Newbie thoughts for those considering satnav purchase

Gurkhaman · Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2005 12:49 pm Post subject:

Hello David,

Thank you very much for the helpful link, and welcoming me to the forum. I checked the review and the the machine you mentioned looks similar to my Typhoon My Guide 3500, in terms of casing. I shall check Vaja's website for more details.

Have a very happy New Year.

Swaroop.

Gurkhaman · Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 7:11 pm Post subject:

Hello David,

Just to update you regarding my search for the right case for my Typhoon pocket PC. I ordered one for Mitac Mio 168, which arrived today and is a perfect fit for my PPC, and is £50 cheaper than Vaja's. The quality of the leather is good too. I bought it from Proporta PDA. I am very pleased and thank you very much for your help.

Swaroop.

Vormulac · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 02, 2005 Posts: 9

Hi David,

First post newbie here. I too have an ipaq 4700 and am thinking of purchasing the Fortuna Clip on BT unit, it's the software I'm in two minds about. TT seems to be the most common, but equally it seems to annoy everyone to some extent or another. Is there a realistic alternative to the navigation software or is TT3 really the only option?

As an aside, is there an Arkon mount suitable for this suggested setup? Being able to power both PDA and GPS from the one unit sounds like a bonus.

Cheers!

Metsy

G'day All

OK, so I’ve settled on a system and bought a iPAQ 2215 and a GlobalSat 501. I still need to buy some extra memory for it. (still to work out how much)

Now comes the software decision. There seems to be so many things to consider. As I mentioned in my other post my first major travel with the GPS is to be by car all around Western Europe. Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Holland and France (Tour de France). I DON’T want, necessarily, to go by either the shortest or quickest route. So that sort of functionality is not needed. I just don’t want to end up lost!

Does any of the software allow me to plot a course (not necessarily shortest, quickest or cheapest) and then be given directions?

I’ve been hunting around the net for ideas. CoPilot gets a pretty good write up in America, but does it have a full European version? And it’s expensive. I get the impression TomTom and Destinator are, currently, the best selling products for Europe. TomTom in particular. Or maybe they’re just the best advertised! Another that I’ve seen is Mapopolis, but, it seems, it is better at US than Europe. Anyway I’d love to hear other peoples suggestions as to what might be best for my purpose. I’d like to keep the cost to a minimum, without compromising ease of use and functionality.

How much memory will I need for maps of all those places? I s’pose it depends on which software I choose. From TomTom’s site it seems all the maps of the places I’d need (all except the very North and the very South) add up to about 750Mb. Why does it take 9 CD’s to deliver? Does anyone reading this have practical experience?

One thing for sure; I’m going to have very little chance to change the maps whilst I’m on the road. Unless I can do it easily at an internet café or something like that. Would a 1Gb flash card allow me to carry enough maps for the whole trip? Would any of these systems allow me to copy maps to a CD then copy to my Compact Flash card at, say, an internet cafe? Or do they need to be installed through a PC with installed software?

All and any suggestions will be gratefully read

Thank You
John

BBB · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 24, 2004 Posts: 206

For a mega-tour I'd take a laptop - if you have one it is a pretty good repository for maps, digital images ...

Countryman · Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:26 pm Post subject:

[quote="tOpCaT"]
snip
>Arkon powered PDA mount (my mate sells these cheaper than anyone >else; I'll give you details if you want, but won't force it on anyone).

TC, could you please PM the contact details.

>Also have a look at GPS Dash and GPS Tuner. You can try them for free >before you buy them. Look at www.handango.com if you like.

Many thanks for a great website link! Dash and Tuner look as if they do pretty much the same thing. Am I right and do you have a preference? I am interested because we walk a lot in France. We have paper copies of the local IGN maps with 'GPS co-ordinates' but the electronic versions are very, very expensive.

Thanks.

Brian

Andyfretwell · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:28 pm Post subject: GPS in Scotland

Thought you may be interested I used TT3 with my caravan to take us almost to the northern coast of Scotland. It was frankly awesome to be driving along single track remote isolated roads with it all nicely laid out in 3D before me on my ipaq screen.
These days I would hardly cross the road without my sat nav.
When planning journeys - especially with the caravan I always review the route in any case just to check it isn't taking me down impossible roads. Have adjusted speeds etc with some success but it would be nice to have a more positive way of excluding minor roads except when no other available.

Like all tools it has limitations and its just a matter of knowing these.

