Sat Nav (Warning - not cycling related)

pottssteve

Hello!

I'm looking for a Sat Nav for our new car but am frankly baffled by the sheer number available. I want a basic, simple to install and use model that covers Europe. I would appreciate some guidance (see what I did there?) from people who already have one. Any advice appreciated.

Cheers,

Steve

Mad Roadie

I have two navmans - absolutely great - bought an S80 when they first came out but the world moves on and the S200 seems to cover all of europe

http://www.navman.com/in-car/europe/uk/ ... 00-Europe/

much better graphics than a tom tom

cooldad

Navman - because it was (until they sold out) a great Kiwi company. They off started making marine systems, so were always well engineered.

stigofthedump

I have a Nokia X6 Phone with free sat nat using OVI Maps. It has a windscreen mount included in the box.

I have the phone on a £20 a month contract. You might find something similar from your mobile phone provider, if you have one.

BTW i also have Sports tracker, another Free app which is excellent for logging your training rides

JohnnyAllez

How much are you wanting to spend ? Garmin Nuvi 1690, easy to use, easy to use, easy to follow. £200 or less.

pottssteve

JohnnyAllez wrote:

How much are you wanting to spend ? Garmin Nuvi 1690, easy to use, easy to use, easy to follow. £200 or less.

HaHa! I just asked the wife what she thought was a reasonable amount and she said, "about 45 quid"! I live in the real world but I'm looking at around 100.

Steve

thelawnet

JohnnyAllez wrote:

How much are you wanting to spend ? Garmin Nuvi 1690, easy to use, easy to use, easy to follow. £200 or less.

Correct answer.

Amazon have it at £142, but delivery is 'within 1 to 2 months'.

Unless it's been discontinued, I wouldn't expect it to take that long, and would order at that price.

Bobbinogs

Hi pottssteve, I guess there are two ways of coming at this. One is to look at the options that you want and then determine the price, the other is to start at the price and work out what options you will have.

The basic options in the UK are map coverage and traffic alerting. Given that you want Europe starts to narrow the field down quite a bit (at least, if purchasing in the UK) but you might want to think whether you want all of Europe or just Western. The traffic alerting thing in the UK usually has two flavours: Real time SIM sourced which is very up to date and good but usually costs a monthly subscription (which ruled it out for me). The other alerts are based on general traffic updates and are slightly less reliable but still do a good job of rerouting where approp (motorway closed or heavily congested, for example).

I travel quite a bit in the UK for work so needed some alerting to help me get to meetings on time. I also wanted European cover because we holiday there quite a bit. Hence, I ended up with the Garmin Nuvi 1390 (£140ish). It's very good and simple to use, as others have said about Garmin products.

Try the Halfords Site, which I think is very good, and use the "Refine your search" on the left hand side. I know it is a UK site and you are based in Holland but at least that way you get to work out what features you want or must have, the various models and the prices applicable. Like most things, you can't get all the features for a low price. I suspect you will then need to pop along to some local store and see what is applicable over there.

tlw1

saw some cheap one on www.autosessive.com

SteveR_100Milers

I have a Tom Tom XL Europe, works fine apart from updating but thats my fault with the way my PC files are structured. I like the Dubya Bush voice too, very amusing.

verylonglegs

If, as you say, you want something basic then you don't need to go above 3 figures in price. I was in a similar position a few months ago and got tired of browsing through all the features and options so just took the plunge and bought a Garmin 1240 from amazon for about £80, nothing fancy but does the job. After all you are never going to try all the other models anyway so you'll be none the wiser

SteveR_100Milers

I have read reviews though not tested it myself yet that google maps on a smartphone is as good a sat nav as you'd ever need.

pottssteve

Hi Guys,

Thank you for all the advice. I can't seem to find Navman S200 over here but all the others are available. I'll have a good look at the Garmin 1240 or might stretch to a Nuvi.

Thanks,
Steve

northernneil

I have a garmin and its great - also doubles up as a hands free kit,

the advantage of a garmin is that my car on screen is the garmin team bus and my directions are given to me by matt white with lots of cycling references as you pottle along

tlw1

SteveR_100Milers wrote:

I have read reviews though not tested it myself yet that google maps on a smartphone is as good a sat nav as you'd ever need.

its ok, but skobbler lite is free & it has voice commands

DrewDubya

matthew h wrote:

SteveR_100Milers wrote:

I have read reviews though not tested it myself yet that google maps on a smartphone is as good a sat nav as you'd ever need.

its ok, but skobbler lite is free & it has voice commands

Depending on what you want the SMART phone option is good. I use Google Navigation on my HTC Desire, that works with Google Maps, and gives voice commands - and is excellent. The issue is that if I want to use it outside of the UK I have to pay for data roaming as maps aren't downloaded - but as a SatNav it works fine, and has some advantages over my Garmin 760 - which I use the rest of the time and is pretty food (but is over the original price bracket)

Pross

Just make sure you get something with full postcode entry on it. My (otherwise excellent) built in system on my Mini only does 4 or 5 digits so is useless when trying to get to an address by postcode!

hennez

we've got one of the basic garmins and a top of the range navman and the garmin is far better but this is in AUS. the navman is too complicated and hard to use. I'd have a garmin any day!!!

BiggerBoat

I had a Garmin Nuvi 1690. It turned itself off and re-booted quite often. I'm not the only one to have had this problem. Sent it back for a refund, not impressed.

SteveR_100Milers

Pross wrote:

Just make sure you get something with full postcode entry on it. My (otherwise excellent) built in system on my Mini only does 4 or 5 digits so is useless when trying to get to an address by postcode!

I had this problem with a Honda Accord I owned. The tom tom has a full postcode search

Peddle Up!

I used to use a Tom Tom, but more often than not I use the Ovi maps app on my Nokia smartphone these days as I usually have the phone with me.

That said, the upcoming release of the Brian Blessed voice for the Tom Tom may make me reconsider it.

"YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION".