Sat Nav

Latest Articles

Sat Nav
Page 1, 2 Next

Downsizer Forum Index -> IT Matters

Author

Message

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35104
Location: Devon

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 15 9:03 pm Post subject: Sat Nav
I appreciate we aren't exactly early adopters but I think my Summer holidays will be enhanced by someone else getting shouted out when we get lost. Or possibly us not getting lost. So which one do people recommend? It would need to work in France. Nick - what do you use?

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 15 9:07 pm Post subject:
And Spain.

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 15 9:58 pm Post subject:
Sally said to use a smart phone instead when I thought I'd broken ours. We've got a tomtom. The Google maps thing is good on the phone, though.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 15 10:37 pm Post subject:
If you have a smart phone try Waze.com. It's excellent. And free.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 15 10:46 pm Post subject:

I've got a Tomtom. It will get you there. It doesn't care if you shout at it. It doesn't care if you disagree and ignore it. It will just patiently reroute you until you get there. It does have a slightly odd penchant for teeny, tiny, windy roads and motorways, and seems to spend hours routing me down the former to spend a few minutes on the latter, then you look at the map and see that there's a perfectly sensible A road that went all the way there in a straight line, despite being 3.45677 seconds slower. You change the settings from quickest to shortest or to avoid motorways of traffic and so on, so it's just a matter of preference.

It's something that I think should be given as wedding presents. Along with advice to always do exactly what your spouse says when putting the tent up. They're wrong of course, but it will be far quicker and less stressful if you just let them come to this conclusion themselves and look a fool while keep sipping your glass of wine. Always pack the wine on top of the tent.

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 15 8:04 am Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

If you have a smart phone try Waze.com. It's excellent. And free.

That fed in to the Google maps thing I was using last night in That London. People add in traffic incidents so it gives a real time picture - it was very useful.

A tomtom is nice and hefty to chuck at your copilot if they annoy you.

henchard

Joined: 23 Aug 2012
Posts: 232
Location: Carmarthenshire

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 15 8:45 am Post subject:
Personally I find Tomtom the best. The Clarion built into my Peugeot 207 is sh1t

Falstaff

Joined: 27 May 2009
Posts: 1014

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 15 8:52 am Post subject:
My TomTom does what it should. It's a few years old now, but took us deep into Europe and the woman in the box is very patient, if a little patronising sometimes !

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 15 8:53 am Post subject:
I've used TomTom, Garmin, Here Drive+ (Windows phone), Waze (Smartphone). The smartphone offerings are significantly better than the dedicated devices. https://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/here-drive/31bbc68c-503e-4561-8d85-a294d54df06f?signin=true https://www.waze.com/

Shane

Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 15 11:26 am Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

If you have a smart phone try Waze.com. It's excellent. And free.

Didn't take long to convert you

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 15 12:23 pm Post subject:

I had both WAZE and the Tomtom going coming out of That London last night. Our Tomtom doesn't have live traffic info, so it was useful. However, I didn't like the interface and the voice gave me the creeps

. In the end, we used Google Maps, which seemed to be plugged in to the WAZE data and worked really successfully.

The *big* downside was that even with the phone plugged in and charging, the drain on the battery with both the data and the location switched on was so phenomenal that it drained faster than it charged. The other downside is that of course you pay for your mobile data - whereas with the Tomtom you don't.

I've concluded that I'm going to stick with the Tomtom unless I'm in areas of heavy traffic where live traffic information would be useful - it was fab last night, but we'd have been stuffed if it was the only thing we had, because the phone battery died as we got on the M4. (And obviously I can navigate home once I'm on the M4 by following the gutters

)

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45723
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 15 1:14 pm Post subject:
Google maps is great but amazingly power hungry

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 15 1:24 pm Post subject:
The WAZE app was causing it to drain at about the same rate - it must just be an artefact of how it works?

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 15 2:09 pm Post subject:

Shane wrote:

vegplot wrote:

If you have a smart phone try Waze.com. It's excellent. And free.

Didn't take long to convert you

It's good. Here Drive+ is slicker and more rounded but doesn't have the share features, and the sound works.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Mon Aug 17, 15 10:25 pm Post subject:
Worth it just for its hysterically funny pronunciation of French road names.

	Downsizer Forum Index -> IT Matters	All times are GMT Page 1, 2 Next
Page 1 of 2

View Latest Posts