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Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 532 Location: Warwick, UK
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 11:56 am Post subject: How useful are the 'Major Roads of Europe' maps?
My TTG came with detailed UK maps (on SD card + CD) plus Major Roads of Europe on CD. I have bought a larger (256MB) SD card which can hold both sets of of maps at the same time. I am attempting to assess the usefulness of the Major Roads maps by using the UK portion here in the UK.
My first impression is that a lot of town names are missing - making it impossible to navigate to those towns - even though the roads serving the towns are there. For example, I wanted to navigate to an address in Warminster in Wiltshire. I didn't expect it to know the address, but I *did* expect it to get me to Warminster - a town with a population of 10,000 or so. If you browse the map, you can see where it is - at the intersection of the A36 and A350, and you can even see a road called "Market Place" - but it's never heard of Warminster per se, and tries to offer me places in Germany which begin with Warm.
If my experience is typical, and if this is repeated throughout Europe, it seems to me that these maps are of little use - except for travelling between *major* population centres.
Does anyone have any comments - or any suggestions for circumventing these limitations?
Joined: Nov 02, 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Munich, Germany
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 2:37 pm Post subject:
In my opinion the MRE are excellent...for navigating BETWEEN European countries. If you want to navigate WITHIN countries, get the country-specific map.
That's fine with me, and I think it's what was intended by TomTom. For example, I'm in Germany, and I want to go to the UK. I can navigate to a major town in the UK (say Manchester) with MRE. But I woulkd make sure I had the UK maps with me, and as soon as I hit UK soil I would work out a route within the UK using that.
Do not expect the MRE to navigate you to anything other than a major metropolis...I don't think they were ever intended for that purpose.
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 532 Location: Warwick, UK
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 3:42 pm Post subject:
Sniff wrote:
Do not expect the MRE to navigate you to anything other than a major metropolis...I don't think they were ever intended for that purpose.
If that is true, it makes them pretty useless in my book!
If you always need the detailed maps for navigating *within* a country, you can deternine the border crossings from a paper map, and not bother with MRE at all.
Simply to navigate between major centres, the UK section would need only motorways and truck roads. In fact, it seems to have *all* A-roads and a number of B-roads. The main omission seems to be place names! When navigating to a town using the full UK maps, you can enter the town name again under "street" - and it takes you to the centre of the town. I would expect MRE also to take you to the centre of towns, but it doesn't - even though it knows about all the necessary roads!
If I were going on a grand tour of Europe, I would like to think that I could find my way around using MRE - without having to buy all the individual country maps. If the level of detail of roads is the same as the UK bit, this would not be a problem APART from the place names.
It seems to me that the usefulness of MRE could be greatly increased if there were a downloadable database of place-names somewhere - similar to the UK postcode POIs. Does such a thing exist?
Joined: Nov 02, 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Munich, Germany
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:00 pm Post subject:
Hmmm...you said that...
If you always need the detailed maps for navigating *within* a country, you can deternine the border crossings from a paper map, and not bother with MRE at all.
That is true...but if you had a paper map, why would you need GO?! I disagree that they are not useful. If I want to go to UK from Germany I need to go across France, Or across Holland and Belgium. Unless I know the entire European road network VERY well, I cannot possibly calculate the best route, even if I have individual country maps. I'd need to know the name of a town very close to the German/French border that I could navigate to on my German map, then switch maps to a French one, then do the same again for EVERY country I passed through.
I think (possibly because you are in the UK) you underestimate the benefit of being able to navigate a 'passing through' route in another country. I don't CARE if little villages or even towns are not listed...because I don't intend going there. In fact, I don't intend stopping (except for food & petrol) because I am just passing through. The MRE is absolutely perfect for that.
But you DO need the detailed maps at either end of your journey. That's no different than paper maps. Before I had the GO, I used a detailed A-Z type map in Germany, and then a detailed A-Z type mapp in the UK. But I also used a European Roads map to get me between the two. If you view the country-specific maps as A-Z types and the MRE as the European Roads types then it is just the same.
