Sat Nav

[Pete-B]

Anyone had any experience with Snooper Sat Navs, I'd appreciate any comments good or bad, thanks.

[Randonneur]

We were going to go for the new Snooper that has the dash cam in but on talking to a local car parts dealer he told us that getting any help from them was horrendous, so we just upgraded our TomTom Live Camper unit.

[Billggski]

IThey are at the top end of the market, I've got the super duper double din built in one. Second hand, as they are ridiculously expensive new, and the multi functions can be very frustrating. TV, reversing camera, iPod, usb, DVD,cd, internal memory, as well as sat nav and remote. (Plus a few more I haven't found)

I think the original owner's wife eventually refused to use it. The manual is about 100 pages, and in Chinglish.

When it works it is great, put in address, post code or co-ordinates and it will get you there. But so will a £100 Tom tom or garmin.

It will navigate you according to your dimensions, but this can be a pain, as it doesn't really take width or manoeuvrability into account. But gives hazard warnings such as tight bends, hills and speed cameras, which you can switch of in France.

The campsite addresses are very useful as you can put in your preferences when near to where you want to stop.

Some daft features, such as when you mute the sat nav it still mutes the radio when it gives directions.

So you pays your money and takes your choice. If one bit of it goes wrong of course, then the whole thing needs repair, so separate music centre, sat nav and reversing camera would make more sense.

[Brian Kirby]

If it is the claimed ability to route to suit vehicle size, both Garmin and TomTom have units with this facility (at a price, though I think somewhat lower than Snooper).

 

But, as above the vehicle size/weight inputs are not foolproof, and the underlying map data does not yet include actual road width information. Thus, they will not route you down roads where there are width restrictions, but still may route you down uncomfortably narrow roads.

 

The great advantage of either Garmin or TomTom is that you can download to them literally thousands of waypoints for supermarkets, aires/stellplatze, campsites, or w.h.y, whereas with Snooper these can only be loaded to the unit online by Snooper technicians who, by all accounts, are not that quick responding.

 

However, they all have their quirks, and they all take a bit of getting used to before you get the best from them. Just don't go out and buy one and then set off on the journey of a lifetime the next day! :-) Get whatever you choose early, and use it on familiar ground first, when you can begin to understand its logic before you start on unfamiliar territory.

[Billggski]

There's one on eBay now, finishing tomorrow (Wed) morning.

[tonyg3nwl]

Re snooper..I bought one when it first appeared on the basis that it had Caravan club, ACSI, Etc all on board.

 

I would not recommend buying it over something like garmin. Creating a multy route is a pain as it involves firstly creating a list of favourites, by entering m ap references, and in so doing the names of these favourites are obscure in the extreme..I found each favourite had to be renamed with something understandable to me,like site name or town name,..once a favourites list has been prepared,, you can set about preparing a MULTYROUTE.

I Wanted to use France passion sites where possible, which are frequently in rather way out locations, but by inputting vehicle dimensions at start, Snooper frequently said that my favourite was inaccessible, and in spite of requesting routeing avoiding toll roads, it always ignored that and persistently tried to force me back onto motorways.. it is certainly not user friendly..

 

I have reverted to my old Garmin Quest, for route planning on computer screen, and my old Mio device for loading up poi, s for france Passion..it has a facility to search for nearest. The Mio has also been loaded wit poi, s for ACSI, AIRES, CC, CCC, FRANCE PASSION, CAMPING CHEQUES, BRITSTOPS, AND MOTORHOME PARKING PLACES..

 

My recommendation would be buy an uptodate device, but not the snooper one.

 

Tonyg3nwl.

[tonyg3nwl]

Re snooper..I bought one when it first appeared on the basis that it had Caravan club, ACSI, Etc all on board.

 

I would not recommend buying it over something like garmin. Creating a multy route is a pain as it involves firstly creating a list of favourites, by entering m ap references, and in so doing the names of these favourites are obscure in the extreme..I found each favourite had to be renamed with something understandable to me,like site name or town name,..once a favourites list has been prepared,, you can set about preparing a MULTYROUTE.

I Wanted to use France passion sites where possible, which are frequently in rather way out locations, but by inputting vehicle dimensions at start, Snooper frequently said that my favourite was inaccessible, and in spite of requesting routeing avoiding toll roads, it always ignored that and persistently tried to force me back onto motorways.. it is certainly not user friendly..

 

I have reverted to my old Garmin Quest, for route planning on computer screen, and my old Mio device for loading up poi, s for france Passion..it has a facility to search for nearest. The Mio has also been loaded wit poi, s for ACSI, AIRES, CC, CCC, FRANCE PASSION, CAMPING CHEQUES, BRITSTOPS, AND MOTORHOME PARKING PLACES..

 

My recommendation would be buy an uptodate device, but not the snooper one.

 

Tonyg3nwl.

[tonyg3nwl]

Sorry, seems to be double posting.

tony

 

[Sundowner]

I've had two Garmins and have found them excellent. My wife has fallen in love with Daniel ( the male voice on my present "1390T", so now has it in her car. I've just ordered a "Camper 760LMT-D" from Halfords. It is on offer for £312.92, (compared with a rrp. of £349.99), and I'm picking it up on Friday from their Oxford Road, Reading store. If it's as good as it says on the box, I'm going to well pleased with it.