Satnav

[petemc]

My Dad is looking to get satnav. I use Tomtom in my iPhone. Works for me. He wants an all in one unit. Is Tomtom still the best?

[LeperousDust]

They're all pretty good, get him what he's used to if he's ever used any, as it'll be easier. If he's totally new, garmin tomtom even navman or whatnot you cant really go wrong, go cheap make sure its got a touchscreen and its pretty simple really :)

[petemc]

Cool. Figured as much. I'm used to Tomtom and he's never used one so I'll get the one I know how to teach him.

[Del Lardo]

Have a look at http://www.totalpda.co.uk/refurbished-tomtom?osCsid=0derppctth3q95nlie5v5d4s84 Should save you a few £££ and like new.

[Zirax]

If you go down the tomtom route, look for one that has hd traffic. I have this on mine and in 10months driving 650miles per week it must have saved countless hours stuck in jams on the m6/a14

[petemc]

I take it you have to subscribe to the traffic thing?

[Nutcase]

Yes, although I saw ads very recently saying first year free?

[Mark]

First year free is quite common. Seems like a good idea to me.

[TinkerBell]

If you are looking at tom tom look at halfrauds as they have a big sale on sat nav at the minute. I wouldn't be able to go for anything other than tom tom, but that is because I am used to it and everything I see other than tom tom just doesn't seem as good.

[Zirax]

I take it you have to subscribe to the traffic thing?

Yep, it all depends on how much he is going to be driving around with it. The best bit is when a road stuffs up and you end up taking some b-roads in the middle of nowhere and jump the entire queue. :D

For me, its worth every penny.

[Feek]

Is Tomtom still the best?

I would argue that TomTom have never been the best, I've used both Garmin and TomTom over the years and always found them lagging behind Garmin.

Having said that, I just returned my six month old Garmin for a refund because a software update introduced a bug that made the unit pretty much unusable because it missed the 'distance to next turn' indicator from the front screen.

I've replaced it with a TomTom and although the TomTom 'HD' traffic is superior to the Garmin traffic because of the deal TomTom have done with Vodafone, I still feel that the Garmin (without the bug) is superior to the TomTom.

However the TomTom does work and it seems to work fairly well.

[Kitten]

I used a Garmin to get to Swansea and found it awful. Slow, unresponsive and not great with speed camera detection (beeped as we went past them but not before) and the voice kept lagging. We followed the image/voice control several times to find out it hadn't updated quick enough, so we'd taken the wrong turning. May have been the unit, but I've never used one before and due to that demo I have no wish to do so again.

TomTom Go on the other hand has always been great, and I have no issues with it whatsoever. I'd always go TomTom. PLus it has tonnes of voices :D

[Feek]

Can't say I experienced those issues at all with my Garmins. I've always used the PocketGPSWorld speed camera database which is far superior to both the Garmin and TomTom ones.

I've just discovered a major limitation to the iPhone TomTom app - It can't store more than 50 favourites. WTF? I've got over 200 to add and I've never had a navigation unit that can't store that many.

[Kitten]

Must have been the unit then!

[Knipples]

Father Christmas brought me a Tom Tom after my last one broke (was about 4 years old though) it's been great, but I take it I now need to pay to get the maps updated etc? I know some of the roads are out of date (for example it gets lost in the centre of town where the new shopping centre has opened) so how do I go about getting it updated, and where's the cheapest/best place to do it.

[Mark]

You can buy map updates from the TomTom website. As for whether it's the cheapest, probably not (assuming there are other ways to get them).

Some units come with one free update within the first 12 months so if your unit isn't too old that's worth checking out.

[Nutcase]

I think tomtom are the only legit source for maps - but at the moment they're doing 18months of free updates. Not that I can see much difference between my new one and the old one, still got the same no right turns etc. missing :confused:

[Knipples]

I think tomtom are the only legit source for maps - but at the moment they're doing 18months of free updates. Not that I can see much difference between my new one and the old one, still got the same no right turns etc. missing :confused:

How do I find the free updates, when I go on the website it just talks about charging me x amount per quarter? :confused:

[Nutcase]

Sorry, failed a bit there! It's 6 months free when you buy a year:

http://www.tomtom.com/page/mapupdateservice

[volospian]

Can't say I experienced those issues at all with my Garmins. I've always used the PocketGPSWorld speed camera database which is far superior to both the Garmin and TomTom ones.

I've just discovered a major limitation to the iPhone TomTom app - It can't store more than 50 favourites. WTF? I've got over 200 to add and I've never had a navigation unit that can't store that many.

You have 200 places that you go to regularly enough that you want to store them as favourites.... but you still need Sat Nav to get you to them? :huh::p;D

[petemc]

Gone for the Tomtom XL Live. Bigger screen will be good for my Dad, as will the Live stuff. Free for the first year.