Sat Nav Recommendations

'92 Si VTEC · Post by **jjmartin349571** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:26 pm

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

Cheers,
Josh

nitin_s1 · Post by **nitin_s1** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:31 pm

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.

Post by **lewd lude lover** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:39 pm

TOMTOM all the way. Intuative.

Garmin are Clubbing Eddy

'92 Si VTEC · Post by **jjmartin349571** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:45 pm

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

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?

Rudelude · Post by **Rudelude** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:55 pm

Tomtom is unreal.... So good

YouTube · Post by **Sailor** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 12:36 am

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.

mercutio · Post by **mercutio** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:40 am

tom tom for me too best one I have ever used

Post by **lewd lude lover** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:38 am

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.

'92 Si VTEC · Post by **jjmartin349571** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:41 am

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?

3rd gen steve · Post by **3rd gen steve** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:04 am

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.