Recommendations, advice, opinions please

[Nigel Worc's]

Hello chaps.

It's about time I changed my year 2000 original Tom Tom, the internal battery is almost donald ducked, and the maps are a tad out of sate, and they seem to have many more features these days !

My wish list is :

Full postcode search
I like the complicated junction overviews.
Live traffic with auto re-routing
Bluetooth to handle my phone
Scamera database
UK, ROI, & preferably Europe
I prefer the widescreen ones.

I've had a look in Halfords, Garmin seem to have the better features for less money, the appearence of Tom Toms display pleases me more, better colours, better graphics, and they resist the temptation to show me a "little car"

Are any of the non Tom Tom or Garmin ones worth a look ?

Many thanks

Edited by Nigel Worc's on Friday 10th December 22:45

[mikealder]

I would stick to Garmin or TomTom as these are really the only two manufacturers that support devices properly with updated maps being available for some considerable time.

The need for Live Traffic really ties you to the TomTom Live products, I would suggest you try and find a Go-750 Live as that ticks all the requirements you have. Be aware the newer 1000 Live or Via Live are still in "development" and whilst they might be available in the shops there is no way of adding content to them as the PC interface isn't complete yet.

Also take a good look at the Garmin 3790T, its got traffic but not via a phone modem, it uses RDS-TMC date via its receiver, must be the slimmest GPS unit on the market and the 3D rendered maps look fantastic in use

[nickwilcock]

Nigel Worc's said:

Garmin seem to have the better features for less money, the appearence of Tom Toms display pleases me more, better colours, better graphics, and they resist the temptation to show me a "little car"

The 'little car' is the Garmin default option - other icons are available either as stored in the unit or downloaded free from Garmin. This is one of the alternatives on my old nüvi 660:

Edited by nickwilcock on Saturday 11th December 11:36

[mikealder]

Here is a screen grab from the Garmin 3790T



Quite easy to see the 3D style mapping view and plenty of different cars to choose from - Mike

[Nigel Worc's]

There are some go 750 Live units, refurbished, on tom toms website for £170, with 12 months subscriptions included, and twelve months warranty.

Do the PH collective think that's an ok deal ?

[mikealder]

You won't go far wrong with a 750 Live refurb, although you will not get the latest map with the device, other than this for £170 they are a very good buy and its got the all important memory card slot unlike the newer TomTom devices which can be very handy when it comes around to updating your maps.

The new maps are too large to fit on the internal Flash memory, so you can either addopt the TomTom European zoned maps or get a 4GB MicroSD card and use that for the new map thus retaining the full European coverage from a single map - Mike

[Nigel Worc's]

I've just found that you can get a brand new one from currys for £161.99, I've reserved one, but the online checkout function is down, so I need to ring a number in the morning.

According to tomtoms site, you do get a "latest map" promise with the refurb, and using an online promotion code, you can also get one from there for £161.99

[mp3manager]

Just bought a 750 Live to replace my 510 which eventually died.

In comparing the two, the 750 is a step backwards. The input lag/lack of response to commands is absolutely terrible. The HD traffic service isn't upto much either as it keeps on informing me of phantom jams, at 4am in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, I doubt that there is a 9 min delay ahead.

[waremark]

The slower response of a Live unit is due to the calculation of routes taking into account traffic info and IQ Routes (ie expected delays at a particular time of day). If you turn those features off, the new unit will be faster than the old unit (I tried this when I first experienced the slower update after upgrading to a 950 Live). I leave the fancy features on and find that the slower recalculation does not bother me much. I also find that the Live Traffic info, while not perfect, is generally pretty good: arrival times are generally much more accurate than with older units.

Having said all this, I find that my 950 Live is working far less well since recent updates than it used to. Hopefully, TT will sort this out soon.

[mp3manager]

waremark said:

The slower response of a Live unit is due to the calculation of routes taking into account traffic info and IQ Routes (ie expected delays at a particular time of day). If you turn those features off, the new unit will be faster than the old unit

Perhaps I didn't explain clearly enough, I'm not calculating any routes....just navigating through the menus which is very slow, press an option and it takes between half a second and 10 seconds to respond.

Oh and the Bluetooth on the 750 doesn't fully work. It will only connect to phones....tried to connect to my ipad and it doesn't support it.