Guest maria Posted January 31, 2005 Share Posted January 31, 2005 We are thinking of investing in satalite navigation but dont know where to start. We would appreciate any advice on types, relability and cost. Thanks in anticipation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alf W Posted January 31, 2005 Share Posted January 31, 2005 Within the last couple of weeks purchased "Tomtom Go", which is a "take it out the box and plug it in" system, easily moveable from vehicle to vehicle if you want to use it in a car as well as Motorhome. We have only had 2 or 3 trial runs locally, but I am amazed at the map detail - not just minor roads but farm tracks. The voice prompts are clear, given in good time, and reinforced at the point of manoevre. So long as you dont have a heat-reflecting windscreen the satellite signals are recevied with the gismo on top of the dash. In this country it comes with the UK map on the SD disk, and with a CD which has downloadable maps of the main Europe routes. For some daft reason, and my only complaint so far, the SD does not have the capacity to take the European routes, therefore you have to buy another SD disk. The detailed maps of other European countries, as well as the USA, are available to purchase. See www.tomtom.com. I hope that in future my wife will be able to enjoy the countryside rather than have her nose stuck in the map all the time ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul Dickinson Posted January 31, 2005 Share Posted January 31, 2005 I second Alf's comments. The Tomtom Go is brilliant apart from having to buy extra maps on CD for Europe for an additional £120 AND having access to a computer. It has helped my wife and I enjoy the journeys rather than worrying getting lost. You have to trust it though! The only time we took a wrong turning on a holiday to Spain was when I decided (incorrectly) that it was taking us the wrong way. Oops. One of the best things is that it can be taken out of the motorhome and put in the car (or even out walking) as it has an internal battery and is totally portable. It has, as I believe all other systems do, the ability to direct you to the nearest petrol station, or supermarket etc etc which I find very useful for my work as I travel alot. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul Posted January 31, 2005 Share Posted January 31, 2005 I started by looking at the Tom Tom Go and the Garmin, however decided that the initial cost of the Garmin was too high for the map quality and that you needed to have a laptop with you to constantly change the mapping if you deviated from the pre loaded routing due to inadequate memory for mapping. The TT Go cost was too high when you took into account the additional street level mapping required for Europe, costing close to the Garmin in all. At the time and with advice from users of this board, I decided the best mapping (user interface in particular)and the most reasonable cost was the Navman PiN with Smart ST Pro V2 mapping, now superseded by V3 which is even better. You can use inexpensive SD or MMC memory cards and on a 512 MB card you can load and use France most of Germany and the low countries without having to change cards or reload any maps. You can also use 1GB card which obviously holds even more. Once all maps are loaded onto a card you can switch them in or out at will or use them for through routes. There are now more new versions on the market worth a look i.e. Medion, Garmin Quest, Navman IC and Typhoon to name a few, some just under the £300 barrier. You need to look at them and read reports on the net and choose after you are sure that you are getting what you want. Try www.pocketgps.co.uk or www.totalpda.co.uk for reviews and lso www.expansys.com for some good deals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Derek Uzzell Posted February 1, 2005 Share Posted February 1, 2005 Maria: I assume you've noticed the article "Portable GPS Navigators" beginning on page 217 of MMM Feb 2005. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alf W Posted February 1, 2005 Share Posted February 1, 2005 Further to the above 2 Paul's postings. I think you can get additional maps for less than £120 (see the inevitable Amazon for example), and you can of course buy an SD card and load both Britain and European maps onto it, changing from one to another as required. The CD is then just back-up in case of disaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Will Redfearn Wirral Motorhome Club Posted February 1, 2005 Share Posted February 1, 2005 Whilst we're in this thread. Can anyone recommend mapping software for use with GPS Guidance system for Canada. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PeteC Posted February 1, 2005 Share Posted February 1, 2005 Have you though about using the GPS system built into 'Autoroute' If you are going to carry a laptop this system has Europe on one (1) CD which lives on the Hard disk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bill Ord Posted February 1, 2005 Share Posted February 1, 2005 Will Redfearn: try Copilot for North America. www.alk.com should find it. I use Copilot 5 very satisfactorily although the Pan Europe mapping was £100 it all works well enough. Bill Ord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Doug Posted February 2, 2005 Share Posted February 2, 2005 Maria I have Tomtom navigator 3 loaded on a PDA,same mapping as Tomtom Go. My better half thinks it the best accessory we have, she can now just enjoy the scenery while "Gertie" talks me to our destination. Used extensively in Europe no problems except when new roads or islands have been built, but if I am confused I just pick any exit from island knowing that "Gertie" will put me right.With TomTom navigator you can download via computer and internet extra points of interest on to the relevant map, I have French Aires, Caravan Club sites and CLs, and Camping and Caravan club sites and their CSs. I do not know if the facility is available for TomTom Go, but Go is a cheaper way than Navigator.I justify my choice because I use the Pcket PC for other things, plus TomTom Go was not available 3 years ago Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andrew & Johanna Hutchings Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 I purchased a Navman 650 from the airport duty free saving a considerable amount of money from the high street price The main reason for purchasing this model is that it has a 2gb internal memory which enables it to hold enough information for street level mapping of 16 European countries without the need to upload or down load anything It comes as plug and go Just So if you are not computer literate it does not matter all you have to do is attach it on the dashboard plug it in to the lighter point and switch it on I use this all the time for work and have just returned from a ski trip to Italy and it worked superbly taking us from door to door We stopped on route at a hotel in Austria and it directed us to within 12ft of the place It is more expensive than the Tom Tom but there is no need to buy all the additional disks to up load it and at £120 to £160 each it works out far far cheaper as soon as you need to travel to more than 1 country The cost through Dixon’s at the airport was about £650 And it comes with all the accompanying disk in the box should you want to clear the memory and up date it later Also there is a saving on the memory sticks at £50+ each as it does not need any Finally you dont have to carry any memorie sticks with additional maps to up load when you go from one country to another as they are all in the machine Regards Andrew & Johanna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Patrick Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 Here is a completely different suggestion but of absolutely no use unless you normally carry a laptop. I impulse purchased a package for my laptop which contains Europe (well nearly all Europe with some variation in map detail) on the software (Navigator 4), a GPS receiver and a 12v PSU for the laptop. All for £140 from the excellently helpful Action Replay (www.action-replay.co.uk). I fully admit to being interested and fascinated in this sort of gadget and have had an absolutely brilliant time playing with it. Like all GPS it will have a number of faults (as anybody who watched the Gadget Show on C5 a couple of weeks ago will know). The downsides are fairly obvious against a dedicated unit (such as TomTom). It is not really suitable for a vehicle with a single occupant to use unless you can find somewhere really good to put the laptop so the screen is visible. You can rely solely on the spoken directions but it is really useful to be able to see the screen as each junction is shown as a detailed display and you will then have a picture in your mind’s eye as you arrive and can sensibly choose which lane to get in. This display is in addition to the general (and zoomable) 2D map display. The whole kit is big and unwieldy and needs two cables … one to the GPS receiver (which plugs into the USB) and one for an external PSU which plugs into your fag-lighter. You really need the external PSU as your laptop will be on for a long time and, generally, it makes the screen that bit brighter. It takes time to boot up as laptops do. Other than this, I’d say everything is better than TomTom … super large screen, inexpensive to buy and very simple and relatively cheap to update. It has full postcode navigation in the UK which is knockout. I have yet to use it in France / Spain but have put in some routes so can’t wait to get abroad! I expect the boredom threshold of my audience has been reached … please ask anything further! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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