Sat Navs

[Colin Leake]

Our Tom Tom is brilliant. Comes an automatic over-ride system known as W.I.F.E. Cuts in with comments like "No where not going down that little road". Comes in very handy. We only got stuck once last year!

[stantheman]

Basil - 2011-03-17 1:11 PM

 

stantheman - 2011-03-16 5:41 PM

 

Phew! Thanks everyone for all the advice. As Tom Tom seems very popular, I looked up a few reviews. It appears, from what everyone says, that Tom Tom's claim of full European mapping is only partly true as the on board memory can't cope with whole of the Europe map. There is no seamless coverage when travelling between countries, unless of course you have a computer on board with internet access, also the time to stop in a layby to load new maps! To be fair, I guess the whole of Europe is a lot for most instruments to handle in one bite, but it does make NAVTEQ's 10 disc option look more convenient - simply slip another disc into the VDO Dayton when you cross the border.

 

Are there any sat navs out there that can contain the whole Europe map?

 

 

Not sure where this information came from, our Tom Tom has seamless European mapping and the SD card slot can handle up to 32GB now so there is enough to put all the mapping you could desire on not to mention more POI's than you would ever use.

 

 

I went on a review website and there were lots of unhappy owners because TomTom had abolished the SD slot on some of their models hence the need to download each zone as and when required. Can't find the website now (s*d's law) and can't remember which models!

 

[tonyishuk]

Be a bit wary, I understand that some recent TomToms do not allow you to load POIs into them and you can only use TT own.

 

 

TT realised tht this was a MAJOR marketing error, and have now gone back to allowing user loaded POIs.

 

Be wary if buying secondhand (or new). Afraid I do not know which models.

 

Rgds

 

 

[Brian Kirby]

stantheman - 2011-03-17 6:36 PM ............. I went on a review website and there were lots of unhappy owners because TomTom had abolished the SD slot on some of their models hence the need to download each zone as and when required. Can't find the website now (s*d's law) and can't remember which models!

The problem is that by the time any review is published the market has moved on and the review is out of date.  There is a lot of "model churning" and "offer churning" and all one can say is be careful to check exactly what you are buying.

In 2008, on recommendation, we bought a Garmin Nuvi 760 with full European mapping.  It was stated to come with a very useful program called MapSource, that allowed the maps, and the route planning, to be used on a PC, at full screen, so easily visible.  By the time ours arrived MapSource had been excluded from the offer - although it was still stated to be present on the box!  Remonstrations with Garmin bore no fruit but an "arrangement" was eventually reached. 

The device was fine, and worked well, and has an SD card slot.  I loaded numerous POIs to an SD card, and off we went.  On a number of occasions we found ourselves travelling down apparently non-existent roads that were, nevertheless, bordered by large weeds, making it evident that the mapping was out of date.

I therefore decided to buy lifetime map updates which, for a one off payment, delivers up to four annual updates to the mapping for so long as the unit lasts.  The first update loaded without incident, although the process is time consuming, but the second suddenly ground to a halt with the news that the map download exceeded the available memory.  However, it was possible to "span" the maps onto an SD card, but this would need to be bigger than the 2GB card I had for POIs.  So, 8GB card installed as a bit of "future proofing" and, several updates later, all of Europe and about 5,000 POIs are comfortably resident on the card, and the Nuvi handles the maps flawlessly whether on resident memory or SD.

The whole of Europe is pretty much that, from North Cape to Cape Sounio, and from the Urals to the Atlantic, with a few countries/areas lacking street level info in towns, and/or minor road info.  The mapping excludes detail in Albania, Serbia, Bosnia, and FYRO Macedonia, and the missing minor roads and street level details are mainly in Bulgaria, Roumania, and Turkey (European and Asian).

I have recently been advised that MapSource is now available with lifetime map updates.  It is a little quirky, and takes some learning, but all personal POIs can be loaded to MapSource, so becoming visible on the PC mapping, and it has the great advantage of being switchable into Google Earth, so that the precise locations can be checked "on the ground".  You'd be surprised how many of even those pre-loaded onto the mapping are poorly located, ditto the co-ordinates from the likes of ACSI, so this facility alone makes the lifetime map updates, IMO, well worth having.  Hope this helps.

[rapidoman]

we have a navman n60i ( think they are still available ) it has all western europe all acsi sites all camping cheque plus aires stopovers and caravan club sites all installed on internal memory plus a camera function to allow you to keep a record of places just click on photo in album and automatically plots route. it also has seamless cross border route. had it for 5 years upgraded maps once and upgrade poi and campsites each year from archies. never let us down or missdirected us,and never had to use sd card port, what more can you ask for :-D

[stantheman]

Thanks everybody. Guess it's down to me now. Like Brian says, check carefully before you buy. Which lets the internet out!

 

Now about a decent route to Italy.........................!

[alan]

where in Italy :-D (?) Alan

[stantheman]

Got to go to a wedding in Orvieta in July. It was a choice between Easyjet or motorhome! Guess which one won!