TOM Tom or Navman

[kramer]

Anyone got experience of these in car GPS thingies...

would like one for the car.. preferably with europe...

Halfords have a tom tom one for 200 notes anyopne got it and can recommend it?

[threaded]

TomTom is the dogs danglies

not that I'm biased or anything

[SandyDown]

I had TomTom for about 18 months now, am really happy with it, with all the travelling I do, and the fact that I am no good at all with navigation, trip planning or finding my way round - TomTom has been a life saver, no stress at all - I found it to be particularly useful when driving in London.

Mind you when driving in really remote places it may be difficult to get a signal, however luckily in remote places there is usually one road and you can't go wrong!!


The only improvement that can be done is making trip plan more flexible a bit like when you are planning through the AA or the RAc site, at the moment the only options you have is going from A to B through the fastest roads (i.e. motorways) or shortest road (i.e. all A and B road) (also there are walking/cycling roads but that's not what I got TomTom for) you can't have combinations if you know your way roughly then its OK you can go your way and TomTom would adjust the journey and replan automatically, but if you don't know where you are going at all then TomTom will take you there - perhaps the slightly longer way but at least I know I don't have to stress about finding my way and get up an extra hour early just in case I get lost...

All in all it was really good value for money IMO.

[DaveB]

Depends on the TomTom you have. I have the TomTom 100 and you can do route planning, advanced planning etc really easily. You can either enter a list of places you need to go and it will work out the route for you or you just follow the route the the first pone, then select the next one from the list. Easy.

[SandyDown]

Mine is TomTom 500, forgot to mention - you can download stuff on your TomTom, e.g. speed cameras location etc, granted there are other tools e.g. Road Angel, but to have a sat-nav + built in spped camera warnings is a big plus..

Also you can set it up to tell you when you are aproaching specific areas e.g. nearst petrol station whereabouts, nearest parking etc etc

[MarillionFan]

I have a NavMan and the thing is tulip.

[cojak]

I'm afraid while I'm not quite as disgusted with it as you, MF I did wish I had bought a Tom Tom...

Using it from A to B is ok (provided it has a map for where you're driving - it got lost around Birmingham Train Station).

Route planning on the PC is very difficult and the software tried to get me to install some M$ pseudo active server software cr@p

Get yerselves a Tom Tom is my advice.

(I can't quietly get rid either as Hubby made a bit of a song and dance about it and I'm not prepared to admit defeat )

[tim123]

Mind you when driving in really remote places it may be difficult to get a signal,

The signal come from a satellite 26,000 km away. How can it tell the difference between the middle of moorland and the centre of town?

(usually towns are the worst because the buildings get in the way of the signal)

tim

[Ardesco]

TomTom = mutts nuts

Navman = Cheaper tulipe that gets easily confused.

[IR35 Avoider]

I have TomTom on my PDA. Since I already had a PDA, I just had to buy and add-on GPS receiver and TomTom software - I think I spent about £110 in total.

Biggest challenge has been finding a PDA holder I like, and that doesn't fall off while I'm driving. Didn't like windscreen ones, as they are an advertisement to car thieves, but too fiddly not to be left permanently in place. Got a more discreet vent-mounted one, which holds the PDA with a magnet. This kept falling out, until I decided to mount the vent clips upside down - now it is rock solid.

Was once on a two lanes in each direction dual carriageway somewhere south of London, for 20 minutes TomTom told me I was driving across countryside. Admittedly the road did look new.