[OT] Which SatNav for the Mother-in-Law

TomTom, every time. Not the most sophisticated for power users, but it works straight out of the box and does what it should without fuss or drama. Full voice commands, turn-by-turn instructions, clear display and looks nice too. The better ones even speak the road and street names. I had a lot of trouble with my first one, but the replacement has worked faultlessly for a year now. I bought a Garmin while the first TomTom was back at the factory, and in comparison it was rubbish. Not half the ease of use, routes were bizarre sometimes, and just generally felt a generation behind the TomTom. And I am a big fan of Garmins - I have a 12-channel one for walking trips and a marine one in the boat, which are both good, but the car navigator wasn't a patch on the TomTom.

There may be better ones for use with PDAs or mapping applications, but for your intended use I would say the TomTom would be ideal.

Thanks Rich

I agree that I am drawn, reluctantly, to a TomTom. They don't do what I want but may be just what the MIL needs. Do yo favour any particular model?

RIchard

One every time for me,

I dont see the point of spending twice or 3 times as much on bigger models.

I personally leave it in the car most of the time...

I know i should not, but id rather that if one was nicked, it was a £99 one rather than a £400 one!

I've used a Medion based pda thingy from Halfords and now use a Tom Tom One. The Medion was ok but had a very out of date map in it, and i couldn't find an update. Spent alot of time driving across open countryside whilst on a brand new A road....or off roading in a Volvo in Switzerland coz 'the sat nav says theres a road here'...remember that Richard??

Tom Tom one is very good. Use it alot for work where all i get given is a post code. It does sometimes choose a very odd route for a supposed quickest route, but apart from that its ok.

Dom

Well with SatNav now available for not much more than =A350 I expect the= market has fallen some what for nicked ones. When they were all at the =A3400 level things were different.

I have TomTom on my PDA simple, easy to use, but you can get at advanced= things should you need to.

Now why did the OP not crosspost properly and post twice in at least two= different groups?

OP was (is) very tired! R ;-)

Thanks Dom

Any particular '£99 special'?

Ta

Richard

I would choose one that didn't have my postcode on it so that she couldn't find me :-)

Cheers

Peter (Like the Las Dawson joke, he could always tell when the mother-in-law was at the front door as the mice would throw themselves on the traps......)

Which reminds me - don't use your house as the 'home' location on a satnav. If the nav gets nicked, the thief knows how far you are from home, and that you aren't in. I use a road junction nearby - being in a rural area with few roads, it doesn't alter the routes it gives me, but it does give a thief a problem, as there is no house there and four different directions he can go in.

Mine's the GO720, but I didn't buy it. TomTom gave me it as a replacement for one that they couldn't fix after several returns to the factory and about a year of grief. It was top of the range at the time, but no doubt it has been superseded by now. I'm very happy with it, though. Since they all use the same software, I would have thought that as long as the one you buy has the features you want (i.e. UK or Europe mapping) it would fit the bill. If the One is under £100, I would say that was pretty good value.

And don't be drawn 'reluctantly' - it's a bloody good piece of kit. It's just not very 'techie', it just works. That suits me for all my needs.

TomTom Go (or whatever they call the basic 'out of the box' one now). Even my Dad can use his!

After years of buying Navman's I'll probably go for TomTom next myself. I found Navman better quality than TomTom, but the last one [S90i] I bought has fallen in pieces in 1 year - crashes all the time, battery dead in 5min, camera now dead, case looks wrecked - unlike the last Navman I had which could be thrown down concrete stairs and still work. I guess they were probably trying to reduce costs to compete with TomTom, but ended up just making a poor quality product to drive more people to TomTom!

Matt

RAC

My son bought me a Tom Tom 500 for my birthday a few years back, it's does what it says on the box and has never been any trouble. I've seen lots of friends with techie phones and notebooks etc. linked to GPS mice, always trouble. I use a computer for computing, phone for phone, that way it's simply less trouble.

Martin

I have a T-Mobile PDA (MDA Vario 3 running Windows Mobile) it has inbuilt GPS and I bought Tom Tom Navigator 6 (which sits on the memory card).

Very pleased with the combination and I have nothing but praise for it.

Cheers

Peter

This I like. Computer for emails and web browsing, camera for taking photos, phone for calling people and text messages, paper organiser for address book and diary, radio for radio listening, CD player for music, satnav for navigation. I am sure there is a gadget out there that will do all of this in one device (and badly), but eggs and baskets spring to mind. Or, to put it another way, when you go to work on the Landy, you take a set of single-purpose spanners and sockets, not a magic-gizmo multi-tool. The multi-tool might be OK in an emergency, but for proper work you need proper tools.

PDA =3D simple camera, diary, notebook, Sat Nav, contact list, oh and a phone

"magic-gizmo multi-tool" =3D hammer!

Cheers

Peter

On or around Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:54:30 -0800 (PST), puffernutter enlightened us thusly:

had a go with tomtom 7 (HTC touch diamond version, which runs on the Omnia) and also Nav-N-Go Igo8, which, in the end, I think I prefer. Loses out in a couple of ways to Tomtom like you can't press "Navigate" "Home", but it's not that hard either to operate, seems to use the same maps, and gains in other ways - more customisable, auto-switch to night colours at satellite-sunset-time, etc.

Beat me to it and very advisable. I use a point, a few miles away, down in the town surrounded by shops and houses. I think I know how to navigate from there to home.