ARTICLE COMMENTS: Map Comparisons

[Dave]

Please post any comments regarding the Map Comparisons here.

[NMatthew]

As a recent convert to satellite navigation (TTN2+BTGPS+HP2210) I have to say that this site, its forums and its reviews are a marvellous source of information. Great job guys!

One thing that I'd like to see in the product reviews is an assessment of the map accuracy. The one thing that stops TTN2 from being a kiler app for me is the fact tha the maps are years out of date. Despite being marketed as "December 2002" there are developments and road alterations going back at least five years that are absent.

I, for one, would like to see in product reviews some indication of whether the maps are up to date. On my travels I get to use several major roads that are not on the maps. These include A43 Silverstone bypass and M40 junction, the bypasses on the A6 at Great Glen, Rothwell/Desborough, Higham Ferrers and Clapham, and now the re-working of the M42/M6 junction and the M6 Toll road. The one-way system in Kettering is wrong in TTN2 and out of town retail places like Fosse Park in Leicester are incomplete.

This wasn't intended as a rant against TTN2 or TeleAtlas, all of these faults are of course present to some extent in all navigation products. AutoRoute 2004 is missing the new roads, so I'll have to wait another year at least for laptop support for my travels.

Suppose I decide to buy the first PocketPC product that has these new roads on its maps, and works with the TomTom bluetooth GPS? I'd really appreciate it if PocketGPS could let me know in its reviews of new products, as geeting information from vendors is not easy.

Judging by the amount of forum traffic relating to map errors I cannot be the only one that would appreciate PocketGPS reviews delving a little more deeply into the maps.

What do you think?
Regards
Neil Matthew

[DavidW]

TomTom Navigator 3 will probably be out in the next few months which should have significantly updated maps. If previous experience is anything to go by, the update won't cost that much (last time round it was 39 Euros for substantially upgraded software and new maps).


Your more general point about some information being wrong from changes that happened years ago can only be answered by explaining that there are really only two suppliers of map data - Navtech and TeleAtlas. TomTom use TeleAtlas maps, and the maps in Navigator 2 are based on a December 2002 data set from TeleAtlas.

If there's errors from before then, it's more TeleAtlas's fault than TomTom's. All other products that use TeleAtlas mapping data of that vintage will contain the same errors.

My feeling is that it would be near impossible for reviews to contain much more information than the map data provider and the date of that data. It is true, however, that TomTom Navigator 2 is using about the oldest map data of any current product at the moment. I think about all that reviewers can realistically comment on is the first product that includes M6 Toll in its maps - otherwise they'll be spending for ever checking for roads that matter to increasingly fewer people (though I accept and agree with your comment that there's errors in several major trunk roads that affect a great deal of people in the TomTom Navigator 2 maps).

Housing estates and industrial areas are always tricky. I have a good friend who lives in a part of Milton Keynes that was built in late 2001. To my knowledge, the entire estate doesn't yet appear on any digital mapping; though this may be in part down to the roads having not yet been adopted by the local authority (they're still building there).


It would help if there was a clearer way of reporting errors directly to TomTom or to TeleAtlas. For now, about the best you can do is put your report in the sticky "map errors" thread for the appropriate product and hope someone that can make a difference is reading.

multimap.com hasn't got M6 Toll on either the Ordnance Survey or TeleAtlas data they're using at the moment - I suspect their TeleAtlas data is a later build than that in TomTom Navigator 2.



David

[Doron]

Need help
Need to make a decision between Tom Tom Navigator for palm and Navman Gps4460 i have a Palm T3
Is there a place where i can read some comparisons

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