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Satnavs - (OT re maintenance, but this is a good group!)

Hi,

This may be slightly OT but I hope of interest to this group.

I have a couple of years old Acer N35 with Satnav, using Destinator 6. The maps are a bit old now, which can be a difficulty sometimes so I'm interested in an upgrade/replacement, but only if it's materially better, so I'm interested in this group's experiences with the various satnavs.

My requirements list, other than the obvious, is:

1) I want to be able to easily force it to, say, join the M1 North from my house at J14, not via M25, J21 (=M1 J6). I don't want to have to battle with constant route recalculations as I go, wondering when it's going to be forced to my route. I suppose that means the ability to easily set vias.

2) I want it to have all the latest city centre urban regenerations, new

1-ways etc..

3) I want to be able to easily understand the route it's going to take me in advance. This is very hard to do on the Acer as the route preview is not scrollable, zoomable and North seems to be random in the view.

TomTom One V2 seems to get great reviews - would that put ticks in all these boxes? EBuyer have a well-reviewed own-label one for under £100 though the maps are a little old according to some of the reviews on their site.

I'm not massively interested in speed-cameras or points of interest - just want the basic A to B via C. Rerouting on live traffic would be good, but only if it works and is cheap!

So, interested in comments, experiences, suggestions etc..

TIA!

Pete

Reply to
Peter Boulton
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You'll get a good response from uk.rec.gps, there a helpful bunch.

Reply to
Maxi

Buy yourself a PDA and bluetooth GPS receiver and load/upgrade the mapping system of your choice, then you will not have to huzz £200+ worth of gear down the toilet each time a new road gets built ;-)

Reply to
Icky Thwacket

You can put newer maps onto most stand alone systems, for varying prices. The tomtom site for maps is down for maintenance at the moment but it should be here.

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Reply to
Depresion

Thanks Maxi, didn't see that group - I see it now!

Cheers,

Pete

Reply to
Peter Boulton

The Acer N35 *is* a PDA with built in GPS.

TomTom 5 runs on it, but it's too dog slow for TomTom 6. Also, TT5 falls over if you turn on any more than just the PocketGPS POIs, IME. And the power connector is dead dodgy.

But apart from that... ;-)

I'd agree with getting a *decent* PDA and bluetooth GPS, if you have any use for a PDA. If not then the convenience of a smaller car-only system wins.

As for having to chuck it every time, surely most in-car satnavs have updating maps by now?

Reply to
PC Paul

Solution to that is on the web: You need to deconstruct the built in POIs,= =20 add your own (if necessary) and re-build them. (This needs a perl script=20 written by a Frenchman, and ActivePerl installed on your machine)

I had a lot of problems with my POIs causing TT to crash, but this fixed=20 solved them.

HTH

Pete.

Reply to
Pete Smith

I'll look it up, cheers.

I've got Perl... and then some ;-)

Reply to
PC Paul

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