Navigon 70 Series

[peat]

Where did you order yours from? I ordered my 70 plus from the Navigon online shop last week after I tweeted navigon to say where are they available from?
They replied with Navigon shop , so I replied with that says 2 - 3 weeks and they replied with try now and the website then said delivery in 2-3 days.

Ive got a horrible feeling it is actually 2-3 weeks. If so Im going to have to cancel it and rely on my very flakey garmin for my trip in 2 weeks.

[michaelj2]

Navigon International Site. I am happy with 2 to 3 weeks as I will only be back in Europe then. I am really looking forward to it. However, nothing will beat the true versatility (but spectacularly inaccurate) ViaMichelin 980!

[lads2000]

OK so bit the bullet and ordered the Navigon 70 Premium Live. at the price they have it on the website at the moment I think this is a bargain. I just need to work out how to get the PGPS world Speed cameras on it now.

[peat]

Website now says delivery in 2-3 weeks on the navigon site.
Thats a phone call to them in a bit to cancel my order then.

Im a bit disappointed ill have to go back to a getting a new Garmin for a replacement to my flakey old garmin sat nav but at least I can actually get my hands on one of them.

[michaelj2]

Its a pity as I think they just announced them at the Berlin show, so I expected some delay in delivery.

[peat]

Well my first contact with Navigon customer service went ok.
They actually said my 70 plus was in transit... I got home and here it was!

Just been having a play around with it, its so much faster than my garmin satnav that was built into my kenwood dnx7200. I was a bit worried about dropping in screen size but the 5" screen looks good enough.
A few things bugging me at the moment is there is no zoom option on the 3d view. just small, standard or large.
Also my first route as a test was heysham to norfolk. The garmin everytime would send me down the a1m which is the best way. Navigon has put me on some mad route through sheffield and down the m1. The other two options are even more bonkers.
So following from that I was going to add in some custom avoid areas like I do on my Garmin.... from what I have seen so far, it seems its not possible to add custom avoids? Anyone know any different in Navigons?

[peat]

Another update, just been running the simulation of a route i put in.
That was nice as my garmin didnt do that.
Only thing I dont like is you cant click on the junction in the turn by turn list to get a picture of the junction. My old Garmin did that.
But after playing around with it for a bit I tried to turn it off and it seemed to go into standby mode. I then couldnt turn it back on at all!!! In the end a combination of having it plugged into power, holding power button and holding in the reset (and a change of pants) got it powered back up.
Bit scary !

Back on to how its going, I like the speed camera warnings and also the sightseeing icon that comes up and you can click to see whats nearby.
Just trying to work out how to get custom pois onto it and to see if you can set your own custom poi folder to be one of the top 3 categories that appears with the proximity sensor.

[lads2000]

Peat keep us updated on how you get on I'd be interested to know how to get the PGPS speed cams on when mine arrives.

[peat]

Found out how to get my pois on it and to one of the quick categories.
Had another problem last night where it wouldnt shutdown and would only go into standby. I have to say I really do not like how it turns off.
You press and hold the power button and then it says going into standby in 5..4...3..2.1 and im thinking err no i want you to turn off .
sometimes it turns off proper . sometimes it goes into standby.
Very strange.
I found the ini file to adjust for the max pois. It was only on 1000 so I uped mine to 3000 but Im guessing you can up it to above the 11000 speed cameras?

[jonandmarkuk]

[BigPerk]

Well ... I was going to wait till the dust settled on a few others' experiences, but THEN I SAW THE PRICE

__________________€_______£

70 Premium________279_____259

70 Premium Live____349_____229
__
So, at cheaper than the 70P and way under the € equivalent for the 70PL, I thought I'd better get my order NOW in case it's a mistake (like it looks like) before they realise it (hope the contractual law in Germany is similar to the UK!).

It's on its way (well in 2/3 weeks)

That means I'll be selling my 8310 on ebay (although it's an upgraded 8110, as the hardware and software spec is identical, an 8310 it is!) in the next couple of weeks. Just to show my appreciation of those on this site, if anyone here bids (it won't be TOO difficult to identify me as the seller!) and wins, I will be happy to give a 10% refund via Paypal (subject to i - covering my P&P costs; ii - proof of identity). How's that for an incentive?
_________________
David
(Navigon 70 Live, Nuvi 360)

[peat]

Just a few more views on use so far.

