The place to discuss anything to do with computers, software, hardware, no matter how basic or technical. We all use this stuff, but we don't always understand it!
Even Noah got no salary for the first six months partly on account of the weather and partly because he was learning navigation.
We've had a Garmin nuvi ('Moira') for three years and she's given good service but, lately, Moira seems to have lost her marbles and keeps getting lost and sending us up blind allies. Garmin recommend updating maps but, as this costs 50 squids (plus we need a new power cable), inevitably we're looking towards a new device. Research suggests that only Garmin and Tom Tom are in the running, but there's a bewildering range of models out there. Also, Garmin customer service seems to be better liked than TTs (if you can believe those pesky reviews).
I wondered what sat navs you guys are currently using, whether you'd found them to be satisfactory, if the battery life was good enough for a walkabout (Moira's certainly isn't) and if widescreens are worth the extra money?
Any advice most gratefully received.
Jim (currently back to maps and rows with Mrs Jimbo!)
Also a Garmin fan but as you say, updating the maps costs nearly as much as a new device!
For the last couple of years though I've had Nokia phones which come with worldwide maps and navigation - with all the features of the most expensive TT/Garmin - but for free. I use it all the time, not just for car journeys but also in cities as we take several city breaks a year. Walking navigation is great. It's a doddle to find places of interest, restaurants etc or to get back to your hotel or the car. Also useful on country walks. Maps are updated, again for free, several times a year.
The cost of buying a decent Nokia is much the same as the cost of buying a dedicated top end satnav unit and you also get internet, music player, a remarkably good camera and phone calls and don't have to carry two units so a no brainer for me.
. Escape to the Country - the story of a lifestyle change and other cheesy clichés .
TomTom every time for me - don't know how I managed without it! Easy to use, battery life good. Customer service good on 'phone when I locked it out. No complaints at all.
My Garmin - "Emily" - was recently ready for an update and I got a lifetime-updates deal for about 35 squid. Don't know how long her lifetime will be, but it seemed a reasonable deal at the time.
Mind you there are times when her life is hanging by a thread, like when she tries to direct me onto a completely stationary autoroute which I'm trying to avoid or down some sort of cart-track, and as for her French pronumnciation - laughable. (She gets dead stroppy when I repeatedly ignore her as well!)
Yes, the thing I use my phone least for now is for making calls
If you know someone who has a Nokia it may be worth a look. A dedicated unit may be more your thing but for me there's no competition and I'd have to pay an awful lot of money to get the same satnav functionality (assisted GPS, voice street names, lane guidance, live traffic conditions, extended PC functions etc, etc). The fact it has an 12mp camera/carl zeiss lens, HD video, full internet/wifi, calendar/diary, email, massive storage and a fantastic music player is a bonus - and being able to make calls of course.
. Escape to the Country - the story of a lifestyle change and other cheesy clichés .
We use Tom Tom and it gets you to your destination ........... eventually.
Ours takes ages to pick up a signal (even hanging it out of the car window!)
If you have absolutely no idea in which direction to go then fine but very often it wants to take you on the Scenic, twice as long route, even though you have told it that you want to use the toll roads.
Good for towns and cities though.
mimosa wrote:
Ours takes ages to pick up a signal (even hanging it out of the car window!)
My Garmin is a bit like that: A minute if you're stationary and in the same place that you last used it, 2-3 minutes if you're somewhere new and never if you try to get a fix while you're moving. It's a few years old and the newer, more expensive ones have an added system which gets a fix faster. For really fast you need assisted GPS which uses the cellphone network for the initial fix. Takes just a couple of seconds then.
. Escape to the Country - the story of a lifestyle change and other cheesy clichés .
On a recent trip to Joburg, South Africa we set off in convoy heading for a Lion Park, and following the lead car equipped with a Garmin.
Some 1.5 hours later, completely lost, we ended up in a part of Joburg we really should not have been in. With my wife and 3 month old daughter in the car it was a very very stressful experience.
On subsequent trips to game parks and to my friends wedding venue (reason for the SA trip!) another car took the lead with a Tom Tom...absolutely spot on everytime.
la vache! wrote:
Assuming you have a cellphone network where you are. I don't where my car is parked in front of the house.
But then if you know where the car is, you don't really need a map - there anyway
Seriously, 3G coverage is still patchy and has a horrible habit of not being available at the very time you need it.
I often like to plan a route while at my house though...otherwise I don't know where to go.
And it is free to use my Tom Tom abroad - wouldn't it cost me a fortune in roaming charges using 3G on my mobile?
The assisted GPS doesn't need 3G - "ordinary" coverage is fine. What it does is pick up the geo data from the cell sites in range for that initial fix and subsequently if the GPS signal is lost. It doesn't incur any data charge (not on my network anyway). You can turn that off if you want and it just means the fix takes a bit longer. So no roaming charges.
Nokia has all the maps on-line for the whole world as far as I can see so you can plan to your hearts content, save it to your account and then pull that down to your phone. That does use a small amount of data use but I always sync the phone via wifi which doesn't use the cell network, so is free.
. Escape to the Country - the story of a lifestyle change and other cheesy clichés .
