Sat Nav

[Karmann Gipsy]

Hi All We are thinking of investing in a Satnav system and wonder if anyone has any experiences they can share as to which might be the best. Our requirements would be: -Easily transferrable-my Wife would use it for work normally (UK ONLY) -Must have European street level mapping for holidays in France. -Preferably a long suction mounting-the vans screen is a long way away!! She was interested in the Mitac Mio C710 which she saw on eBay which seems to fit the bill, but as we arent sure, I thought it prudent to ask !! Thanks for any advice

[david lloyd]

Hi john We currently use TomTom Navigator 5 on a PDA (O2 XDA) and an Arkon powered PDA holder/charger and GPS. This holder is suction mounted with a long arm. In use (UK and France this year) it has been very good generally but we have found there are some slight drawbacks. Mainly, that our van has remis windscreen blinds and as we used aires quite a bit in France, we had to keep pulling it off the windscreen each night. It was also necessary to take the mount off the screen whenever we parked up in town as it does attract 'undesirable' elements to try and enter the van uninvited! The second drawback for us is the inability to search for an address by name e.g. A.N.Other Farm - as many sites do not have a numbered address. We have downloaded many useful POI's such as CC sites and CL's and the french aires - there are quite a few downloads available for TomTom and others. Finally, although we toured France for nearly four weeks, we didn't need to refere to a paper map to get to places - even without using motorways. Unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to avoid unsuitable routes such as minor roads and we did see some very attractive, but quite narrow, lanes. Some units do have the facility to specify journeys suitable for, say, buses - which would not use the very minor routes. But don't be deterred by this as the unit is just an aid to navigation and the benefit is that should you not wish to take the route being offered simply drive by and it will automatically re-route you. The Navigator 5 software available for a range of PDA's. We are considering changing if we can find a unit that addresses the above but would certainly advocate having some satnav available. Best regards, david

[Guest starspirit]

I have a Navman icn510 which has worked reasonably well in the Uk in as much as I always know where I am. However it is not user friendly to load and delete a deatination and the postcode search is only 5 digit. Also their customer support is poor and downloading updates and extra maps in a pain in the bum. I would not buy another Navman product.

[chalky]

Hi John I have a Tom Tom 700 works perfect here in england and in france also works well in spain, hope this is of help. Regards chalky.

[Roy]

We also have Tom Tom 700 and fully endorse Chalky's comments. It saves all those arguments!! Roy.

[Terrytraveller]

Hi John, We use to use Autoroute 2003/4/5/6/, 2006 has speech, the speech is not very good ( highly useable with active speakers on the laptop), the maps are excellent. Its a bit lumpy, but if you have A class it would be no problem, in fact ideal as you can position the laptop on that great big shelf in front of you or the wife. There are some reports of hard drive damage to the laptop, but I have never had a problem, most of the upper end Sat Nav's now have hard drives, both devices are mean't to be used on the move Laptops are ideal for camping car use, as with a few extras it can be used for, Radio, TV analog and digital, Satellite with dish and receiver, DVD player, diary keeping, route planning and with all the Wi Fi which is popping up all over the place Skype telephone, phone another PC free, or a landline with skype out for about 1.2 pence per min. However - We now use the Mio 269+, it has many different selections within the extended mode ie lorry, slow car, fast car to pedestrian walk mode with compass rose or street mode (going up a one way street the wrong way - as it were), short or fast routes, browse all routes and add way points directly from the map, so you can avoid those roads you wish to, easily block roads etc...It can be used as an A-Z for every town or village in Europe while walking or driving, good clear turn instructions you can switch off or back on. The system is entirely portable, comes with loads of bits, holder for cycle or mo-bike, sling and soft case for walking, flexible sticky thing for windows, car charger, mains charger, plays music, has 2.5 Gb hard disk, links to laptop and download your Outlook Express contact list, advise pilot at sea or in air if he has missed a turning!!! etc.. There has been talk that these devices will send you up narrow streets and other unsuitable roads - well they can, what you should do is always browse your route (whatever system you have), just like you do on a paper map. The Mio 269+ will allow you to dynamically insert waypoints as you browse, recalculating as you modify your route. If you have not forbidden Toll roads and leave the Mode in Standard as against Extended, then no need to browse, tap in either Postcode, full address, GPS co-ordinates in one of two formats, the preloaded points of interest and go, as easy as that! I still use Autoroute 2006 when route planning, its so easy to download Points of Interest (POI's) which are offered on many web sites for free. It is possible to download POI's into the Mio, but you do need software on the PC not supplied by Mio. Regards Terry

[Mel B]

We've got the Mio 168 PDA with Tom Tom on (can't remember which version - probably no 5!). Before that we had the Mio but used Co-Pilot - drove us nuts! At least we could change it when we couldn't stand Co-Pilot any more, if it had been a dedicated unit we'd have been stuffed. The PDA is lightweight and can easily be popped in your pocket/handbag, whatever, and you can use if whilst walking, cycling etc as the GPS is built in to the PDA itself. Tom Tom is certainly a very good package. We've used it for a couple of years now, both here and abroad - yes you do occasionally get some daft directions but you do with all of the systems as far as I can ascertain, the worst bit is when you come to a place where the one-way system has been changed and the sat nav goes berzerk trying to get you to drive the other way round! The other bain of sat nav is road works ... oh how we love them! We tend to take our van (Rapido coachbuilt) just about anywhere we can, if it gets the odd rub on the windows with twigs etc, then so be it, it's there to be used to get us where we want to go (within reason), not to restrict us, using your common sense along with a Sat Nav system is definitely beneficial! I still like to have a map to hand as well just in case there's one of the wonderful diversions in place like the ones you sometimes get on the motorways abroad that can take you 20km out of your way if you're not careful, Sat Nav would just keep trying to re-route you back to where you've been directed from. One thing to consider when getting a Sat Nav system is how easy is it to activate should you have to do a total reset. With Co-Pilot the only way we could do this when it went stupid in France last year was to ring Britain for a new activation code, put that into the unit then ring back again with the a code that the unit then produced to do the final stage of activation, not very practical at all. With Tom Tom you don't have to do this, you can re-activate it without any stupid, and expensive, phone calls.