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 532 Location: Warwick, UK
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:13 pm Post subject:
I understand what you are saying, and can see the benefit of planning a route through several countries.
But my point remains that MRE is so very *nearly* there as an in-country navigation tool (ignoring detailed street addresses) - and it would take very little to make it useable for this purpose.
It seems to me that TomTom may purposely have made it less useful than it could be in order to boost sales of the individual country maps!
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 12 Location: Cottingham East Yorkshire
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 6:03 pm Post subject:
Before travelling to Europe take a little time to put into MRE Points of interest such as campsites or villages where you intend to stop. this can be done quite easily using coordinates from such as Multimap.com and the easily obtainable POI editor. I did this on a recent trip and the TT go using MRE performed faultlessly. Good game setting it up as well :P _________________ Brad
MRE seems to be better in some countries than others for village names.
I have found that it has 60% of the smaller French and German villages that I know of and picked at random. The ones that aren't named do seem to have the roads to them, so you can "Browse the map", mark it and make it a Favourite or PoI.
Joined: Aug 31, 2004 Posts: 124 Location: Leeds UK
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 7:40 pm Post subject:
Hi all,
For the recored my Major roads of Europe worked really well on a recent trip around the costa del sol. We stayed a few days in Nerja ( a small town) and not only was that listed but many streets there were too. It didn`t pick up a small village called Competa but did pick up a nearby village which I navigated to. Overall I was happy with it but still looking for the full spanish maps.
I have some spanish POIs if anyones interested, not brilliant but better than none.
Joined: Nov 02, 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Munich, Germany
Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:23 am Post subject:
rkm_hm wrote:
It seems to me that TomTom may purposely have made it less useful than it could be in order to boost sales of the individual country maps!
On the other hand, they could just have purposefully made it perfect for what it is intended for...a cross-Europe navigational tool.
Why do people always assume that TomTom are out to cheat them? They could have made MRE a completely seperate chargeable product. After all, many people won't ever use it. I for one am very grateful that they supplied it with the unit. :D
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 532 Location: Warwick, UK
Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 10:37 am Post subject:
Sniff wrote:
Why do people always assume that TomTom are out to cheat them? They could have made MRE a completely seperate chargeable product. After all, many people won't ever use it. I for one am very grateful that they supplied it with the unit.
Who said anything about cheating? Many companies have marketing strategies in which they provide free "tasters" to encourage people to buy more expensive products. This is perfectly legitimate.
As far as I know, MRE *IS* a separate chargeable product - it just happens to be bundled with the UK version (and maybe other versions?) of TTG.
It seems to me that there are two broad categories of people who post in this forum. On the one hand, there are the TomTom apologists who believe that everything which TomTom does is wonderful - and how dare anyone suggest any improvements!
On the other hand, there are those of us who believe that TTG is an excellent product (we wouldn't have bought it otherwise, would we) but who are realistic enough to recognise that - like all products - it is capable of being improved. We want to get the most out of our purchase - whether it be by improving the existing maps/features, or by adding the ability to use third party maps for of-road use etc.
Joined: Nov 02, 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Munich, Germany
Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 12:01 pm Post subject:
rkm_hm wrote:
It seems to me that TomTom may purposely have made it less useful than it could be in order to boost sales of the individual country maps!
My apologies. I find it hard to read that above sentence in any other sense than you think TomTom are trying to provide you with an inferior product in order to make you buy a more expensive one...ie to cheat you. I spologise if I misinterpreted your comment.
As far as I know MRE is NOT a separate chargeable product, in that it is NOT available separately. It comes bundled with the individual country cards, whether that be UK, Germany or wherever. But you cannot buy MRE on its own.
If you are implying that I am one of the TomTom apologists, then I take great exception to that. I am simply pointing out that, as someone who has used MRE extensively, it is pretty much perfect for what I need. If you want to navigate around a specific country, buy the specific country maps.
