Choice of three? advice please

andyrew · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 05, 2006 Posts: 16

Hi Guys im looking to update my old tomtom and have a choice of three units in my price range but im not sure of which one to go for.
Firstly i don't mind about poi or speed cams as i have a gps rider.
The choices are:
1,sony u53 (but have read reports of flickering screens, a tendency to route you through city centers when a straight A to B Motorway is available and support soon to become unavailable)

2, navman f10

3, garmin nuvi 200w (but have read reports about favoring county lanes as apposed to motorways).

I really fancy the garmin though, but going down single track roads wouldn't be my idea of fun, does anyone know if the county road issue has been fixed in the nuvi 200w unit?.
Thanks in advance guys i know you will advise me well.

253 · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 12:29 am Post subject:

Have no experience of any of them.

But, I understand that Sony has pulled out of the UK/European market, therefore support and updates are probably not going to be great. If you are looking for something to last a few years this may be an issue.
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mikealder · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 7:11 am Post subject:

One other thing to consider is a new map for your TomTom although you didn't mention which device you have, or consider the TomTom One Third Edition - at least the menu system will be known to you and the maps are drawn with a known clarity (this is an area I don't like with the Garmins).

Navman don't have a very good track record with updates to a device once it goes beyond a certain age, and I wouldn't touch a Sony at all for the reasons highlighted 253

Darren · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 7:49 am Post subject:

Sony has jumped ship and abandoned GPS in Europe so discount them, the F10 is poor and garmin the best of the bunch of three albeit not one I'd have short listed.

You don't say your budget but I would have had a TomTom PND in their and it would be my first choice. I dislike Garmin's user interface, too simplistic for my tastes.
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Darren Griffin

andyrew · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 05, 2006 Posts: 16

Hi thanks for the speedy response, at the minute i am using tomtom navigator 6 on my xda orbit, i have had just over a year and when i bought it i thought it would last at least a couple years, however recently it couldn't find a street i was looking for, the street was on a main road (not a back ally) and had been built for about 30 years, tomtom just kept me going in a loop about half a mile from where i should have been and that was using post code search. luckily i had a telephone number and had to ring for directions, so i sort of lost faith in it. I know there are no satnavs that are 100 percent accurate but when i got home and checked on my backup copilot live 6, it found the street and house number ok using address search and post code search. So i decided maybe a new satnav might be in order especially with the offers that are on at the minute. Hence my first post.
Thanks again for your advice on this.

MaFt · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:46 am Post subject:

personally i'd go fr the garmin, but also consider the tomtom one (tho if you lost faith in them then that's a different matter...!)

MaFt

Andy_P · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 12:04 pm Post subject:

You could always tell us what road it was you had trouble with, so owners of various barands can check whether it is now OK on later maps.

I'm with Darren here, look at the widescreen TomTom models. The One XL if you want navigation with no bells and whistles, the 520 or 720 if you want extras like Hands-free, FM transmitter etc.

I find the Garmin's screen display and user interface a bit "cartoon/kids" for my liking, compared with the TT.

philpugh · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 2:00 pm Post subject:

Also the latest version of the Garmin maps (NT2008) seem to be better at routing down more major routes.

In any event you can always ignore the turning if it looks a bit dodgy.

I used to have TT Nav 6 and replaced it with a nuvi 660 - haven't regretted it one bit.
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Phil

andyrew · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 05, 2006 Posts: 16

Hi guys thanks for all your help on this i really do appreciate it. After much thought and reading everyones posts i decided on the Garmin nuvi 200w but was disappointed to find that when i registered it that my map data was Sep 2006 which caused me some concern, however i did read in another forum that if you purchase a new Garmin and register it, if your data is out of date them Garmin will send a dvd with the latest mapping software on it, does anyone know if there is any truth in this?. If not then i may have to consider a return as to buy the update is another £60.00 so the cost of the unit then the update puts my budget into the realms of tomtom entry units which i am sure will be newer mapping than Sep 2006.
Thanks again for your help.

jas59 · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject: Nuvi 200W map update.

I also purchased the Garmin Nuvi 200W which had the older map version.
Because I purchased it after the later map was introduced I qualified for a free map update.
By registering the device with Garmin I received a DVD containing the latest map.
It's a while since I went through this procedure but I think this is what I had to do.
On the Garmin website go to 'My Garmin' then 'Support' then 'Updates and Downloads' then 'Mapping Updates'
You have to enter the unit serial number and then you are told if you qualify for the free update.
The DVD containing the 2008 map was automatically ordered for me.
It took about 10 days to arrive.
Because it has an unlock code which becomes unique to your unit the update can only be installed onto one device.
Hope this helps.

jas59 · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: Nuvi 200W map update (2)

A P.S. to my last post.

Try this first:
Go to 'My Garmin' then 'My Maps' then 'Manage Maps'
Here it will give available map updates for your device.

Good luck.

andyrew · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 05, 2006 Posts: 16

Thanks for your reply, i followed your step by step instruction and along with my units details all i got in connection with updates was this:

Available map updates for this device:

City Navigator® Europe NT 2008 Map Update Buy Disk.

Nothing about a free update, maybe if i hold on it will just arrive in the post. heres hoping.
Thanks again for your response.

gatorguy6996 · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject:

In my experience, a phone call will likely do the trick. Don't rely on what pops up on a website as the final answer.
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Andy_P · Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject:

Most if not all TomTom models come with a free "Latest Map Guarantee"..... Wink

andyrew · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 05, 2006 Posts: 16

Thanks for all your help on this guys i really do appreciate it, my plan is to give Garmin a ring on Tuesday and explain about the age of the map data on a new machine and see what they say. Falling a reasonable resolution my plan B is to go back to argos, and get a tomtom.
Thanks again for everyones help.

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