Road Angle Navigator V's TomTom 700
Discussion
cerbagriff said:
I spoke to road angel after many attempts to get through the engaged phone lines - and now I am on my third software chip - which is promised to be better than the previous two - yeah right! When (not if) this proves as bad as the others - the software fault (which their techies assured me it was)will suddenly become a hardware fault and need a new unit. Even if it all works again, nowhere near as good as the pure camera detectors. Just dismal!
I agree, I dont never got the very latest software so i cant comment on that but it seems to me its a hardware problem- thats why i sold mine.
The touch screen is very poor, the mapping isnt very good and the unit makes a continual noise when in london with warnings you can only mute manually.
the worst is that on the 3 ubits ive had it takes sometimes 20 mins to get a sat lock. in a word DISMAL
Hmm - similar experience here.
I was rapidly upgraded from a v1.1 SD card to V2 (and then they sent me another V2 card - lack of internal communication I guess)...
...but I *still* get annoying lock-ups. These range from the unit just freezing (something you don't notice too easily on the motorway with few turnings and camera sites) to odd 'crashes' where the mapping function cr@ps out leaving the screen with the initial 'clouds' boot logo. The unit clearly still knows where it is when this happens as you still get blackspot/scamera warnings, but no routing. The unit will also not boot up properly in these situations - you ask to 'start driving' and you end up with a frozen 'detecting satellites' screen.
My unit has always been pretty good about getting lock - but only if completely stationary. I did invest in an external antenna last week - just in case my heated screen was causing problems (hasn't with two other GPS devices I've owned), but it didn't help a bit. Perhaps tellingly, the unit always seems to show me moving at 0.1 to 0.3 mph in the GPS status page - I'm guessing the connection between the internal antenna and the unit ain't too good - this would explain why the external antenna makes no difference.
Anyway, I did manage to get through to Blackspot by hitting redial every second or so - and they eventually phoned me back in the evening. They'll be delivering a unit to me later this week and I'll give that a go.
Aside from the lock-ups, I do have some issues with general usability (menus and the like. Why the hell, for instance, are some bits of the menu system restricted to 5-digit postcodes and others to the full 7?)
If this one doesn't start to live up to expectations, it's going back. I've lived happily with a classic RA for two years and I'll switch to a RA Compact and a dedicated satnav such as a TomTom.
I did pay rather less than £499 for mine though... ;o)
I was rapidly upgraded from a v1.1 SD card to V2 (and then they sent me another V2 card - lack of internal communication I guess)...
...but I *still* get annoying lock-ups. These range from the unit just freezing (something you don't notice too easily on the motorway with few turnings and camera sites) to odd 'crashes' where the mapping function cr@ps out leaving the screen with the initial 'clouds' boot logo. The unit clearly still knows where it is when this happens as you still get blackspot/scamera warnings, but no routing. The unit will also not boot up properly in these situations - you ask to 'start driving' and you end up with a frozen 'detecting satellites' screen.
My unit has always been pretty good about getting lock - but only if completely stationary. I did invest in an external antenna last week - just in case my heated screen was causing problems (hasn't with two other GPS devices I've owned), but it didn't help a bit. Perhaps tellingly, the unit always seems to show me moving at 0.1 to 0.3 mph in the GPS status page - I'm guessing the connection between the internal antenna and the unit ain't too good - this would explain why the external antenna makes no difference.
Anyway, I did manage to get through to Blackspot by hitting redial every second or so - and they eventually phoned me back in the evening. They'll be delivering a unit to me later this week and I'll give that a go.
Aside from the lock-ups, I do have some issues with general usability (menus and the like. Why the hell, for instance, are some bits of the menu system restricted to 5-digit postcodes and others to the full 7?)
If this one doesn't start to live up to expectations, it's going back. I've lived happily with a classic RA for two years and I'll switch to a RA Compact and a dedicated satnav such as a TomTom.
I did pay rather less than £499 for mine though... ;o)
Whatever you do do not buy a Road Angel Navigator. I had one for 3 weeks at the end of November and due to its appalling performance and errors I managed to get a refund via Roadangel and Halfords. Its main problems are, and they are well aware of them:
Having to use an unsuitable recessed switch which is hidden by the cradle , so you have to take it out, every night as in ''standby mode'' by using the main green switch, the battery will last about 12 hours.
