which ones do people recommend?

Considering going for the TomTom Go520. anyone had it? (apart from Kev!)

Get an ATLAS ffs

satnav's are shocking

I USE TOM TOM ...

SORTED

A map for every road in the UK?

Go on, list the benefits of that...

satnav is for puffs with no sense of direction

ffs get it off your dash and get a map if you need to drive

ask at a paper shop if you're lost

a modern day thing that i am disgusted with

I had a Garmin in the UK and if you use them right they're brilliant. If you try and make it get you from doorstep to doorstep they're awful but if you get in the general area you're going to and THEN use it, they get you round all the one ways and other bollocks that the town planners have prepared for you. I reckon Garmins are about 70 quid now. They're like most computerised gear, they only do what you tell them to do.

And they never say 'here be tigers.......' unlike the Luddite's maps.

What a strange reply. How can anyone be 'disgusted' with something that can help you save hours?

getting across the Country is easy enough with or without a map but in this day and age of the 'red route', you can't just nip into a paper shop and ask directions. For those that use the car every day for work, I would say they are essential.

I will be treating myself to one very soon. Tesco's were selling them for £140.

I think mine is the 520, and it is the best I have used, very useful indeed as it doubles for my hands free kit as well. Do not be tempted by the NAVMAN, utter shyte

Road maps...

I can't believe any of them are 'shite'.

I've got tom tom 5 on my phone and it works just fine, I've not updated the maps, but it will get me to the sort of correct area.

Other half has Navman in the car, it's a very smart bit of kit and keeps here out of trouble.

As for using at atlas/map, isn't that what a sat nav uses anyway

I've got the old tom tom700 use it England and Holland for door to door, its brilliant,also used it for destinations in germany, france and belgium with out any problems

The detractors are talking bollocks, Tom Toms (by far the best option) are superb pieces of kit as long as you set them up correctly. The options screens give choices of road preferences - avoid tolls, prefer motorways etc. When people go wrong the cause is in here. They do need to be used with a bit of common sense though; heading North to go to London should set alarm bells going for example.

For me the best aspect is speed camera alerts, warning buzzers sound when approaching one. For this reason alone its well worth having one.

Not for me granda though he is deaf and when he was driving me aunties car with the sat nav guiding him he did not hear the beeps so ended up with a speeding fine and points on his license. Although he did blame me brother but he was sat with his mp3 on and his music full blast.

This is the one, you can take calls and get text messages read to you through it. You can also use it as a MP3 player.

160 quid through ebuyer.com is the cheapest I have found it so far or 155 quid through ebay but I'd sooner buy it from a proper company for the extra fiver

It's either that one or the TomTom One XL GB which I believe is similar to the 520 but without the handsfree and MP3 player but its fifty quid less, so its a decision whether I want to shell out the extra for the features but I am pretty tempted.

I paid a bit more than that like, thats a bargain!!

just be careful who is in the car when a text message comes in as I had my boss in the car when I got a text asking if I would be in my local for 3pm

From what I've read it gives you the option to read the message or not so maybe you should have a play around with your settings.

I think you can pay anything upto 300 bar for it so 160 is great value

Can't people use maps now...? I know peope who'd use them to direct themselves to the bog from their own fireside if they could fix a bracket on their shoulder to mount it........... and they'd still end up shitting in the loft.

Oh that tickled my ribs

BTW im after a one, er Sat Nav for work only want to pay around £100-150 quid any recommendations and sites to buy from. I seen a Tom Tom One in PC world for £115 is this a decent one and a good price.

Good enough. Any Tom Tom is a good buy, the only difference between the bottom of the range and top of the range is the expensive ones allow you to use it as a hands free kit and have software installed for European maps (available free on t'internet)

I read somewhere you dont get AC power chargers with the cheaper ones, is this right do they come with car chargers.

the tomtom one can be charged through your pc via the usb lead as well as car charger

the maps are cheap enough to buy

Thought you downloaded any new maps. Do they come with an in car charger as standard then.

