Is the F20 any good

[jaff]

Hi folks, me and my brother are looking to get my dad a sat nav for his christmas, i swear by my I3, but garmin dont do a cheap unit any more, so ive been looking at alternatives, now the F20 catched my eye it seems pretty easy to use, but ive been told that the maps arent that great and pois are abit of a pig.

but from users what are they like are they good or are they gash.

help is much appreciated, also how would that compare to say a tom tom one or a garmin nuvi.

thanks in advance

ROss

[robertn]

You will find all sorts of answers to this; I think the Navman UI is pretty good; it often comes down to familiarity and personal preference. The bottom line is they are all good, and they all have faults, and we could all become very old men arguing over the differences.

The F20 is a basic entry level unit. It will do speed...um... Safety Camera POIs etc, that’s all pretty standard, tried and proven stuff from all the main manufacturers.

What I would look out for is how old are the maps. The F20 is about a year old, so considered obsolete in this fast moving market. Ask Navman when and if updates will be available, and what the cost will be (probably not worth the $$$ to update it even if one is available.).

As the maps are sourced from the same provider as nearly all manufacturers, and they are the same as nearly all the Navman range, whoever told you they were crap is probably going to have trouble qualifying the statement, I bet he's a TomTom user:grin:. Plenty of people here don't have an issue with POI's, so either a very large number of people like pigs or the POIs aren't that bad, either way; it is not likely to be the issue your TomTom aficionado makes it out to be.

One thing I do know, whatever you choose to give him, your dad is spoilt


IMHO, I think that unless you actually have a real need for Bluetooth, camera and all those extra gadgets, a basic unit is the best way to go. real time traffic is useful, but adds costs, only you know if it's worth it for you.

[TheM]

My dad was a die-hard map user. He knows most of the road network by heart, never quite trusted my unit and always questioned calculated route. I gave him F20 several months ago as an experiment – he now actually caries it with him whenever he goes somewhere on weekends, actively uses it and is very happy with it.

If your dad never owned GPS unit before than F20 is a great choice since high end units can actually be quite confusing for novice with their bewildering array of features and settings. F20 is simple to use, has bright screen, voice guidance is loud enough, GPS fix is quick, traffic or Bluetooth can be added later.

[jaff]

thats good to hear some positive reviews, i looked online for reviews and they were all pretty negative, mainly because you need the communiaction pac for uploading poi, the guy who told me it was "meh" was the salesman in halfords.
My dad was a bus driver for years and knows pretty much every road int he country but, he needs some help sometimes, the reason for the draw to the F20 was its traffic module, which gives free updates and no substription required,

i was also wanting ot know if it was decent because my mum was gonna get my bro the same one for his christmas, so he and my dad can help each other out with them withought letting on to my dad that he was getting one..sneeky ;)

[mikealder]

If you want the RDS-TMC device with the unit look at the F30 which has the T1 receiver in the box, you might get this cheaper than buying the F20 and T1 receiver seperate, its worth checking out both purchase routes as sometimes you can locate a bargain - Mike

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!