satnavs which one

[XabbaRus]

I am looking at a satnav for christmas. But which one?

Most incar stanavs are good and have 3d mapping but very few or none have topographic contour maps showing altitude.

Do you guys know of any that have this feature?

[Chock]

If you want altitude data, you might be better off looking at one aimed at microlights. Try here:

http://www.sportys.com/gps/

Personally, I got so p*ssed off with relying on my GPS, I got rid of it and now use good old maps again instead, as I think they improve overall situational awareness. The one thing I will say that in-car sat navs are good for however, is driving at night on unlit roads. As most people know, the two things you find yourself doing when driving like that, are watching ahead for lights of oncoming cars lighting the road and using that to judge up coming turns, the other being watching your own headlights illuminate chevron signs which indicate a sharp bend. But with an accurate sat nav tilted into 3D mode, you can see exactly what the road is doing and it's almost like having a rally co-driver. I've made it all the way up from South Wales to the NW of England on unlit A and B roads at and average of between sixty and seventy miles per hour in total darkness using that method. It works really well.

Also, don't leave the mount up on your windscreen, that's like putting a sign on your car saying please smash my driver's window and rifle through my glove box! as my wife discovered the other day.

:D Chock

[XabbaRus]

It would eb an in car one but I like to know my altitude too, just a geek sort of thing.

[Jimbuna]

I got this one about a year ago, it covers Europe as well and is still working fine :up:

http://www.handtec.co.uk/product/230/tomtom-go-710---special-offer

[XabbaRus]

Hmm a little big, I'm actually needing one to fit in a cigar shaped flying thing :)
So much choice out there..

[Kapitan]

Personally if i cant find it on a map or print it out from the internet i dont go.

There are areas in england where you cant use sat navs at all (wales and scotland in parts) and im refering to an article in truck and driver here.

My friend had a sat nav he plumbed in all the data to send him to brighton (so he thought) i got a phone call at 4pm that afternoon saying im in ipswich how far am i from brighton i think ive gone too far.

Your better off without it.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Think twice about using TomTom (I think thats the word). My Uncle has it, and it directed him to my house near Swansea via Aberystwyth.

[Letum]

Have you thought about trying discriminav?
It's a racially discerning nav system.

Demo Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdSaDbVj3t8)

It costs a little more, but it means you can avoid driving in areas with liberals,
non-christians, ginger people or who ever else you want to avoid.

:up:

[Chock]

One of the reasons I got rid of mine was I used to have a job which involved driving all over the country and seeing people at various locations in a particular town.

It was great for that (i.e zipping from address to address inan unfamiliar town), but in places like Gloucestershire, where it's pretty flat and there is open farmland it would often read narrow dirt roads as a suitable route, and I lost count of the amount of times it would take me up a narrow dirt track that would get rougher and rougher until after a few miles I'd be met with a locked gate, and then have to reverse three miles down a cart track. Which as you can imagine, is not fun.

It would also have difficulty in locating similar tracks when you really needed them. I have been in South Wales in the hills and could literally see the place I wanted to get to, but have to drive up numerous country roads in order to find the way up there, with the sat nav proving no help whatsoever.

As some have pointed out, it's tricky to get a signal in Scotland sometimes, most notably right on the Northern tip and in big cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, where the tall brownstone buildings would block the signal, invariably until just after you had passed the road you needed to turn up! And if you want to try a TomTom in Coventry, be prepared to commit sibuku after it insists on sending you up one way streets the wrong way all the time! You will end up shouting at that annoying voice, I can assure you.

But the thing that really convinced me to get rid of mine was none of that, but something else. One of the reasons I took a job driving about seeing people for a change as opposed to the normal kind of work I'd do, was that I thought it would be interesting to go all over the country and see the places I would otherwise never have gone to. But the trouble with doing that on a sat nav, is that you get into the habit of just programming in a destination and following it blindly without actually knowing where you are. I lost count of the times my wife would call my mobile and ask me where I was, to which I would reply; 'Erm three hours from such and such a place' i.e. I would literally not know what county I was in, and in some cases, not even sure which country I was in! All of which means that I have indeed been all over the country as result of having that job, but I can't remember one place from another, whereas I would have done if I'd have planned the trips on a map.

They are great time savers if you have to get somewhere rapid and find a specific location, but they do have their downsides too!

Note that the cheaper newish TomToms are not that great by the way, my wife has had one for about a year, and the other week it broke when she was on the way to Stranraer, meaning she had to phone me and get me to search for a route online. she took it back to the shop she bought it from (Comet) and it then started working again, so they didn't replace it, which means it's likely it will do that again at some critical point. The lesson here is clear, and it's something I always did when I had one, take a decent atlas with you too, they might be old school, but I have yet to see a book that refuses to boot up.

:D Chock