GPS Systems (the stick on the windscreen type).

Posted by: Paul Hutchings on 12 August 2006

Having just spent half an hour hunting for somewhere having found the rough area, I noticed that in-car GPS systems can be picked up for £99 from Halfords (Garmin i3).

What can anyone tell me about these things? I know a chap at work has a Tom-Tom something or other, and other than the spaghetti of wires coming out of it (the most off-putting thing IMHO) it does seem to do a very good job at getting him from A to B.

Presumably different manufacturers have different levels of map quality and presentation/layout and cost and you have to stick to maps proprietary to your units manufacturer?

If you just want to get from where you are to where you need to be, why would you need a £500 unit vs. a £99 one?

TIA,
Paul

Posted on: 12 August 2006 by Steve S1

Paul,

As with most techy devices, it's function or storage capacity that differentiates the cost.

I have a Tom Tom that cost me about £350. It's main advantage is that it has the whole of europe on it's hard disc. Cheaper ones tend to have additional cards/discs to swap as you move around.

There are probably more functions than the cheaper ones too, but the main point was that I drive in europe and can't be fagged with changing discs or cards.

Steve.

Posted on: 12 August 2006 by Jay

Hi Paul

As someone who regularly doensn't know where they are going, it's great. Completely takes your mind off studying the map or trying to understand my wife reading from the map! We've had some interesting discussions and I'm sure it has resulted in some erratic driving at times....

What I haven't been so impressed with is the devices insistence at selecting very "convoluted" local journays. As I've said before it's no substitute for local knowledge.

I have a Tom Tom 510 or something, bottom of the rung is fine for UK driving.

Jay

Posted on: 12 August 2006 by manicatel

My wife has the "smart-nav", by traffic-master in her car. Its a simple post-code based system, easy to use & read. It gives you speed camera warnings, verbal direction commands, but no map-style display. Instead,it gives you visual instructions for turns, roundabouts,junction, etc, & re-calculates your route if traffic incidents occur whilst you are on the move. So far, it has been fool-proof, reliable & cheap.Good enough for the vast majority of drivers, I think.
matt.

Posted on: 14 August 2006 by scottyhammer

tom tom gets my vote and nows the time to get an older model as they have recently been replaced by widescreen models. you can pick up a top of the range 710 for £350 online.
scotty