I like the speed limits constantly showing and you can set a warning if you go a certain mph over (1 setting for built up area and 1 for everywhere else)
Routing calculation is very quick. Practically instant.
I like how you can get into the guts and tweek things, I will be trying to tweek the width of the route that shows as sometimes in towns its so wide you cant see nearby close roads.
I also will try and tweek the autozoom distances as the near one is still too far for my liking.

The volume of the unit is very good as well, its so loud ive had to knock it do to level 4 out of 10!

Things I dont like are sometimes because of the 3d angle the road in the distance looks like it stops so you can be thinking your going down a dead end only for the satnav to draw the road on when you get nearer.

I also have found some speed cameras just sitting in the middle of nowhere in Norfolk and all industrial estates where I am are called the same name on the map.

Also the routing can sometimes be strange, Its better now Ive changed it to choose fast route and not optimum but sometimes it takes you off A roads and down minor roads or through towns which is never faster.

The biggest gripe I have is how you find pois. I have the rspb reserve pois so sometimes I want to plan a 100 or 200 mile route to a rspb reserve. The Navigon doesnt let me do this as the"go to" setting only allows you to look for a nearby poi, a poi in a city or a nationally important poi (airport, border crossing etc)
The only way round this is for me to go and look at a poi on the map then save the position as a favourite and then I can route to the poi.


So far I am 50/50 whether its a better sat nav system than a Garmin. But next week I will be doing a 700 mile trip so I will draw my final conclusion after that.

[BigPerk]

Hi peat - there must be a 'city' (city, town, locality) that your rspb reserve is near? I assumed that Navigon would treat user POIs the same as their own, ie list your rspb sites as a category to select a site from (assuming you have set them up as a category). Are they treating user POIs differently from their own standard ones then?

BTW, I'm sure 'optimum' is NOT always the same as 'fastest' - I suspect they have got this from ViaMichelin (who sort of sold out to them when they left the GPS market)

"The route deemed to be the safest and simplest, with minimum scope for error along the way"

Or are you saying that 'fastest' doesn't give the fastest route? Generally I've found the routing pretty good, but in common with other makes, it does tend to assume speed-limited travel a little and as you suggest you can't always do 60 down a single track road with no passing places! As it happens though, I left Garmin (though I guess my experience was perhaps unusual) precisely because of its spasmodic VERY quirky routing, and, even more unsettling, RE-routing while driving (not a traffic diversion btw). MUCH happier with Navigon.

Anyway - looking forward to hearing about your experiences after your trip. Have a good holiday!

VERY interested in the tweaking - is this described somewhere or are you a very adventurous geek? I would really like to know just what can be tweaked - Navigon haven't allowed much of that previously, but seem to be moving to a more flexible user interface at the same time as TT seem to be bent on moving in the opposite direction.
_________________
David
(Navigon 70 Live, Nuvi 360)

[BigPerk]

A few comments were made earlier about Navigon's customer service. I hope it isn't a temporary blip, but it seems to have just improved dramatically. I, and someone else on Navigon's Facebook page, have had replies to 2 simple requests within 24 hours, so now I'm trying them out on something a bit more complicated!

I notice on their Q&A page (from March) btw that they intend to offer route planning in a future software release, which I know some people are quite keen on. Don't think it's in the new series yet, but they are clearly working on it.

And also btw, I finally found a REAL use for MyRoutes while on holiday (I've always liked the idea, but in practice usually just go straight for the 'fastest' anyway, so the extra routes are a bit tinselly for 'on the road' navigation). However, sprog ferrying to/from airports was quite frustrating with all the holiday traffic holdups in a Cornwall-like retricted environment. But I think I found that the 'MyRoutes' preferred route is basically the same as the one given on other satnavs, so we were all (slowly) following the same route, together with all the locals; on my return journeys I deliberately chose a second-best option if the route was significantly different but not too much slower time-wise - and where was all that traffic then ?!

peat - I think I see what you mean about your rspb POI problem now. I guess it's a question of how far out 'nearby' goes! If I don't find a solution myself, I might have to get the new version of POIWarner when it comes out, to supplement Navigon's set-up. There can be a similar problem with Garmin, IIRC, in that it only lists the nearest 50 POIs to a location, but I guess rspb sites wouldn't be as much of a problem as they are presumably pretty scattered.
_________________
David
(Navigon 70 Live, Nuvi 360)

[jonandmarkuk]

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