Advice please: to buy all Europe maps and SD card

dieselnutjob · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 23, 2006 Posts: 49

Hello all
We bought a TomTom One in the UK six months ago and I also put a speed camera overlay on it.
In a couple of weeks I would like to use it in Spain, and we go to France a few times a year too.
Looking on tomtom.com I am thinking that the best option is to buy all of Europe maps for 120 Euros and to buy a bigger SD memory from ebuyer or something.
Some questions.
1. It's a 1.9G download. Does that means that I need a 2G SD card to get all of Europe on one SD memory ? How much would I get on 1G.
2. Tomtom appear to be in the throws of version 6 software release. Does that mean that now would be a dumb time to buy these maps ? are the download ones always the most recent ?
3. Are there any recommendations of what makes of SD card to buy or to avoid ?

thanks for any advice.

sgould · Frequent Visitor Joined: Oct 05, 2004 Posts: 1320

Buy a fast card - it seems that the new v6 software works best with them (people with slow cards seem to be having failures.

The 120 euro download is a set of the seven individual maps that you could download separately. So if you want two separate maps the whole lot is the same price. A 1 GB card would take 3 or 4 individual downloads. These maps are the "plus" maps, so loading them all will take up room because you download "the main roads of the rest of W Europe" with each of the 7 downloads. Plus maps are the named country in detail with main roads of W Europe on one map.

You can get the same set on CD. May not be as up to date as the download and you still need an SD card. I think this set also has the "country only" maps, which would save room on the SD card.

You can also get a 1GB SD card (if there are any left) which is the seamless map of W Europe that is in the 710. One map, full detail.

TomTom have none, try the ads on the right of this page or here: http://www.inkino.co.uk/zen/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95&products_id=1038
_________________
TTGO 700 (dead)
iPhone 3GS + TT holder
iPhone 5 (hers!)
Western Europe Map
Eastern Europe Map
Kenwood DNX-4210DAB with Garmin maps

dieselnutjob · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 23, 2006 Posts: 49

thanks for the advice.
the preloaded 1G card is 149 pounds, that's a lot more expensive than a 120 Euro download.
how do I know if an SD card is "fast" or not ?
can the TomTom One cope with 2G SD card with all the maps on it ?
the Europe wide CD is 110 pounds which still doesn't include an SD card
the cheapest option looks to buy the 120 Euro download and a 2G card. It might be wasteful in terms of memory but its looks cheapest, and the maps will be the latest.

dieselnutjob · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 23, 2006 Posts: 49

Kingston do standard SD, Elite Pro, and Ultimate in 2G. See here
http://www.kingston.com/flash/sd_home.asp

I guess Elite pro qualifies as "fast" ?

sgould · Frequent Visitor Joined: Oct 05, 2004 Posts: 1320

If you need detail all the way and you are happy to change maps at the border, the download should be fine. If you are driving to Spain on main roads the download will get you there on one map.

The difference in price is because it is a set of 7 separate un-linked maps, whereas the 1GB card is seamless detail of all W Europe on one map.
_________________
TTGO 700 (dead)
iPhone 3GS + TT holder
iPhone 5 (hers!)
Western Europe Map
Eastern Europe Map
Kenwood DNX-4210DAB with Garmin maps

thebinman · Banned Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 770

[quote="sgould"]Buy a fast card - it seems that the new v6 software works best with them (people with slow cards seem to be having failures.

quote]

I can endorse this.

My 1gb Dane Electric card just froze and the screen went black after the splash screen but a Datwrite card works perfectly.

keiron99 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 14, 2006 Posts: 45

The cheapest means of acquiring these maps would apear to be ebay. It's clear there are some dodgy sellers on there, but for some reason there seem to be one or two sellers based in Germany selling the full Europe maps (the "plus" versions with full detail), which appear to be proper Tomtom products, and they go for about £60.

thebinman · Banned Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 770

dieselnutjob · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 23, 2006 Posts: 49

yeah I saw those.

question: if I bought a DVD from germany would I get linked maps or unlinked ? do you get the normal maps that will fit in 1Gb or the plus maps that don't ? or both.

one last question.
suppose I downloaded all seven unlinked plus maps and put several on an SD card. does the tomtom know to switch to the correct map as you cross the border, given that it can get major roads from several maps on the SD but the detailed maps only from one of them ? is it clever enough to cope with several sources for similar information ?

Andy_P · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:58 pm Post subject:

No. You have to manually switch maps.
The only way to get seamless maps is to buy a unit with them on already, or buy the (was 2GByte, now 1GByte) SD card.

dieselnutjob · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 23, 2006 Posts: 49

okay
I can cope with "change map", I just found it in the menu on the TomTom
what I'm not so keen on is "change SD card"
has anyone verified any 2G SD card with TomTom One?

thebinman · Banned Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 770

dieselnutjob · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 23, 2006 Posts: 49

thanks but way too expensive. still; it proves that 2Gb card can be made to work, and in fact it looks like whether one downloads the maps for 120 Euros, or buys a DVD from Germany, then you really need 2Gb if you want to store all of Europe in one go.

this is from the description of the DVD on ebay

Region, map, border Navigation Map

GB, 128 MB, 256 MB
B/NL/L, 128 MB, 256 MB
FR, 512 MB, 512 MB
DE, 256 MB, n/a
AT/CH, 128 MB, n/a
DE/AT/CH/PL/CZ, n/a, 512 MB
I, 128 MB, 512 MB
ES/PT/AD, 128 MB, 256 MB
DK/SE/NO/FI, 128 MB, 512 MB

so, even if I used the non-plus maps from the DVD it still wouldn't fit in 1Gb

sgould · Frequent Visitor Joined: Oct 05, 2004 Posts: 1320

You can fit most of the single Europe onto a 1GB card.

I have put all but Scandinavia and one other country onto the card. Initially I left off Spain. Then I swapped Spain for Italy when I drove to Spain.

If you load as many countries as you can from the CD set onto the card, you can copy them to your PC. Then remove some maps and copy the rest to the card from the CD and copy to your PC. You will then have a complete set of map folders on the PC for a quick copy and paste if you need to change a map.
_________________
TTGO 700 (dead)
iPhone 3GS + TT holder
iPhone 5 (hers!)
Western Europe Map
Eastern Europe Map
Kenwood DNX-4210DAB with Garmin maps

sgould · Frequent Visitor Joined: Oct 05, 2004 Posts: 1320

Looking at those sizes it sems thay are quoting the size of the SD card the have copied. The "single" maps are a bit smaller.
_________________
TTGO 700 (dead)
iPhone 3GS + TT holder
iPhone 5 (hers!)
Western Europe Map
Eastern Europe Map
Kenwood DNX-4210DAB with Garmin maps

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