Sat Nav Units

Go and play with them, I found the tomtom way easier to change routes on, but it's partly personal preference.

I have a Garmin 2610 which I paid £650 for 3 yrs ago & now you get them for less than £190

Amazon are still selling them for £520

Full European Coverage if you purchase a 2/4gb CF Card,

2gb CF Card, £10.99 - CF Card, £17.99 - Battery, just 12v power though

There are pros and cons to all of them - it's simply a matter of personal choice. I recently bought a Garmin Nuvi 310 and the deciding factors were size (comes with a leather case and is small enough to slip into a pocket when parked), Bluetooth (just about the only Satnav under £250 with Bluetooth/mobile phone facility), and a good write up from reviews. My brother-in-law recently bought a TomTom One and is also pleased with that - but it doesn't come with a carry case, doesn't have the bluetooth/mobile facility, and the power lead plugs into the unit itself rather than into the screen bracket like with the Nuvi. I can just unclip my Nuvi from the bracket and walk off with it. With the Tom Tom you have to unplug the power lead every time.

Tom Tom has the facility for extra 'voices' (including novelty voices) - the Nuvi doesn't - you only have the choice between female English English or female American English (or foreign languages if you want them!). The Nuvi has the facility for extra vehicles to be shown on screen instead of just a pointer (you can select a monster truck or a compact car for example). The Tom Tom only has a pointer.

The Nuvi only shows speed on the main screen when not in 'route' mode - ie when it is not directing you somewhere. If you enter a route then where the speed is normally shown you have the ETA instead - although it is easy to move to another screen which gives you all sorts of info, including speed. The Nuvi does not give speed limits whereas the TomTom does on some roads.

Take a look at some different units and read the reviews - you have to decide what is important to you. If you have a bluetooth phone then you might, like me, find the bluetooth facility with the Nuvi very useful.

Uno-Hoo!

Not precisely your spec, but...

I have a Garmin Nuvi 330 (Halfords sale price of 270GBP, normally 300).

In the end, what did it for me (vs TomTom et al) was primarily that 270 got me a unit with included Trafficmaster service for life and all maps of Western Europe (ie no extra license fees - watch out for that one with some other units that claim to have a CD with W.Europe on - some require internet activation for extra £££). The maps dont; all fit at once, unless you buy a bigger SD card, but it's easy enough to use a PC to juggle what's loaded. I managed all of the UK, Belgium, most of Holland and a bit of northern France all in one go.

I had one fault, where the speaker died after about 5 weeks, but Halfords replaced it without a fuss and I ended up with a version 9 map set instead of the v8 I started with as a bonus.

It's not perfect, but the replacement's been reliable, the Trafficmaster can be a little slow to kick in (10 minute delay sometimes, not sure if this is waiting for suitable RDS data or some random local problem) but the unit takes generally sensible routes, the announcements are timely and clear and the Trafficmaster data is reasonably accurate.

POI can be loaded from CSV files so it's compatible with the speed camera databases and random POI databases on the internet. Speed camaera alerts not so refined - you won't miss any, but it's a bit "bong" happy and has no sense of direction - eg, bongs when passing a camera aimed in the opposing direction.

One or two bits of the UI could do with a polish, such as not showing the current speed in guidance mode (as another poster mentioned) but given the the price gets you a complete system with no hidden extras I'm pretty pleased - to the extent that I would not have chosen another unit in hindsight.

HTH

Tim

Cant you customise the tabs on the Nuvi like you can on the 2610 to show the speed & things when your not on a route?

Not that I've noticed - Nuvi's aren't big on customisations (which is where omTom probably wins hands down).

Not that I'm aware of - I would say no.

Uno-Hoo!

Uno-Hoo!" wrote

My

I've got a TomTom One Europe, and that's got bluetooth facility.

"Knight Of The Road" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:

Our TomTom One (older version) has a Bluetooth facility for traffic information, but no handsfree mode. I agree that the omission of a carry case is stingy and the price they charge for one is scandalous.

Stu

Stu" wrote

Maybe, but the newer version is about the same size as a packet of cigarettes* so it doesn't really need a carry bag of its own.

TomTom is far better for importing POIs or so I understand- although I have no great experience of Garmin/Navman etc

• No, I don't smoke but I know how big a pack of cigs is.

In message , Uno-Hoo! writes

Don't just read the reviews -- they are usually glowing and usually pretty useless. Also Google for the problems. For example, Google "problems tomtom 910" (without the inverted commas).

This usually gives results that are far more honest and revealing, and in my case completely put me off the 910.

Nowadays I always Google for the problems when deciding what to buy.

Hmm. I had heard really great things about the GO 910. The ONE's more my style - I don't need something super technical, but i have friends who have used both and I've heard good things. In the US, they use Tele Atlas maps which I've heard to be really reliable, so that's an added bonus.

The Tom Tom one has the facility to link to a PC via bluetooth - but does not have the facility to link to a mobile phone and handle calls.

Uno-Hoo!

Actually - having imported POIs into my Garmin Nuvi - and into my brother-in-law's Tom Tom, I can tell you that the procedure for the Garmin is far simpler. There is a piece of software downloadable from the Garmin site called 'POI Loader' which makes the whole procedure fast, automatic, and very simple.

Uno-Hoo!