[Closed] Best Sat nav thingy thaat goes in a car.....

My Garmin Nuvi 205 is pretty spot on for me and only £80ish. I can't really see why I'd spend more though no doubt someone will be along shortly to justify their purchase 😀

TomTom make the best in-car satnavs, IMHO. Nothing else comes close in terms of useability or routing.

can i ask why tom tom over say garmin?

I've got a TomTom for personal use and a Garmin for work. I personally prefer the way the TomTom works over the Garmin from inputting addresses to the actual display.

I've played with them all in the shops back when I was buying one and the TomTom was massively more intuitive to use.

I've used several road GPS systems since (though, granted, not Garmin) and I've always found TT to be the most accurate and the most sensible routing (ie, it's 'the way I'd have gone' when it's a route I know).

For other duties other products may well be better (last GPS I actually bought was a Garmin) but for in-car satnav I've yet to see better.

I've had TomTom and Garmin. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I much prefer the Garmin

an android phone with google navigation and CoPilot for backup when there is no mbile coverage.

And when something goes wrong on the car you can google to find an answer to the problem...

My partner has a Tom Tom and yes it's easy to use, once you factor in all the map costs though (if you want to use it abroad) it adds up a lot. I have a Garmin mobileXT software on a GPS enable phone and it's very good, and nice to have everything in one package. It doesn't need mobile coverage to work either and comes with maps for all of western and central europe, cheaper than any half decent dedicated satnav. some sort of stick to windscreen carrier (though I've ultimately screwed mine to the dash), 12V charger and you're away.

I have a TomTom and it works well but I constantly enter wrong digits due to a combination of small screen size and my fat fingers.

The lesson is to try before you buy - I just got the cheapest deal off the Internet.

I also get annoyed when the unit drops off the windscreen every hour or so but I think all sucker based units share that fault.

TBH I doubt whether I would buy a dedicated Sat-Nav now in these days of smartphones.

I've used a few of them, loads of built in ones & Garmin, Tomtom & some of the 'no name' cheapies

I love Garmin GPS stuff and have a few handhelds but for the car I'd put Tomtom over everything else I've used for driving routing and functionality, it's hard to beat

once you factor in all the map costs though

People pay for them?

iPhone or Android phone, similar price and much more useful

Another vote for an Android smart phone if its for occasional use. For heavy use the screen can be a little small and the voice directions a bit quiet, but its so much easier to enter address details than fumbling about with the clunky unresponsive touch screen on a satnav.

You'll need a half decent 12v charger though as the GPS function can consume more power than a 500ma charger can provide...resulting in a flat phone after each journey.

thanks any models or deals at the moment?

http://www.tomtomdeals.co.uk/

+1 smart phone

I'm a bit confused how the dedicated SatNav guys make any money now?

http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/products/tomtom-outlet-store/

If you're going for the Smartphone route, you can get an Orange San Francisco for 80 quid and CoPilot UK for about £25.

Dedicated devices have the edge in terms of reliability, performance and such. I can't remember my old TomTom ever locking up for no reason or having a duck fit because the phone rang. Why buy a compact camera or an mp3 player?

Personally, if I were getting a satnav tomorrow, I'd get CoPilot for my phone. However, if I was suddenly made a field service engineer (say), I'd want a dedicated device (and a Traffic subscription). Horses for courses.

uplink - Member
[i]once you factor in all the map costs though[/i]
People pay for them?

Do you steal steak from the supermarket as well?

And old chestnuts?

cheers