If the battery is not well charged when you turn it on it will freeze with a white screen.
Taking over 15 minutes to find satellites after entering and exiting covered car parks.
If you remove the unit and switch it off, by that terrible switch, satellites are found after about 3 minutes.
The camera alarm sounds even if its been set to ''Slow Speed Mute'' very fun in a traffic jam, they may have fixed this by now.
The fact the Navigator and Roadangel are 2 separate products in one unit, the Cameras do no appear on the Maps, so if there is one in an underpass you will be warned but cannot see where its located.
Night time mode reduces the brightness of the map but the side menu is still quite distracting, along with a very Bright Blue Charge lightwhich I put tape over.
A Volume control on the unit and the Cradle, why??
A tiny sound button next to the speed limit so it can be muted, but why is it not using the speed limit signal as its so small you often cannot make contact with it.
If you buy it on a Friday night you will not be able to register and download the latest database untill Monday as they are closed at the weekends.
A very overworked help desk which it seems struggle to cope with the problems this unit is creating.
I thought the idea was great but in reality they brought it to market before it was ready so they could cash in on Christmas sales. I think if they can get all of the issues sorted it will be excellent but for £500 it should be perfect now. I have since bought a Tom Tom One for £240 and I cannot praise it enough, sats in 20/30 seconds! The camera database is not as up to date and its not directional but at least you can see them on the map! Heres hoping Pocket GPS can perfect a POI like they have for the TT 5.
Having to use an unsuitable recessed switch which is hidden by the cradle , so you have to take it out, every night as in ''standby mode'' by using the main green switch, the battery will last about 12 hours.
If the battery is not well charged when you turn it on it will freeze with a white screen.
Taking over 15 minutes to find satellites after entering and exiting covered car parks.
If you remove the unit and switch it off, by that terrible switch, satellites are found after about 3 minutes.
The camera alarm sounds even if its been set to ''Slow Speed Mute'' very fun in a traffic jam, they may have fixed this by now.
The fact the Navigator and Roadangel are 2 separate products in one unit, the Cameras do no appear on the Maps, so if there is one in an underpass you will be warned but cannot see where its located.
Night time mode reduces the brightness of the map but the side menu is still quite distracting, along with a very Bright Blue Charge lightwhich I put tape over.
A Volume control on the unit and the Cradle, why??
A tiny sound button next to the speed limit so it can be muted, but why is it not using the speed limit signal as its so small you often cannot make contact with it.
If you buy it on a Friday night you will not be able to register and download the latest database untill Monday as they are closed at the weekends.
A very overworked help desk which it seems struggle to cope with the problems this unit is creating.
I thought the idea was great but in reality they brought it to market before it was ready so they could cash in on Christmas sales. I think if they can get all of the issues sorted it will be excellent but for £500 it should be perfect now. I have since bought a Tom Tom One for £240 and I cannot praise it enough, sats in 20/30 seconds! The camera database is not as up to date and its not directional but at least you can see them on the map! Heres hoping Pocket GPS can perfect a POI like they have for the TT 5.
Digger Dog said:
Whatever you do do not buy a Road Angel Navigator. I had one for 3 weeks at the end of November and due to its appalling performance and errors I managed to get a refund via Roadangel and Halfords. Its main problems are, and they are well aware of them:
Having to use an unsuitable recessed switch which is hidden by the cradle , so you have to take it out, every night as in ''standby mode'' by using the main green switch, the battery will last about 12 hours.
If the battery is not well charged when you turn it on it will freeze with a white screen.
Taking over 15 minutes to find satellites after entering and exiting covered car parks.
If you remove the unit and switch it off, by that terrible switch, satellites are found after about 3 minutes.
The camera alarm sounds even if its been set to ''Slow Speed Mute'' very fun in a traffic jam, they may have fixed this by now.
The fact the Navigator and Roadangel are 2 separate products in one unit, the Cameras do no appear on the Maps, so if there is one in an underpass you will be warned but cannot see where its located.
Night time mode reduces the brightness of the map but the side menu is still quite distracting, along with a very Bright Blue Charge lightwhich I put tape over.
A Volume control on the unit and the Cradle, why??
A tiny sound button next to the speed limit so it can be muted, but why is it not using the speed limit signal as its so small you often cannot make contact with it.
If you buy it on a Friday night you will not be able to register and download the latest database untill Monday as they are closed at the weekends.
