Discussion
All
I need to make a quick decision (on spec or recommendation from PH ;)) on a satnav unit.
Requirements are:
Must be interchangeable between cars
About 500 quid
Self contained (i.e. does not need a PDA or separate GPS to work)
Has (or can hold) street level detail of European cities without changing CD’s or CF cards
I need to let the guy know by close of play today what one I want so he can get it in time for Saturday. So I’m not able to go round the shops and look at and test models. I’m just going to have to pick one on spec. My first choice was the new Sony NVX-P1 but it seems that’s not out yet. Otherwise I’m looking at:
Tom Tom Go 500 – looks like a Fisher Price toy
Garmin C330 – as above
Garmin Street Pilot III – a bit pricey at 640 odd quid
Which would you choose out of the above? Are there others I am missing?
I need to make a quick decision (on spec or recommendation from PH ;)) on a satnav unit.
Requirements are:
Must be interchangeable between cars
About 500 quid
Self contained (i.e. does not need a PDA or separate GPS to work)
Has (or can hold) street level detail of European cities without changing CD’s or CF cards
I need to let the guy know by close of play today what one I want so he can get it in time for Saturday. So I’m not able to go round the shops and look at and test models. I’m just going to have to pick one on spec. My first choice was the new Sony NVX-P1 but it seems that’s not out yet. Otherwise I’m looking at:
Tom Tom Go 500 – looks like a Fisher Price toy
Garmin C330 – as above
Garmin Street Pilot III – a bit pricey at 640 odd quid
Which would you choose out of the above? Are there others I am missing?
neil.b said:
Was looking at TTG too. What's the difference between 500 and 700? Is it just the phone integration?
500 just has UK at street level and European major roads on a CF card with the ability to buy more cards. 700 has a 2.5 GB HDD with all of Europe at street level (well I guess almost all) on it.
t1grm said:
Was looking at TTG too. What's the difference between 500 and 700? Is it just the phone integration?
500 just has UK at street level and European major roads on a CF card with the ability to buy more cards. 700 has a 2.5 GB HDD with all of Europe at street level (well I guess almost all) on it.
700 comes with a remote too.
Literally received our Tom Tom Go 700 yesterday and was playing iwth it all night last night.
Bloody fantastic.
The 700 comes with European maps already loaded, and also the remote as Podie says. It's got all the windscreen mountings and stuff with it as all the others do too.
We bought ours from maplins online, as if you spend over £500 you get £50 off, so their 549.99 tom tom go 700 cost £499 net
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Shady - seems you're right!
Bloody fantastic.
The 700 comes with European maps already loaded, and also the remote as Podie says. It's got all the windscreen mountings and stuff with it as all the others do too.
We bought ours from maplins online, as if you spend over £500 you get £50 off, so their 549.99 tom tom go 700 cost £499 net
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Shady - seems you're right!
I've had a Garmin Quest for about 10 months and I'm very happy with it (paid about £340), however for long european trips, I need to download relevent sections of map for each trip from my PC and the speaker is linked to the power socket making hard wiring difficult.
However in todays market I'd probably opt for the TomTom700 (£500/550ish), because the whole of Europe is on the harddrive, you have the beneift of being able to use it with a mobile phone via bluetooth and the speaker is built into the unit making it easy to hardwire a connection if you wished.
DAZ
>> Edited by dazren on Tuesday 9th August 14:28
However in todays market I'd probably opt for the TomTom700 (£500/550ish), because the whole of Europe is on the harddrive, you have the beneift of being able to use it with a mobile phone via bluetooth and the speaker is built into the unit making it easy to hardwire a connection if you wished.
DAZ
>> Edited by dazren on Tuesday 9th August 14:28
tonyhetherington said:
Literally received our Tom Tom Go 700 yesterday and was playing iwth it all night last night.
Bloody fantastic.
The 700 comes with European maps already loaded, and also the remote as Podie says. It's got all the windscreen mountings and stuff with it as all the others do too.