Joined: 17/05/2003 02:26:21 Posts: 3747 Location: Bedfordshire, UK
Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 3:45 pm Post subject:
To my knowledge, Major Roads of Europe is included with all European versions of Go. There's not usually any room on the supplied SD card for it, though.
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 532 Location: Warwick, UK
Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 8:12 pm Post subject:
Sniff wrote:
As far as I know MRE is NOT a separate chargeable product, in that it is NOT available separately. It comes bundled with the individual country cards, whether that be UK, Germany or wherever. But you cannot buy MRE on its own.
If you look for TTG accessories on http://tomtom.com/ you'll find that you *can* buy it separately on an SD card.
Sniff wrote:
If you are implying that I am one of the TomTom apologists, then I take great exception to that.
Well, reading your contributions to this thread, one may be forgiven for concluding that any suggestions for improvement are not considered acceptable by you!
Sniff wrote:
I am simply pointing out that, as someone who has used MRE extensively, it is pretty much perfect for what I need. If you want to navigate around a specific country, buy the specific country maps.
Unless one does a lot of international driving - and Brits probably do less than many other Europeans because of the sea crossings involved - buying detailed country maps for TTG may not be justified. 99.9% of my motoring is in the UK, but just occasionally I take my car to France or the Netherlands for a few days. From what I can see, MRE is pretty much - but not quite - perfect for occasional in-country use. Which gets us back to
the start of this thread, and my question about the usefulness.
You will note that *some* people have used MRE with *some* success for in-country navigation. I find this encouraging, and take on board the suggestions about creating one's own specific POIs prior to travel.
Joined: Nov 02, 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Munich, Germany
Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:32 am Post subject:
rkm_hm wrote:
If you look for TTG accessories on http://tomtom.com/ you'll find that you *can* buy it separately on an SD card.
My apologies, rkm_hm, you are correct on this. Do bear in mind though, that Tomtom themselves say "Navigate from city to city across 16 countries of Western Europe, over the main roads and highways". If that's what they intended, to go from City to City over major roads, then I think they havbe met that brief 100%.
rkm_hm wrote:
Well, reading your contributions to this thread, one may be forgiven for concluding that any suggestions for improvement are not considered acceptable by you!
Absolutely correct! TomTom GO is produced by a European company, mainly for Europe (although they do produce USA maps now). I am sure the UK user-base is large, but I should imagine the mainland European base is even larger. Many suggestions and complaints on this site are simply not applicable to anywhere other than the UK. I know this is a UK-based site, but the nature of the web is international, and people from all over the place post here. I'm just asking that you don't assume because you want something, everyone else wants it. Postcode searching, for example, is a big topic on this site, but it is of no use to anyone in mainland Europe, nor the USA. I would much rather the TomTom programmers concentrated on making GO use multiple vias, the ability to plan quick/short/scenic routes etc than postcode searching. But that's just me.
I agree with you that MRE might well not meet your needs as well as it could. But it meets my needs pretty much perfectly. And I should imagine it meets the needs of many people in mainland Europe who have a requirement for navigating through one or more countires to get to their destination. Why should TomTom change the Major Roads of Europe map, and alienate that European user base, to meet your needs?
If they want to create a MINOR Roads of Europe map, and sell that to you and other UK residents who need to do the occasional foray into Europe, then fine, but don't expect to get it for free. I think they charge 249 Euros for the detailed USA map (an equivalent) so are you prepared to pay that for your occasional trips?
If any of that makes me an apologist for TomTom in your eyes, then so be it
Joined: Nov 02, 2004 Posts: 123 Location: Munich, Germany
Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 10:19 am Post subject:
Actually rkm_hm, you pointing me at the MRE available on the TomTom website got me thinking. The European maps available there are all 149 Euros each per country.
I bought my GO in Germany, for 649 Euros. It came with the maps of Germany, Austria/Switzerland/Alps, and the MRE. Each of those is available for 149 Euros, so that's 447 Euros worth of maps. That means I paid 202 Euros for my GO (or about 143 GBP).
If that's not a bargain I don't know what is! Maybe I am an apologist for TomTom after all
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