A very overworked help desk which it seems struggle to cope with the problems this unit is creating.
I thought the idea was great but in reality they brought it to market before it was ready so they could cash in on Christmas sales. I think if they can get all of the issues sorted it will be excellent but for £500 it should be perfect now. I have since bought a Tom Tom One for £240 and I cannot praise it enough, sats in 20/30 seconds! The camera database is not as up to date and its not directional but at least you can see them on the map! Heres hoping Pocket GPS can perfect a POI like they have for the TT 5.
Unfortunately I agree with his as I have one! That bloody stupid switch underneath is barmey and the instruction book is crap. Having said that, it works ok when in the cradle but freezes if you leave it in standly mode. Only way is to take it out and switch it off by that stupid concealed switch every time you park even at work.
Hi chaps
We do Blackspot's website and ecommerce systems - hopefully no one's having too much of a problem with those - and we've just launched a beta support site for them.
I understand alot of the problems - are that people simply can't get through to blackspot - and that's because they've had so much demand for the upgrades and products that they are having a hard time coping with the demand (they're hiring new staff constantly to keep up). And when the support system is fully in use, hopefully it will help everyone. Equally I fully understand the frustration of buying a piece of kit / software and it not working properly and then not being able to get fixed immediately - just had a run in with Adobe and it took 6 weeks for them to refund a Photoshop CS2 download !
Re Navigator usage - I've had one from V1.0 - the first version was pretty poor but the upgrades have sorted things out for me.
From what i understand Tom Tom have a 50% return rate - so Road Angel compared to that is a far better choice - and forget about ever getting any support at all from Tom Tom - there isn't any.
> btw
>If you buy it on a Friday night you will not be able to register and download the >latest database untill Monday as they are closed at the weekends.
That's not the case anymore - registration and renewals take place instantly
>> Edited by woof on Thursday 5th January 00:11
We do Blackspot's website and ecommerce systems - hopefully no one's having too much of a problem with those - and we've just launched a beta support site for them.
I understand alot of the problems - are that people simply can't get through to blackspot - and that's because they've had so much demand for the upgrades and products that they are having a hard time coping with the demand (they're hiring new staff constantly to keep up). And when the support system is fully in use, hopefully it will help everyone. Equally I fully understand the frustration of buying a piece of kit / software and it not working properly and then not being able to get fixed immediately - just had a run in with Adobe and it took 6 weeks for them to refund a Photoshop CS2 download !
Re Navigator usage - I've had one from V1.0 - the first version was pretty poor but the upgrades have sorted things out for me.
From what i understand Tom Tom have a 50% return rate - so Road Angel compared to that is a far better choice - and forget about ever getting any support at all from Tom Tom - there isn't any.
> btw
>If you buy it on a Friday night you will not be able to register and download the >latest database untill Monday as they are closed at the weekends.
That's not the case anymore - registration and renewals take place instantly
>> Edited by woof on Thursday 5th January 00:11
woof said:
Hi chaps
We do Blackspot's website and ecommerce systems - hopefully no one's having too much of a problem with those - and we've just launched a beta support site for them.
I understand alot of the problems - are that people simply can't get through to blackspot - and that's because they've had so much demand for the upgrades and products that they are having a hard time coping with the demand (they're hiring new staff constantly to keep up). And when the support system is fully in use, hopefully it will help everyone. Equally I fully understand the frustration of buying a piece of kit / software and it not working properly and then not being able to get fixed immediately - just had a run in with Adobe and it took 6 weeks for them to refund a Photoshop CS2 download !
Re Navigator usage - I've had one from V1.0 - the first version was pretty poor but the upgrades have sorted things out for me.
From what i understand Tom Tom have a 50% return rate - so Road Angel compared to that is a far better choice - and forget about ever getting any support at all from Tom Tom - there isn't any.
> btw
>If you buy it on a Friday night you will not be able to register and download the >latest database untill Monday as they are closed at the weekends.
That's not the case anymore - registration and renewals take place instantly
>> Edited by woof on Thursday 5th January 00:11
I am sure that what you say is correct. The problem is that the road angel ( or shall we call it devil) navigator is an ill conceived badly packaged product that came to the market to quickly.
The issue besides appalling sevice from Blackspot are;
1. the unit freezes when you are driving along for no reason, you then have to remove it from the cradle, turn off the little recessed switch and re load.
