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Sat Nav Recommendations

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:26 pm
by jjmartin349571
Hi folks,

Hoping for a bit of advice from anyone up on their in-car tech :)

Laura is travelling a lot more for her new job, and is regularly doing site visits and driving to offices based in the neighbouring county. So far she has been relying on her mobile but isn't finding it ideal (reception drops off, it uses data, battery isn't great etc. etc.), and now we're looking for a dedicated sat nav for her to use instead.

I've been to Halfords and tbh most of it went over my head - I've never owned one so not sure what is needed to get by.

We're budgeting about £100 but anything under would be awesome. Hoping somebody can recommend something decent :D

Cheers,
Josh

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:31 pm
by nitin_s1
I used to have a Sony Nav-U SatNav, it was brilliant and useful 95% of the time.

But now I just use the google Maps from my iPhone, it's more accurate and also has traffic re-routes. Never used my old sat nav again. This does come as a price though, it sucks battery and also uses a lot of data. But if you got unlimited data and car charger then it's not a problem.

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:39 pm
by lewd lude lover
TOMTOM all the way. Intuative.

Garmin are Clubbing Eddy

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:45 pm
by jjmartin349571
nitin_s1 wrote:I used to have a Sony Nav-U SatNav, it was brilliant and useful 95% of the time.

But now I just use the google Maps from my iPhone, it's more accurate and also has traffic re-routes. Never used my old sat nav again. This does come as a price though, it sucks battery and also uses a lot of data. But if you got unlimited data and car charger then it's not a problem.
We're not on unlimited data unfortunately, plus Laura tried putting her Galaxy S3 in the iPhone holder in my truck (she takes the Isuzu for long trips) which of course fell out loads but due to girl logic she has convinced herself that because of this it can be assumed that all phones will fall out of any holder and there is no persuading her otherwise :roll:

Network coverage is an issue too as she's often out in the sticks. We really need something with the maps stored locally.
lewd lude lover wrote:TOMTOM all the way. Intuative.

Garmin are Clubbing Eddy
My Nan always buys Tomtom sat navs and they seem fine, for some reason I had it in my head that Garmin was more upmarket but I have no idea why :? What's up with the Garmin units?

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:55 pm
by Rudelude
Tomtom is unreal.... So good

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 12:36 am
by Sailor
TomTom works for me. European coverage was faultless this year.

The Garmins used not to be quite as accurate, but I've heard that they're a lot better now.

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:40 am
by mercutio
tom tom for me too best one I have ever used

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:38 am
by lewd lude lover
Garmin feel like they were designed by someone who doesn't really care about your experience getting there, just that you get there. tomtom seem more adept at making an interactive experience that pleases at the same time as guides.

Just my experience but garmin feel more clunky in their functionality. I have not used on in a couple of years though.

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:41 am
by jjmartin349571
Cool, well tbh it sounds like it's probably best to get a Tomtom if they have been consistently decent.

I see there's loads of different models, is the only real difference between them the size of the screen and the maps they contain?

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:04 am
by 3rd gen steve
A couple of years ago i won a tomtom xxl, never had a satnav before but i used it a couple of times and was amazed how good it was. Being the xxl it has a 5" screen which is good because being a touch screen it makes things like volume adjustment much easier. I also had the problem one time of the fuse for the power socket blowing whilst being a good few hours from a hotel i was staying at, but the battery was more than capable of running on its own and had more than half the battery left by the time we got there, that may be a usefull feature if it to be used out in the sticks a lot.