On motorways it is invaluable as lane changes for turnoff on busy motorways need planning and its great to know how far to go to the turn etc. A real sat nav bonus.

I use Nielsens postcode program but I note he has been shut down. A real shame.

Good luck in Scotland.

Cheers,

Andy

StevenGourlay · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 4:24 pm Post subject:

Like all tools it has limitations and its just a matter of knowing these. This is a very very good way of describing any satnav system. They are computer programs that as everyone knows computer programs are not perfect. There will always be something that you could say that could be better with the system this is due to human nature is never satisfied with what we have we always want what we cannot have. Like a all of the satnav programs out there, they all depend on the map data supplied by teleatlas & Navteq. As long as you don’t expect your satnav to wake you up in the morning and make you coffee there are a lot of good programs out there to choose from.
_________________
Regards
Steven Gourlay
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nicktheslickbrick · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 6

Hi Guys

I am new to the SatNav community but anyways I am thinking of going the PDA way with Navigator 5 and I was wondering if someone could help me out with which PDA to choose from.

Bearing in mind:
- it should be cheap but not too cheap to limit performance
- sole function will be use in car (i.e. using TomTom)
- easy to use as I am not v. computer savvy
- reliable

Thanks very much!!!
P.S. Sorry if this info is contained elsewhere, I could not find it Smile

alFR · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 27

If you definitely don't want to use the PDA for anything else and you want Navigator 5, why not go for one of the dedicated in-car Tomtom systems?

nicktheslickbrick · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 6

I thought about that but then realised that the GOs are much more expensive. 469 is the cheapest and then I only have the map of one region.
Whereas I was looking at a Mitac Mio 168 (260 euros) with nav 5 which seems to be cheaper.

However, the 168 is a bit old so I'm worried that it won't last me long

MarianPenny · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 9

A friend found a site* where you can hire the TomTom GO; I did this about 12 months ago. Life took an unexpected turn and I abandoned the purchase, but I recently got lost one time too many in London and splashed out on a TomTom 300 - which actually addressed a couple of problems I found with the one I hired: I didn't know Ruddington was a "city" (and yes, I did get used to putting the village I live in as "city"!!) and tried to find Trent Bridge in "Nottingham" - Ruddington wasn't even in the address I was given! The post code option should help in circumstances like this. Also I was having difficulty hearing the instructions when I got moving (having a noisy diesel engine!) - the variable sound level according to speed works well. (Now all I need is height/width/weight restrictions!!).
*I hired from http://www.roadmate.co.uk and had no problems - if it had proved totally unsuitable it would have saved me a lot (as it is the price has come down as well as the "extras" added in the intervening months!).

"I have on a couple of occasions had instructions to turn into one way streets (the wrong way), normally I would not blame TT for this as cities and councils are forever tinkering with one way streets and this may have been after the map info was available; but not so! one of the streets TT wanted me to turn into had been a one way street for most of my life as I recall (I am 49) so this is a bit of a clanger! Alos on a couple of occasions the software has suggested I take a turning which is not even there!!! nor shown on the on screen map, now THAT is a puzzle."

I have found you need to be just as aware of the road as you would without TomTom - e.g., crossroads mostly have no indication as to whose is the "right of way". The funniest (?) thing it has asked me to do was a U-turn across the centre reservation of a motorway (also did this on A10 dual carriageway yesterday) when I decided not to follow instructions and "turn around where possible"!! So you do need to be alert!

But all in all I am pleased with it and it does what I want - gets me there (and usually by a fairly "sensible" route - it's even found me some good ones I'd never have thought - dared? - to try without it!).

Marian.

Gmonkey · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:17 am Post subject:

Cobes · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 01, 2006 Posts: 3

Hi, I have been looking in here for ever it seems, Tom Tom Nuvi .... deffo Tom Tom, or is it ?.
Thanks to this site I made the choice of a 310 D with the TMC 12 and got the new charger.
I have seen working the Nav man, which is great, Tom One, which is great, and MY one the Nuvi which I hadn't seen working but have now !.
I LOVE it, the TMC is great and the maps fantastic and the portability wellll.

I made the choice through this forum and its informed members, I joined just to say thanks for pointing me in the right direction and to all those ready to jump to Garmin, DO IT.

Nothing more to say but thanks to all those who make us newbies to Sat Nav lives easier.
Regards to all Cobes

plnelson · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 09, 2006 Posts: 20

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