We bought ours from maplins online, as if you spend over £500 you get £50 off, so their 549.99 tom tom go 700 cost £499 net
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Top bit of kit and I would highly recommend it.
Shady - seems you're right!
Tony, does it really go down to street level in Europe? e.g. if I were to put in a hotel address in the middle of Rome would it get me door to door or just to the centre of Rome?
glad you got the TTG, but not sure we needed to know about the what you did last night.. 
Urmmm to be honest I couldn't answer faithfully.
It goes down to street level in the UK that's for sure - I was in my back garden and it told me which way I needed to point and how far to get to the front of my house (if you put the road and house number in it).
From the (brief) play I had on the European maps last night (yes yes, I told it to take me to the 'ring
) it looks like it does go down to the same level of detail as the UK - as in tell it a hotel in Rome, it will take you to the door sort-of-thing. Please do double check somewhere else though - I didn't play that much with the European side of things.
Sorry it wasn't a definative answer!
Tony
It goes down to street level in the UK that's for sure - I was in my back garden and it told me which way I needed to point and how far to get to the front of my house (if you put the road and house number in it).
From the (brief) play I had on the European maps last night (yes yes, I told it to take me to the 'ring
) it looks like it does go down to the same level of detail as the UK - as in tell it a hotel in Rome, it will take you to the door sort-of-thing. Please do double check somewhere else though - I didn't play that much with the European side of things. Sorry it wasn't a definative answer!
Tony
European coverage varies - see the TomTom site, ot www.mytomtomgo.com
Mio 269 is a pretty good unit with the whole of Europe on it.
Having used a 269 and a TomTomGo 700 i would say that the Mio has a much better aeriel. The TomTom in London for instance is a real pain in the arse and needs the £50 aeriel to make it work while.
We also took the TomTom out into the country and it was occasionally loosing sats under heavy tree canopies which was annoying to say the least. No such problems with the Mio.
However, the 700 is a bit faster than the 269.
>> Edited by tinman0 on Tuesday 9th August 14:35
Having used a 269 and a TomTomGo 700 i would say that the Mio has a much better aeriel. The TomTom in London for instance is a real pain in the arse and needs the £50 aeriel to make it work while.
We also took the TomTom out into the country and it was occasionally loosing sats under heavy tree canopies which was annoying to say the least. No such problems with the Mio.
However, the 700 is a bit faster than the 269.
>> Edited by tinman0 on Tuesday 9th August 14:35
The Garmin Streetpilot 2610 fits your requirements, and I'm very impressed with my one.
It uses CF cards, and I've got most of the UK and Europe on a single 1GB card.
They also use mapping data from NAVTEQ which I believe is more detailed than the mapping data that TomTom use.
Also, one problem that I found when looking at these earlier this year is that TomTom was unable to route across countries in one go, so if you wanted to go from France to an address in Italy for example, you'd need to route to the border first. This limitation may have been removed in the current models though.
btw, just seen that Garmin have announced the 2720 - looks very good indeed!
It uses CF cards, and I've got most of the UK and Europe on a single 1GB card.
They also use mapping data from NAVTEQ which I believe is more detailed than the mapping data that TomTom use.
Also, one problem that I found when looking at these earlier this year is that TomTom was unable to route across countries in one go, so if you wanted to go from France to an address in Italy for example, you'd need to route to the border first. This limitation may have been removed in the current models though.
btw, just seen that Garmin have announced the 2720 - looks very good indeed!
ehasler said:
They also use mapping data from NAVTEQ which I believe is more detailed than the mapping data that TomTom use.
TomTom use TeleAtlas...
ehasler said:
Also, one problem that I found when looking at these earlier this year is that TomTom was unable to route across countries in one go, so if you wanted to go from France to an address in Italy for example, you'd need to route to the border first. This limitation may have been removed in the current models though.
Now rectified.
Gassing Station | In-Car Electronics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff