Sat Nav Portable and In Car Manufacturer Fitted
 

I mean what’s it all about eh?

Manufacturer integrated sat nav for Volvo is well over a grand when good portable units are circa £200. Integrated is not helpful if you have more than one car.

I bought my first portable sat nat over 10 years ago when they were around £1500 a piece although paid much much less. Its never been updated either and has only got us 'lost' a few times , (cue A70 to Scotland being one!!) maybe half a dozen in all that time. Also got a Tom Tom circa 2007 which sometimes goes crazy as the battery is kippered as is the Mio!!

Just bought a new Tom Tom yesterday and this new sat nav gets 1 free update then maps are £75 a year..!!!….Why bother ?…I mean there is no road infrastructure investment in the UK really anyway.. Nowt changes, does it??..!!

Am also looking at buying a Garmin for all to use as a 'pool' sat nav which comes with free lifetime updates. What does 'free lifetime updates' mean - forever or for a set period that Garmin fancy and call 'the lifetime of the sat nav'? 1 year/ 2 years? Maybe 3? Is this any good? Anyone have one?

All our sat navs are Europe, which is very handy.

What sat navs do you have? Are you happy with them?

Cheers

I have used TomTom products for years until recently, the newer products just don't cut the mustard any longer for a number of reasons:

HD Traffic Live in the UK has been chopped from a 100 mile radius to around 40 which simply isn't enough.

Costly map upgrades when compared to Garmin, also TomTom offer products in the USA for example with free map upgrades for life, not in the UK though.

Their "wonderful" "MapShare" scheme, which is, in principle a great innovative idea but through poor implementation is little more than a "Map Degradation Scheme" IMHO (this is based upon hard experiance of trying to use it) - Long since given up on MapShare)

Integration with Twitter, FaceBook etc. What a joke a Nav unit is for guidance while driving a vehicle, having the ability to access such IM systems while in the car isn't something I agree with at all.

Combine the above points with a pathetic computer application (MyTomTom, which amazingly is worse than the previous TomTom Home PC Software) which you are forced to use to update anything on the newer devices and that was enough for me to jump ship.


I bought a Garmin 3790T about two years ago, it works well and the lifetime map update is for the life of the product, as long as it keeps going I will get new maps every three months. The unit is installed on a Brodit mount rather than the supplied windscreen sucker as this provides a neater installation with no cables in view, this is something I used to do with the TomTom units as I hate windscreen sucker mounts - Mike

i have the factory fit RTI Sat Nav in the C70 7 a Michelin portable for use in the S80 & 960 ...(each car S80 & 960 Have separate Mounts) so i just grab the "Mitch" & go if I'm NOT driving the C70.

The C70 has a phone kit installed (Bluetooth) & the reason I picked the Michelin is it too has the phone / Bluetooth Phone integration .. so in effect I have "handsfree" in all 3 cars


Keith

Yes I looked at handsfree, although TBH, I never (or rather extremely rarely) answer the phone when driving as it just sucks my concentration away!!

I have handsfree on the mobile integrated with the car although only answer the 'boss' as she gets mad if I dont..lol..and its a quick call as well..sort of 'eff off I am driving'...!!

Cheers

Thanks for that.

Its a Garmin 1340 Europe one I was thinking of. Very similar to the Tom Tom in use (well to me anyway!) that I got yesterday, although with the free updates for life.

What I liked about the Tom Tom is the 'smaller' and integrated suction pad which I am going to see if it fits upside down (as the Tom tom 'rights' itself) just on the 'sensus' shelf in the car. The older Tom Tom suction pads were dire and kept falling off the window, although this one is a twist dial and much better.

Regards

I have my brain and an A to Z road map, costs me about £5/yr and is a damn sight more trustworthy than a sat-nav.

I have not really ever got lost with a sat nav! Could not be without one (or 2 or 3 or 4...lol)

Must admit I did around 8k miles through Europe without one back on 2001 ish

Regards

The first time I ever used a (borrowed) sat-nav, must be about 6 years ago, it took me to the centre of Bristol and then got itself stuck in some kind of loop and instructed me to keep going round a large roundabout ad infinitum. I try to avoid using one whenever possible, especially as they are a distraction at least as bad as being on the phone in my opinion. 5 minutes with the A-Z planning out a route fixes the route in your head and more often than not I don't even need to refer to the map once I'm en route. I guess driving a delivery van hones your direction-finding skills some!

Agreed.
Also, in car tech dates so quickly.
The type of cars I tend to buy are big ol' barges, and the number of BMWs I looked at that still had the (now illegal) corded phone between the two front seat armrests and the (now useless) TV set on the dash is incredible. These toys must have cost the equivalent of a VW Polo back in the day yet my first thought is always, 'how can I rip these out and not leave a mess behind?'

Ditto sat navs. A good few of them are i the £1500-£2000 bracket and take up a sizeable chunk of dashboard real estate, yet are soundly thrashed for performance by a modern £150 Tom tom.

I do have a sat nav but nowadays I rarely go anywhere I haven't been before so I hardly ever need it, but I've been glad of it a few times. Don't ask me what brand it is though, I only bought it because they were doing a few dirt cheap in Morrisons a year or so ago.

I like the tomtom interface .But i also like the Navigon stuff.

But Tomtom take the total pee in regards to map updates etc

far too expensive .I use the "services" of a well know Chines guy in London who has his own little way of providing this service far far cheaper . People seem to hate tomtoms customer service and the way we get shafted by them