Nice easy one for you all !

[Coneyhurst Blue]

I want to buy a Sat Nav with the ablity to bluetooth to a mobile phone.
Sat Nav to cover Europe for occasional trips.
Does the Sat Nav have to be going to a destination to enable bluetooth or can it just be 'on' in the car allowing calls handsfree whilst driving ?
What say you all powerful ones ?

[mmm-five]

Most of the TomTom range do this, but for full European cover you'll need the 720/730.

[Coneyhurst Blue]

Cheers Five, was looking at the 730.
Any views on this one, does it loose the Sat, what is the bluetooth like for making and receiving calls ?
All help gratefully received !!

[belleair302]

The Garmin range offer Bluetooth and the sound quality is pretty good. Mapping is wonderful and the reliability of the Garmin range is excellent.

[mmm-five]

Coneyhurst Blue said:

Cheers Five, was looking at the 730.
Any views on this one, does it loose the Sat, what is the bluetooth like for making and receiving calls ?
All help gratefully received !!

I've only used the bluetooth once or twice and it works fine and even lets you download your address book and SMS messages to view on screen.

I only use it when my bluetooth earpiece is dead as I'd already go that with my phone a while ago. The only problem I've had with it is making myself heard over the noise in my M5 (engine, wind, road) as I've got it a good arm's length away.

The GPS chip is much better than the one in my old 700 and the system is much quicker to replan/reroute when I take a shortcut or have to put in a road block. The lane guidance and intelligent routing are not bad either, but the TMC traffic version is a bit useless as the info is only updated every 15 minutes - might as well listen to Radio 2 for that.

[pjones]

Snooper offer a range of Sat Nav products that include the Bluetooth facility including Strabo, Syrius Plus and Syrius Proline. All can be bought with maps of Western Europe that include street level mapping from NAVTEQ and come with a 2 year warranty. If I'm honest, if you intend to use the bluetooth a lot, you get a better sound from the Syrius range as it has a bigger speaker. A previous poster is also correct that the quality will depend on how far you place the unit from you (by the "A" pillar is probably best)and how noisy your car is. This will apply to any brand. An extension mic is available for the Syrius that can be clipped to a sun visor or shirt etc.
You can also subscribe to Snooper's Enigma Safety Camera Database. This is a managed database, is updated daily and covers most of Europe. Best of luck!