[Geoff Bell]

One of the main advantages a Tom Tom I borrowed to go to France with over my Navman was the ability to fastforward the route prior to starting your journey. This meant i could check out the route it was going to take me the night before I left and if some of the roads looked a bit narrow I could re-route using a via. I can't remember the model , maybe all Tom Toms do this, but it is a facility I would definately get on my next purchase.

[Burstner620]

[QUOTE]Karmann Gipsy - 2006-08-02 9:26 AM Hi All We are thinking of investing in a Satnav system and wonder if anyone has any experiences they can share . . .[/QUOTE] I first tried using Michelin Mapping (UK only) on a Palm One but wasn't totally impressed. When it came to the point where I wanted to add the European maps, I decided to dump the PDA and go for a dedicated SatNav unit. I opted for the Garmin c330 with full European mapping pre-loaded. No CDs or SD cards involved, just plug it in and go. Used it in May to go via France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy to Slovenia. The last was the only country where we were without mapping, elsewhere it did everything just as it's supposed to. I tend not to put in dozens of POIs of campsites (albeit it will accept such lists) but manually input those we intend to visit each trip, keeping the good ones and deleting those we don't want to go back to. Shops, filling stations, railway stations, airports etc. are pre-poaded. But it's like everything else really, what suits one person's needs may not suit someone else. Or, if you prefer to stay on topic, "YMMV" ! (Your Mileage May Vary)

[mags]

Hi I bought a Packard Bell gps system off ebay a couple of months ago - £149 + postage. It works fine in my Milano and in my car. I can search for addresses by postcode or street or town. Has points of interest already loaded (if I'd believed it in Scotland it would have saved me about 40 miles !!) It doesn't have European maps loaded but they can be bought from Packard Bell and loaded onto the unit. I think its about £40 for full maps of France. :-D Hope that helps.

[Karmann Gipsy]

Thanks for the words of advice-I think we are sold on the idea. One question, has anyone here had any problems with poor GPS reception due to the overcab? Not sure if I might need an external antenna !

[carolh]

yes - we have a tomtom 700, used to lose the signal - so got an external antenna off ebay - comes with another window mount too. Works a treat now. carol

[mags]

I don't lose signal at all with my hi - top Milano.

[Mel B]

mags I am female and drive our motorhome, but whilst I have a willing hubby the phrase "why have a dog and bark yourself" comes to mind. Mel B

[carolh]

mags I drive ours too *-) Carol

[bjphillips]

I found out something the other day that I hadnt noticed before with my Garman street pilot 111.I usually put in a via point or 2 so it doesnt try to take me down too narrower roads which its inclined to do occasionally,Itll then stick to the route I want it to go.Normally the routes go directly thro the towns but last week I put in via Devizes so it wouldnt cut a corner to my destination & it took me left into the town center unnecessary round the roundabout just beyond & back again to where it told me to turn left,I could have turned right there in the first place.So it seems that a via point will always take you to its central point before continuing on to the planned route!!! *-) :-S

[michele]

Mag's i drive but last week Mel talked me out of it. Why have a dog and bark yourself ..........Nice to sleep whilst he does it.. ;-)

[michele]

seriously we bought around 4/5 years ago a navman .At first it proved worth its weight in gold. We bought extra map's for france it was nice not getting lost. Then as time went on we found that it couln't keep up with us . get to a roundabout and we would be waiting for it to tell us where to go. it was really getting dangerous often went round the round about 2/3 times waiting for it to catch up ...Lost our temper gave in and this time have the Pioneer Avic fitted ....Had a girls weekend away recently in Le Touquet fantastic even I could use it lot's of money though..

[mags]

RE - only woman driver - I meant the only woman who has to drive one - Don't have a willing hubby to do the driving ! So I don't have the luxury of sleeping on the way - I have to do all the stuff !! Including cleaning the loo ! Not moaning - just wondering where all the independent ladies are ?

[trigrem]

We have had TomTom on a PDA from vesion1, am now on Version 5. Version 5 has some features not available in version 3, but also it removed 2 items which in my opinion are essential. Namely the ability to enter Latitude and Longitude coordinates, (many campsites and guides to Aires now give these coordinates). The other missing bit was the ability to plan yourv own itiniary and the check it via the display without having a GPS input. Both problems can be overcome, the Lat & Lon can be input via software available to download from the internet, it also allows positioning via Ordnance Survey grid references. I do not know if this can be downloaded to dedicated systems like the 700, I doubt it.The ability to check the route of your itiniery can be done via the Advanced Planning section by fooling Tom Tom into thinking it is somewhere else. Having used it throughout Europe she who must be obeyed would not let us travel without it. Yes you do have some funnies, but as long as you remember who the driver is there is no problem.