Help me decide on a sat nav.

Biggles

It does lose the satellite in any tunnel, obviously, but it quickly picks it up at the other end, as GS says.

And I've yet to take a wrong turn in a tunnel while the satellite was out ;-)

goldspanners

Biggles wrote: »

And I've yet to take a wrong turn in a tunnel while the satellite was out ;-)

that would be a big mistake!

boatman

The loss of signal in a tunnel will be the same for any gps except the new TT920, Igo MyWay and ViaMichelin(just stopped making satnavs, so not recommended) which are out of your budget.
As for route planning, the Garmins allow one 'via' point on a route, on Tomtom you can do 'itinerary' planning which allows you to add more stops on your route, the disadvantage with the Tomtom ONE is that it doesn't play music.
A route with lots of via points is available on Mio satnavs like the C220 here for £95, the advantage of this satnav is that it uses windows mobile 5 which can be 'unlocked', you can then add more programs like a media player which will allow you to watch films and play music, one of your requirements. This Mio runs Igo software which very good, many people prefer it to Tomtom because you can tweak it. This seems to suit your requirements.

vikingaero

Biggles wrote: »

It does lose the satellite in any tunnel, obviously, but it quickly picks it up at the other end, as GS says.

And I've yet to take a wrong turn in a tunnel while the satellite was out ;-)

If you drive eastbound through the Limehouse Link tunnel you can fork left and make the mistake of going to Canary Wharf. So it is possible to get lost in some tunnels.

Biggles

vikingaero wrote: »

If you drive eastbound through the Limehouse Link tunnel you can fork left and make the mistake of going to Canary Wharf. So it is possible to get lost in some tunnels.

Ooh-er!

Mind you, I did get lost in a tunnel once with satnav. I was coming out of London and wanted to make sure the satnav took me through the Blackwall Tunnel. So I zoomed in and saw there were two tunnels, so clicked on the left-hand (ie obviously the northbound) one. I was somewhat surprised, on exiting the tunnel, to then find I was immediately heading back under the river again.

Only then did I realise that it must be the right-hand tunnel that was northbound in this case, so the satnav, in order to comply with my request, had to take me through that tunnel just so that it could take me back through the one I had requested, then finally back northwards again before I could head home!

plane_boy2000

If you are looking for a sat nav you might like to check out the offer at Tescos - if you buy car incurance through them they will give you a 100 pound voucher towards a Nav Man s unit through Tesco Direct. Think teh cheapest one is about 129 so if you need insurance and teh quote is Ok could be a cheap option. Worked for me as they were cheaper than my renewal anyway.

scotpics

What's wrong with a map? Only costs a few pounds, easily replaced at any garage or bookshop and less likely to attract thieves....:rotfl:

Buster_Danog

OK, the Mio Digiwalker recommended above has been criticised in at least 8 reviews for having low volume. That would be a big problem in my car as it doesn't have much power so the engine can get noisy and having the heater on would be even louder.

I said earlier I was leaning towards the Garmin C510. However, I have read numerous criticisms of the "free" TMC traffic receiver that is included. Many people have not been able to get it to work or get a signal.

By the way I don't really care about the MP3 player. That is a side issue really. Also, why do more reviews of Garmins seem to mention people being taken on strange out of the way back road routes than with Tom Toms?

One other thing I would like is a sat nav that can read the text of street names as that would be very useful in built up areas. I guess that is a higher budget though. One guy did manage to do a hack for this on the C510, but it sounds risky.

boatman

Sorry about the recommendation of the Mio C220, i've regularly used a Mio C510e and found this to have a louder speaker than the Garmin or Tomtoms i've used, shouldn't make presumptions i guess. The TMC traffic receiver(GTM-21) used on the Garmin C510 is the same one used by many Garmin Satnavs(e.g. NUVI 660, C550), some people have more success than others, I had one for a short while but it was no good(swapped it for a NUVI 310), not sure if this was down to the satnav, had several lockups or the 'athermic' windscreen which has a dramatic effect on the signal receive by the RDS TMC receiver.
The 'text-to speech' feature your after is generally available on more expensive models, the only cheap ones i know of are the Mio C230(£140), may have the same speaker as C220!!! Or the Garmin C550 for £130. MNC or here
The Garmin C550 also plays mp3, the disadvantage is that its quite chunky compared with other models, £130 is a really good price considering it was selling for £250-300 not long ago. Got a feeling the C550 has buggy software and has a higher failure rate than other units. Decisions, decisions!!
I think you'll either have to pay more to get the features you want or settle for a cheaper one without the features.

Buster_Danog

Cheers Boatman. If TMC will work with my ancient windscreen (I gather modern windscreens seem to be the problem) then that would be something that will sway me over other units. So I think I will definitely go for one that comes with the TMC. Still thinking though.