most of them from an old backup, but it took several hours. I had favourite locations all over Europe, some not even on the map, and if I had lost them all I would have been very disappointed. That was a year ago, and maybe they have changed it now, but it's worth asking.

Iceweasel

I must have been lucky then - as with my Garmin Nuvi765T I've had no problems with the battery - or with the regular updates deleting my favourite locations.

My only gripe is that there are still some countries where the only coverage I get is the main roads.

Albania
Belarus
Bosnia Hercegovina
Ukraine

But it's getting better - but slowly.

Everytime I get an update the coverage expands.

A few years ago coverage stopped at the Austrian-Slovenian border.