NavMan or Mio269 for French Holiday?

[Faust]

Does anyone have any feedback on the screen reflection problem which has been mentioned in a couple of reviews I have read. I suppose to some extent it might depend on the vehicle you drive i.e. rake of windscreen and depth of dashboard in relation to windscreen, also type of weather at the time i.e. sunny etc. On one review it actually showed a screen shot, and you could clearly see the steering wheel being reflected on the Navman screen - not ideal.

[icsys]

All these PND's are going to suffer from reflection to some degree and I would bet the MIO 269 is no exception.
Yes it is a problem in strong sunlight but you can purchase screen protectors that will cut down some of the reflections without compromising the touch screens.

I would not dismiss any particular device purely on screen reflections. Better to judge them on the hardware specifications and software features then make your choice based on which device best suits your individual needs and requirements.
_________________
Ian.
iPAQ 2210 | Navman 4100 BT Receiver
Navman iCN 635
TomTom GO
Anquet OS mapping

[dspjern]

I've done some serious surfing to sort out the Navman ICN 510 / MIO 269 issue. (Even ordered a similar Navigon 3002 that went back the following day)

Going from Sweden to Provence on vacation and otherwise primarily utilizing the speedcam-warning set my priorities. These are my most important findings:

- Both units similar in size, battery, map content(TeleAtlas Europe) and supplied accessories. [ref. to iCN510 Premium ed.]

- MIO using Navigon software, NavMan using their own. Can't really tell which one is better, but one difference i noticed was that Navman lets you experiment with how to optimize the route with a couple of preference-sliders. On MIO you have 2 options (fastest/shortest)

- MIO have all european maps on internal harddrive, iCN510 has your region on SD-card, rest of Europe on included CDs.

- NavMan supplies a map utility that lets you (on the PC) select map regions to export to the device SD-card. = You can select map extracts that follow you primary route and create a "map corridor" for your journey. Germany f.i. consists of 60 regions.
(this factors out the MIO advantage of all Europe onboard. Even if you might need an extra SD-card to cover a long journey, i bet you won't visit every single country on the same trip?)

- MIO like Navigon 3002 cannot route across borders! You have to select a point at the border of the country you're in, then switch to the next country's map and continue your trip.
(this made up my decision as i will go from Munich in Germany through Austria and Italy to arrive in Antibes, France. And the MIO won't have a clue of which road i should choose to exit Germany!!!

- Both Navman and MIO can import POI's and even warn when you approaching f.i. a speed cam - BUT: Navman supplies a separate tool that lets you import almost any POI-list in a textfile, set you own icon for the list AND select if you want to be alerted and how far ahead. MIO requires you to make all sorts of unofficial "fixes" with the software to achieve the same thing. (found the solution in french deep within a french GPS discussion group)

As for other factors like build quality it's hard to tell without trying each out for a while. Found some complaints about the Navman but it has been out for a year, MIO only a couple of months - so it's hard to draw any conclusions on that.

It might sound like i'm trashing the MIO but that's not the case. In fact i think it seems really nice.

For me, however, the above crucial factors made my decision in favor of the NavMan ICN 510!

[dspjern]

[quote="dspjern"] You can select map extracts that follow you primary route and create a "map corridor" for your journey. Germany f.i. consists of 60 regions.
quote]

Edit: Germany is about 6-8 regions (don't have the CD's at hand)

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