Satnav - TomTom or not?

About 6 years ago, maybe longer, we bought a TomTom GO700. At the time it was top-of-the-range and it's served us well, but it's now on its last legs and we need a new satnav.

Because we've only got experience of TomTom, and because it's been bloody good, I'm inclined to be loyal and get another TomTom unless someone gives me a very good reason not to - but TomTom or not, the ultimate question has got to be, which model? There's such an overwhelming choice of makes and models these days!

Intended use - full UK maps with postcode search is a must. Holiday-wise, we drive around the continent so maps covering Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary are essential but the rest of Europe less so. Ability to add in own POIs and speed camera data (from

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is also essential.

I suppose Bluetooth may come in handy sometime but it's definitely not essential; I don't need it to play MP3s; and if live traffic reports need a data connection then forget that altogether. I like the 5" or 6" screens of some of the TomTom range and also their 'Advanced Lane Guidance'.

So, any suggestions from you knowledgeable folks?

Reply to
Dave
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I replaced my aging satnav with a Samsung tablet and use google maps or co-pilot 8, it does have data if you want it and at less than a fiver a month it is worth it. I could of course load tom tom on it too!

Reply to
Mrcheerful

I Use TomTom occasionally, I don't want to be slave to SATNAV. It does save time and petrol when I need it. It is one with a large screen; but wish they could fix a few things:

  1. TomTom is very keen on swithing to the dark 'night' screen, even sometimes when driving under bridges. But I don't want the 'night' screen; it is not very clear. Day screen or nothing as far as I'm concerned. Oh yes, you can switch back to day screen manually, but why isn't there a general override?
  2. TomTom switches off and loses info a couple of seconds after stopping the engine, i.e. the power supply. Very annoying if you just stop somewhere or if the engine cuts out. I can't see why it needs to do this as it has internal rechargeable battery?

My guest is that the basic algorithm for most SATNAV is from the same source, they all look very similar. All in all quite impressive technology when you think about it.

Reply to
johannes

When we started to get lorry drivers attempting to make an impossible turn outside our house, we found that they were all using TomToms. I complained to TomTom that they were giving out bad information, and they told me that everyone's data came from one company. So I complained to them, and they accepted the request for a change. It took a long time for the information to get loaded onto all lorry devices, though, and we still wonder why we never had a Garmin-using driver trying to make the same impossible turn. I joined a TomTom Forum, for people trying to get TomTom's attention for all sorts of things, it was wild! Everything you could think of, and more, had and was still an unresolved problem. Eventually Tomtom closed the Forum, saying it had outlived its usefulness. Like heck it had, unless it meant that they had no intention of fixing any of the problems described.

Never will a TomTom cross my door.

Reply to
Davey

Ah yes there is a difference between a professional delivery driver and just the occasional user like me. I went a trip to Paris and found that all the Taxi drivers USED satnav, never mind which one. I asked a taxi to take me to my hotel, Rye Andre something. But it began to look more and more strange, e.g. he was driving uphill where I expected the journey should go downhill. Anyway, after an extremely very long drive he eventually ended up in Rye Andre whatever, but it was the wrong road with the same name! I couldn't argue with him and that mistake cost me

50 Euros. So beware.
Reply to
johannes

It seems to me that, since Satnav became so universally available, nobody reads maps anymore, they just slavishly follow the device's instructions. Those who try the impossible turn outside here can see the better route right on their screen, but they ignore it "because this is what the TomTom told me to do." Sheesh.

Reply to
Davey

I don't believe its going into night mode. It's going into "I've lost the satellite signal because I cannot see the sky mode" The unit then attempts to track your position by other means.

There are only a few map providers that all the SatNav companies use. The algorithms used will be on a company by company basis - although there will be a few re-badged units out there. I doubt if the AA write their own SatNav software or build their own boxes.

Reply to
alan

Dave formulated the question :

Well, I looked at uk.rec.gps as the most appropriate group for my question but it's not very active so, although my question is OT for a car maintenance group, I reckoned it would probably get results because of being car-related and active.

You've gotta love Usenet!!

First reply advocates ditching a dedicated satnav and use a tablet or smartphone instead - which I don't want to do. Second reply gives a couple of problems with TomTom (fair enough - these are the things I need to know about) but doesn't say which model is giving him problems. And the third reply just slags off TomTom! In answer to which I've got to say that ours has given us more than six years of excellent use and no-one should rely on any satnav and throw common-sense out of the window.

Come on guys, I need help to make a decision on buying a new satnav - is there anyone who can offer that help?

Reply to
Dave

Another option is TomTom on and Android or Ipad tablet/phone. TT have an App for both platforms and I find that it just as good on my phone as a dedicated unit (albeit, in my case, on a slightly smaller screen). Unlike some other SatNavs on phones/tablets you don't need to be connected to the mobile network to run it - the full maps are kept on the SD card. TT say that on the App the map upgrades are free for life (I assume that free for the life of the phone /tablet).

With TT on a phone/tablet you can use your own POI/Speed camera data bases. Just copy the .ov2 and .bmp files to the map folder. Assigning sounds/beeps to speed cameras isn't possible in the same way as they used to be, but on the other hand, TT seem to have removed that feature from bottom/mid end of their own range many years ago. These days TT only provide features if you buy them from them - if they are selling a speed camera data base then they will not provide support for third parties.

