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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:51 am Post subject: Nuvi: Any way of displaying total distance to go?
After years of TomTom ownership I received my first Garmin, a Nuvi 255W yesterday.
I must admit my first impressions are not great, whilst it seems capable enough I'm finding a lot more areas where the TomTom is better. Maybe some of this is through 'not liking change' but I do have enough hard issues to be concerned.
This morning I was all for returning it for refund but decided to give it a fair try on the way to work.
I found that it's workable but there is one thing that niggles me. I want to know how many miles to my destination.
The only way I can see of getting this is to hit the green banner at the top, then select map, wait for the map to slowly draw and then the mileage to go is displayed in very small text at the bottom.
Is this the only way of displaying 'miles to go'.
Ideally I want a constant display on the main screen - instead of the speed indication.
Garmin seem to be very fixated about speed. It is constantly displayed (why - I have a much easier to read speedometer on my dashboard) and if I touch it it gives me endless statistics about speed that I'm not at all interested in.
Can this speed indicator be changed for a 'miles to go' indicator?
I suspect the answer is NO - couldn't see a way of doing it myself, but would be really happy to be proved wrong.
Yes I found it. On the 255W you have to click the speed which brings up the 'trip computer'.
This displays all sorts of speed related info - average speed, top speed, time stopped etc and in the top right shows distance to go.
However, I am vey disappointed with Garmin about this. Why do they feel the need to display speed. In the vast majority of cases we will have a speedo which we will use in preference to the Sat Nav.
In my opinion it would have been more usefull to display distance to go.
The three main bits of info I want from a sat nav whilst driving are
(i) What do I have to do next
(ii) How many miles till I reach my destination
(iii) What time am I likely to arrive
I do need to know the speed, but not from the sat nav.
Joined: Jan 04, 2006 Posts: 9323 Location: Durham, UK
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject:
I'm confussed by what you are saying.
Garmin only show the speed on the main screen when you don't have an route planned, so if you can see the speed how would the unit know how far it is to your next destination as you can't have a route set?
Without a route planed the unit shows Speed on the left and Compass Direction on the right.
With a route planned the unit shows Estimated Time of Arrival on the left and Distance to Next Turn on the right.
Top Left - Next turn indicator
Bottom Left - Speed
Bottom Middle - Menu
Bottom Right - Arrival Time
What I'm syaing is that I don't care about the speed - I have a speedo to tell me that. Just wished that they had put distance to destination there instead - or better still given the user the ability to choose what info he wants displayed (like TomTom).
Top Left - Next turn indicator
Bottom Left - Speed
Bottom Middle - Menu
Bottom Right - Arrival Time
What I'm syaing is that I don't care about the speed - I have a speedo to tell me that. Just wished that they had put distance to destination there instead - or better still given the user the ability to choose what info he wants displayed (like TomTom).
Cheers,
Nigel
There's a certain irony to this. I can remember plenty of messages, here, about not being able to display the speed whilst on a route on a Garmin, and how people could on a TomTom.
Joined: Jan 04, 2006 Posts: 9323 Location: Durham, UK
Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:54 am Post subject:
Quote:
There's a certain irony to this. I can remember plenty of messages, here, about not being able to display the speed whilst on a route on a Garmin, and how people could on a TomTom.
There's a certain irony to this. I can remember plenty of messages, here, about not being able to display the speed whilst on a route on a Garmin, and how people could on a TomTom.
Come off it. The very vast majority of people using in-car sat navs are in a car which by law has to have a working speedometer.
How many users do you think check their current speed by looking at the Sat Nav rather than the speedo?
If Garmin have received all these requests then why not display both or give the user the choice.
Obviously the answer is Give the user the option of what they want to see....
Well I'd agree that it's one of the features of TomTom units that I like - they seem to be much more configurable - certainly from a user-interface perspective.
I've used several different makes and models of sat navs, over the years, and I'd have to say, I make most reference to time to destination, and distance to next turn. Because when I'm on a journey, the key things I'm interested in are when I'm going to get where I'm going, and when do I have to be aware of a turn on my route, next. To me, everything else is superfluous - not necessarily undesired, but not something I care about.
One of the things I've liked when using TomTom has been the directional arrow / symbol, for your next turn - so if going left on a roundabout, or taking a fork to the left on a road.
At the end of the day, though, the different makes of sat nav are different, and go about presenting their sat navs in a differing, and probably what they'd like to perceive as a "brand" statement.
Important, key aspects to how they work, and I'd like them to be all singing from the same hymm sheet. How they present it, though, is somewhere I still like to see some variance.
TomTom's user interface, is undoubtably one of their major strengths, though.
There's a certain irony to this. I can remember plenty of messages, here, about not being able to display the speed whilst on a route on a Garmin, and how people could on a TomTom.
Come off it.
Come off what? What are you arguing against? All I said was that there had been numerous requests / comments in this very forum, about Garmin units not displaying the speed whilst on route.
PaulB posted thread links. And I've certainly seen it form part of threads that were around requests for firmware mods.
That doesn't mean I necessarily buy into the need for it - as I said in my post where I describe the things I am interested in, I'm rather ambivalent to having the speed displayed.
nheather wrote:
The very vast majority of people using in-car sat navs are in a car which by law has to have a working speedometer.
So?
What has that, in relation to the point I was making? Which is, quite simply, from an ambivalent perspective on the display of the speed whilst on route, numerous people have requested or complained about Garmin units not doing this, in the past.
nheather wrote:
How many users do you think check their current speed by looking at the Sat Nav rather than the speedo?
I neither know, nor care.
nheather wrote:
If Garmin have received all these requests then why not display both or give the user the choice.
Perhaps your righteous indignation would be better directed at Garmin.
All I mentioned, in passing, being the irony of the situation. For years, one of the repeated complaints or requests from some Garmin users, has been that it hasn't displayed the speed whilst on route. And now that the xx5 series appears to do this, there's complaints that it does, and doesn't do something else.
Come off it. The very vast majority of people using in-car sat navs are in a car which by law has to have a working speedometer.
How many users do you think check their current speed by looking at the Sat Nav rather than the speedo?
Cheers,
Nigel
I will give you a nice exemple!
2 years ago I was driving a greek car in UK and greek cars (as all european cars) unlike the UK cars which they display both miles and km, they DO NOT display miles on their speedos!
Thus you have to roughly calculate your speed on miles everytime. So in a 30mph area you know that you have to do around 50kmh... yes?
well..... I once got flashed at southampton on a 30miles camera while i was doing 50kmh.... so i guess 50kmh are just a bit over 30mph
Luckily i never received any ticket....my guess because they didnt bother to track me back to greece
So...in my case and to other drivers driving a foreign car in UK it is really usefull if the GPS can convert your actual speed to miles and display it on the screen!
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