SatNav - Advice

bigfreddiel

I'm looking for a sub £100 Satnav - something like MyGuide 3100 SAT NAV GPS UNIT or Binatone Carrera X350

What advice or experience can anyone offer?

A couple of features I'm looking for are current speed reading and a warning that I am exeeding the speed limit - not just a warning that a speed camera is imminent.

Cheers

fj

evadanit

First of all, DONT Get the Navman, I don't care what anyone says, but they are Crap! I have got a tom tom one XL, I know, very pricey, but it has to be the most user friendly by far!
Pop into Maplins and take a look at some, they will usually get it out of the case and give you a demo. Garmin are used in Australia, so must be good!

evilgoose

I guy in work just bought a TomTom 720 for £168 from PC world - price matched to amazon, a bit more than you want to spend, but its a cracking satnav and the voice input works a treat - even for Welsh place names!

fwor

I admit that I've not tried one for at least a year, but my experience of Navman was the same as Evadanit's - I just found it awkward. I use TomTom, which has it's faults (e.g. occasional inexcusable map errors) but is very easy to use.

As for the "exceeding the current speed limit": I stand to be corrected here, but I don't think any makers currently do this. I doubt they will, because they find it hard enough keeping track of where the roads actually are, let alone what speed limit applies to each section of every road!

At the moment the best solution seems to be to install the Speed Camera POIs to warn you of the traps, and to use your powers of observation to try to keep a track of what the speed limit is everywhere else.

bigfreddiel

Thanks for those replies, actually all I want is live speed readout in mph

mountainchrisriver

Why not look at the speedo in the car? or am I missing something here?

amcluesent

>actually all I want is live speed readout in mph<

TomTom6 running on a PDA certainly does that, confirming that my car speedo is optimistic. I now know I can go at an indicated 75 and its really 70.

The maps in TomTom 6 have some roads where the speed limit is known, and TomTom will show a (tiny) warning on screen when you are a few mph over. Unfortunately there's no way to customise the alert that TomTom provides, except for a single 'over speed' indicator when it'll totally change the display.

I've set this trigger speed to 76mph (i.e. below the ACPO prosecution guideline of 70 + 10% + 2mph) so I know when I'm in the danger zone hammering it on the motorway. Running at a true 76 is something like 85 on my speedo, so you still pass quite a bit of traffic (no I don't own a Beemer!)

The_Madmouse

fwor wrote: »

I admit that I've not tried one for at least a year, but my experience of Navman was the same as Evadanit's - I just found it awkward. I use TomTom, which has it's faults (e.g. occasional inexcusable map errors) but is very easy to use.

As for the "exceeding the current speed limit": I stand to be corrected here, but I don't think any makers currently do this. I doubt they will, because they find it hard enough keeping track of where the roads actually are, let alone what speed limit applies to each section of every road!

At the moment the best solution seems to be to install the Speed Camera POIs to warn you of the traps, and to use your powers of observation to try to keep a track of what the speed limit is everywhere else.

Tomtom's latest software update now has an option to sound a warning when going over speed limit of current road you are travelling on...I had a tomtom 510 and just updated the software (free) and it does work, the speed limit is shown in red with an audio warning when over limit...the sat nav is more accurate of speed though than your car speedo as car speedometers do tend to over read a little

have a read here

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=62764

fwor

Always happy to stand corrected! I wonder how it would stand up around here, though... They are forever fiddling with the speed limits. If TomTom couldn't get Junction 8 of the M25 right 4 years after it changed, what chance their road speeds will stay up to date!

But that is useful info, as my version of TomTom is now quite a long way out of date - the more new features, the more I could justify the cost...

BTW, I tried your link - thinking that it would point to the speed tracking feature in TomTom, only to find a huge thread wandering onto such subjects as "calculating your speed by counting sheep"!

totalsolutions

Garmin is my choice of unit. They also do speed read out and road over speed warnings. Prices are lower now to. Checkout the above mentioned pocketgpsworld link and look at www.garmin.com
I prefer the map detail from garmin and little features that are unique to that brand.

The_Madmouse

fwor wrote: »

Always happy to stand corrected! I wonder how it would stand up around here, though... They are forever fiddling with the speed limits. If TomTom couldn't get Junction 8 of the M25 right 4 years after it changed, what chance their road speeds will stay up to date!

But that is useful info, as my version of TomTom is now quite a long way out of date - the more new features, the more I could justify the cost...

BTW, I tried your link - thinking that it would point to the speed tracking feature in TomTom, only to find a huge thread wandering onto such subjects as "calculating your speed by counting sheep"!

It does get a little "strange" in pocketgpsworld sometimes!

Depending on what tomtom you have you can update the software via tomtom to have the speed features for free so you wouldnt have any need to buy a new unit