Uk and Ireland Nuvi 300 - European Map Question

[morseybob]

I rung up garmin europe and wanted to know what product sd card I needed for France. I was told I could go for Europe or France. I wanted to be able to go for postal code selection as I currently use on the UK map. The guy said go for a SD data card, City Navigator NT, Europe. Part Number: 010-10680-00. So I ordered one up. I popped the card into the unit and then started to see if I could select some towns in France. As I currently didn't know any French post codes, I searched for a few large towns first - no problem. I then started going for some smaller towns and again found no problem. I then tried to enter some smallish towns beginning with St e.g. Saint Thomas de Conac. Unfortunately could not find. I then got open a map of France and typed in some more small villages. The unit could seem to find. So I then went back to the UK map. I popped in some very small villages (name rather than post code). The nuvi found no problem.

My question is - have I been sent the wrong sd card? The card just says " CN Europe NT Full Coverage Version 9". Should the European map allow me to search for very small places - just like the way I can search for UK villages. I was under the impression that all post codes are searchable for the UK, and I am not sure about the French ones or any other major country on the European sd card. If a French person bought a Garmin France unit would they be able to search for any post coded French place?

Can someone please offer some advice?

[swing]

Saint Thomas de Conac is in the Garmin database, but it's listed as Saint-Thomas-de-Conac (note the dashes). I don't know why it's got dashes, but it is there. This is likely to be Navteq's fault (they supply the map data), so will affect a whole range of SatNav units, and isn't directly under Garmin's control.

You should also be able to search for the five digit French postcode - although not as accurate as a UK postcode, it will at least get you close to the location you want.

I think they have supplied the right card though - that part number is listed on the Garmin website as the full European map compatible with the Nuvi 300.
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[adrian_anastas]

Just out of interest, does anyone know if adding full european mapping makes a 300 exactly the same as a 350? Detailed tech specs are hard to find on each of the Nuvis, for example, storage space.

[swing]

The 300 has less internal memory, so you can only add the full European mapping to an SD card. Getting all that data onto a single SD card can be a challenge, so chances are you'll only get about 80% of Europe onto the SD card.

The 350 also supports Text to Speech (ie speaking road names), this will still be a differing factor.
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[gomara]

I go to France regularly using Nuvo 660 with Europe V9, and so far I've found every little village without problem e.g. sollies-toucas where I go is tiny and can be found under Where To Country France, City Sollies.

I find that postcode search in France works fine when you do Where To, Address, Country France, City or Postcode e.g. 83270.....

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