Best Sat Nav for Euro Trip (not costing the earth!)

[lenny007]

Just after a bit of advice peeps.

Off to France in August and would like a sat nav unit to cover the trip and associated sloping around the Loire Valley.

Would really prefer full maps and not just major roads. Would ideally not spend the full whack on a TT910.

Anyone got any suggestions / recommendations or alternatively anyone got a TT710?

Thanks in advance.

[anissut]

Garmin Nuvi 350 looks pretty good. YOu can get it for under £400. Look at www.handtec.co.uk, I believe its £372 on their website.

[Robin Hood]

New Road Angel Navigator 6000 for £249, buy French Maps for it, (Not the £150 quid for full European maps for the original Road Angel Navigator but I don't know how much each country map is as it doesn't say so on the website) and you might be able to get the European Camera data as well for £20 quid although it doesn't say you can on the website. Worth asking the question.

[darthPaddington]

Don't worry about french camera data. the system is really easy in france there are very few cameras. where they are present there is a sign then a camera a couple of hundred meters futher on.

last month I did a couple of thousand miles around france and although we had a map with the loactions marked it wasn't needed because the signs were so good.
as far as the police with guns are concerned then I only saw one and don't believe that they have to make their position known in advance

Peter

[europa2006]

I'm currently looking for a SatNav system with Spanish mapping and came up with these options, which will also be okay for France.

(a) TomTom One + purchase map on SD card (about £300)
(b) Garmin Nuvi 310 Deluxe comes with one region loaded and a DVD with full European maps. Also has Bluetooth capability and is small enough to put in your pocket. (about £360)
(c) Garmin Nuvi 360 comes with all Europe pre-loaded plus bluetooth (£425) plus has text-to-speech.

I'm going for (b) becuase I like the small size of the Garmin and for just a bit extra you get access to full europe mapping (albeit that you have to load each region onto a SD card) and Bluetooth. Tempted to go for the Nuvi 360 but don't know if the extra £60 is worth it to get text-2-speech and full mapping pre-loaded. Didn't really want to spend more than £400.

[johnbear]

Where did you see those prices?

[blackmamba]

As with a lot of things, you get what you pay for. I bought a TomTom 910 recently for GBP420 and it is superb. You get speed camera data + 20 Gb hard drive with all of the Euro maps on it. The touch screen is simplicity itself and the mapping very fast and accurate. If you are spending Between 300 - 400, I think it is worth the extra to get the 910.

I don't think the 710 is out yet but that should be nearer the 350 mark.

[Denis O]

Becker Traffic Assist is available from most places around the £210 mark. It comes with all the Euro maps included although you have to download them to an SD card from the CD-ROM you get.

I bought one recently having had good experience with the Traffic pro I put in the 911 and the Traffic Assist is agreat little unit. My only issue is the sound from the little internal speaker although I guess that's common for all the portable units.

It always suprises me that Becker is rarely discussed on here because they seem to make some excellent units and as OEM to the likes of Porsche, Aston, Land Rover etc they come with a pretty good pedigree.

[niva441]

I bought a Navman 530 through the Pipeline deal last month. I came with euro maps on CD, but it needed a SD card to run them on the device.

It worked fine apart from needing rebooting when a new address was input as I bought a 1Gb card, apparently the unit can only take a 512Mb card. Once rebooted it worked fine.

[zippee]

I've just spent a week in France, Monaco, Italy and Switzerland with the Navman 550 and it didn't miss a beat. Getting us to places others were finding hard with TomTom etc. Paid £350 inc traffic master and full Euro maps from Costco.

[europa2006]

johnbear said:

Where did you see those prices?

(a) TomTone One (£220 www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk + free delivery) + spain SD map £70
(b) Garmin Nuvi 310 Deluxe (£359 www.pixmania.co.uk)
(c) Garmin Nuvi 360 (£420 www.satnav2u.com + free delivery)

I eventually went for (c) the Garmin Nuvi 360. I decided to pay slightly more and get the full monty, i.e. full western europe pre-loaded, bluetooth for mobile phone, text-2-speech. I've only had it a couple of days but very impressed so far. The thing I like is that it is small enought to carry with you rather than leave it in the car.