2. If you live in london the unit makes a constant noise about cameras and congestion cameras which you can only manually mute and even set to the lowest figure for advance warning one gets warned far to much in advance.
3. Compared to other mapping systems the road angel- even with latest upgrade is simply no match for the better systems.
4. If you live in london the speed database is incorrect the limits around tower bridge area are all wrong- so whats the point??
5. You always have to switch the unit off at the base otherwise it drains the battery.
6. the touch screen is diff to use and the routing is often a bit odd!
All I can say is that I purchased the Indago and that product does everything so well- in fact its what the navigator should have been.
One cannot defend this product. its overpriced, poorly designed and executed. I would not suggest ANYONE buys this product.
I would respectfully suggest that before Blackspot sell £590 items they get the staff issues correct first , then the product, not expect customers to find out how useless it is first
Poor Tom Tom Help! No I have to disagree. The phones might be difficult to get through to, your routed to Amsterdam in the Netherlands at local rate, but they all speak very good English and helped me. The SD card on my ''One'' went down, I arranged by phone and then the internet on the Tom Tom Web Page for UPS to collect the faulty one and I should get my replacement within 10 days, a bit long I know but Xmas had just finished. As I had backed up my card, as recommended, I put it on a new card and I'm up and running. I had a few other questions which I put to them on the web page and they responded the next day every time. I have to say Road Angel did the right thing by giving me my money back so I have no bad feelings for the staff, or the Camera Alert system just the Navigator.
>> Edited by Digger Dog on Friday 6th January 20:21
>> Edited by Digger Dog on Friday 6th January 20:21
Hi Octane
I can tell you nightmares about various products i've had in the past - but despite Road Angel being a client (hello Stu! ) i can say that the navigator that I have has performed exceptional well.
It seems to me that all satnav systems have their own problems - and none have a 100% customer satisfation (fair from it - or so it would seem).
I've been really impressed with Navigator - the detour button is great - works a treat. Yes I've notice some speed limits are wrong - but they've never been higher - so no real harm. And the new FUI update has added some functions - I can only see the unit getting better and better
Anyway enough for tonight - a large glass of vino awaits
I can tell you nightmares about various products i've had in the past - but despite Road Angel being a client (hello Stu! ) i can say that the navigator that I have has performed exceptional well.
It seems to me that all satnav systems have their own problems - and none have a 100% customer satisfation (fair from it - or so it would seem).
I've been really impressed with Navigator - the detour button is great - works a treat. Yes I've notice some speed limits are wrong - but they've never been higher - so no real harm. And the new FUI update has added some functions - I can only see the unit getting better and better
Anyway enough for tonight - a large glass of vino awaits
Road Angel have posted on their site some new software for the Navigator. 10 meg of it. I been playing with it over the last few days and its a big improvement.
You can now have a full screen Road Angel page with no navigation if you wish, but with a single press of a button go straight into the navigation screen. So you no longer have to have nav running to get warnings.
New warnings as well, Green if you are under the advised speed limit and Red if you are over. You now have a dedicated Camera Van store option with its own warning.
I haven’t found any bugs so far and I have been looking, it looks like its much smother as well.
Now the price has dropped as well is not a bad option.
Worth the update if you have one, after all its free, worth considering more now than ever if you dont have a RA Nav.
Steve
www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk
You can now have a full screen Road Angel page with no navigation if you wish, but with a single press of a button go straight into the navigation screen. So you no longer have to have nav running to get warnings.
New warnings as well, Green if you are under the advised speed limit and Red if you are over. You now have a dedicated Camera Van store option with its own warning.
I haven’t found any bugs so far and I have been looking, it looks like its much smother as well.
Now the price has dropped as well is not a bad option.
Worth the update if you have one, after all its free, worth considering more now than ever if you dont have a RA Nav.
Steve
www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk
The new FUI update is available at www.blackspot.com/support/navigator/ui_update.html
Read the instructions though - pretty easy to install
Read the instructions though - pretty easy to install
sjp63 said:
Dumb question - do you down load from their site to PC then to Navigator or down load with Navigator plugged into pc???
Dont worry Ive just upgraded - easy and whats more it works!!!!!! How was I supposed to know it was available without reading this thread?
Dont suppose they can fix that dumb on off button though.
Oh and thanks Woof
>> Edited by sjp63 on Sunday 8th January 17:07
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