With a phone/tablet you can also run (in parallel) the App from

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that provides a better (spoken/beeps) indication of the speed camera/ speed limits. On my phone I run both with the TT screen on top and the PocketGPSWorld App running in the background minimised. Be aware that if you are driving in Europe some countries have made having a speed camera detection system active in you car illegal (See some of the PocketGPSWorld articles on their web site)

One downside is that the GPS receiver in my phone isn't as sensitive as the GPS receiver in my (old) top of range TT unit. Acquiring a position fix on my phone when starting TT from a new location may take 5 minutes. Once I have a fix the GPS works well. This may just be a limitation of my phone but worth considering when buying a phone/tablet.

Reply to
alan

The same thing happens in my cul de sac, about 50 years or more ago there was a way through to the industrial estate the other side of the railway lines, but we still get people on foot, in cars and in 40 foot artics trying to get through, because 'the sat nav told me' Presumably they are all on Tom Tom? garmin, google, navteq, co-pilot and loads of other less known makes all show no through road. The most up to date maps are undoubtedly google ones.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

I went through loads of reviews of dedicated sat navs and ended up with the tablet: it is far cheaper, big screen, does loads of other stuff, you can try out different incarnations of software, often for free, it works in tunnels and underground, instant photo views of where you are, or are going to, loads of advantages all round. One of my favourites is being able to access traffic cameras. So don't immediately discount trying something new to you, I was very pleased over all. It was a bit like going from paper map to sat nav, another leap up in the useful stakes.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

I've been a TT user from nearly the beginning - using it on a Dell PDA.

I'm not a fan of the company and I think their customer service is very poor. Despite this I still run TT as my preferred SatNav. I have tried a few of the others.

Be aware that some of the things that you used to be able to do to customise the unit and run third party utilities are no longer possible unless you purchase top of the range - even then it's worth doing some research to find out if TT have further crippled the unit(s) in order to sell you the (second rate) extras. Unfortunately just to provide access to some simple third party utilities the purchase of top end units also comes with may bells a whistles that you may not need.

Watch out for dedicated TT units that don't take SD cards AND if they do SD cards that cannot hold maps. Often a low/mid range TT will come with a fixed amount of dedicated storage just large enough for the map it is supplied with and it will be impossible to upgrade to a map that is 1 byte larger. The TT unit may have come with a full map of Europe but the only map upgrade path with be a a cut down regional map.

My TT is on a mobile phone running Andriod. Personally, if I was going to upgrade again I would go for a cheap tablet to get a slightly larger screen. One thing that I have discovered is that it will need an sensitive up-to-date GPS receiver - which I would hope would be common place soon.

Reply to
alan

The digital maps were not around 50 years ago.

The Google street view of may house is well out of date.

Google mapping will be not better than the other couple of companies that supply maps. Often a change to a major road will take up to a year to appear on updated maps, minor roads 2 years and housing estates - who knows?

For a lot of SatNav companies the emphasis seems to be making money from advertising by putting more and more Points Of Interest (POI) into the data base where the POI is a take away restaurant chain or the service station with the most expensive petrol.

Reply to
alan

So the digital maps were transferred from ancient ones and never checked in over 50 years? My street view is about two years old as well, but the local road maps including road changes completed this year are correct on google but wrong on every other sat nav I have tried, including the latest co-pilot. The test I use is the Sadlers farm roundabout complex at the junction of the A13 and the A130

Reply to
Mrcheerful

The knowledgeable folks would say don't bother with a dedicated Satnav unit.

If you want up to date mapping (potentially real-time) it's the way to go - but to get the best service you need to have a data connection on a mobile contract. Google Maps is effectively free with any Android device and gives dynamic re-routing around traffic jams subject to a data connection being available.

At the moment I'm using Waze. Being a crowd-sourced map with routeing based on the track data from it's users it gives very useful advice that you just wouldn't get from something based on conventionally sourced map data. This especially true in and around London, where there are a number of taxi/cab drivers in the user community. It can get 'lost' if go you down a road that hasn't been driven by a user before, but even a TomTom isn't perfect ...

For foreign trips without a data connection there's another open-sourced app called Navfree with reguarly updated downloadable maps kept locally on the device. The user interface is a bit quirky, but it's all free when I have the 'phone and data contract that I need for my job anyway.

Reply to
D A Stocks

I know it well - 20 minutes to travel about 400 yards last week - I assume they are still f*****g around with the light sequences in Benfleet thus stopping drivers getting off the roundabout part of the junction.

TT on my phone is correctly showing the current road layout for that junction.

Reply to
alan

A tablet was my choice after a lot of looking, (my wife had offered to pay for a new sat nav, so price was not a primary consideration) and I am pleased, 120 quid plus data at a fiver a month (if you need it) it doesn't even seem dear.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

Well, yes, if that is what you call relating my miserable experience of its effects.

- Davey.

Reply to
Davey

No, it's a dim lit mode, still showing the details. It is supposed to balance the light level with the outside darkness. But I don't like it; You need clear instructions or nothing.

Reply to
johannes

But not your experience of using it. I make extensive use of SatNav in areas new to me and I find it a very useful tool. Occasionally it tells me that I'm driving through the middle of a field but common sense tells me that's I'm driving on a road built in the last few years and I need to look at the road signs at the next junction. Sometimes when I do not choose to follow the SatNav advice I'm instructed to "do a U turn" from the "fast" lane of a dual carriage way through a 2 foot gap in the central reservation - I of course follow the instructions to the letter.

All maps will have some errors and unfortunately the map update facilities that some companies offer means that the map that comes with the unit will be the only map it will see. Any updates will not be seen by the user until a new unit is purchased.

Reply to
alan

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