Car charger as standard. If you've got a motorola or blackberry phone then the mains charger is the same connection. The elongated triangle type.

the firm i work for gave us all sat navs 2-3 years ago, for the sole purpose of improving response times......what they hadn't realised was in fact it knocked off 10% of the yearly fuel bill, as you don't spend time driving around looking for the closed down post offices/ shops in villages asking where old mcdonalds farm is.....

it's a disgrace it really is

you should all be ashamed

Our lass got me a Tom Tom for Christmas - I was dubious at first but have been won over - accurate and re-calculates routes almost instantly if needed. Also agree with Mr I about the speed camera & speed warnings. Apparently it was £104 from Currys with a £10 voucher included, to be spent on map updates / voices / charger etc.

Sat Navs?

For thick people who cannot read maps! Endof!

I cant understand people slagging them off. How many maps will you have in your car/van if you do say courier/delivery work, surely one device which is going to get you there is better than a van load of maps. Im only getting one as im doing some work for a maintenance firm and i can get sent places what im not familiar with.

The whole 'thick people who can't read maps' argument doesn't really work, does it? I can read a map, they're a piece of piss. However, I can't read a detailed map while driving but I can follow a small screen telling me to go left, straight or right.

My old man has hundreds of maps as he has travelled all over, if Sat Navs had been out fifteen years ago he'd have saved himself a fortune (plus the added time since of plotting routes/getting lost en route etc).

I've never got with the whole SatNav thing to be honest, I prefer to read a map than to spend a few hundred notes on a machine to do it for me.

But I might get one now cos my new car hasn't got the phone kit in that I put in my old one. It would cost me about £200-300 to get the full Nokia kit installed so instead I might buy a SatNav that has the Bluetooth thingymajig to use as my hands free for my phone.

So what's the general concensus of the best to get then?

The TomTom Go 520 that I mentioned at first has the full Bluetooth malarky and is available for 160 quid

Young Timmy has hit the nail on the head....

Anyone can read a map, and 99% of Towns, Cities and Villages are now well signposted when you leave a motorway or A road

But last year a contract I was on I had to visit the following places

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berwick, Gretna, Motherwell, Leeds, Manchester, Oldham, Halifax, Stoke, Sheffield, Liverpool, Dover, Harwich, Gatwick, Heathrow, Doncaster, Colchester and various sites in and around London, just to name a few, with only a postcode given for the site, normally the night before

I could of printed out a map for each, hoped it wasn't in a one way system, guessed where the nearest NCP, and so on so forth, or spend £120 on a Sat-Nav...

I think I made the right choice!

you can download or pay a lot less for a dvd with the maps and install via pc

My new motor has an Alpine DVD thingy in the glove box which looks like it is for a SatNav but there is no screen unit.

Does that mean I can just get half the stuff on the cheap to get a full system?

each to their own

would never have one

if people want to blow some coin on one their thats up to them

but i can read and store directions using a brain and generally dont forget

If your work takes you to out of the way places, I can see their use. As 99.9% of my journeys are to places I've been before, I don't need a sat-nav or a map, I just use my photographic memory. If I did have one it would double the value of the car.

the wife bought me one for Xmas, I haven't even opened the box yet, and I doubt I ever will. I can't be arsed with it, I'd only use one if any future car I bought already contained one.

That is exactly what I said a few weeks ago before I bought the latest motor!

But the new car doesn't have one in.

Although like I said earlier I may now get one but it would be for the hands free phone function rather than the snotty bird telling me which turn off to take.


Now about that Alpine thingy in my glove box, anybody got any ideas what it is / does?

Now about that Alpine thingy in my glove box, anybody got any ideas what it is / does?

no mention in the handbook of the car what this unit is for?
could the previous owner have removed the screen
what sort of motor is it?

It's an A4, not had time to read the handbook yet.

It came via Tyneside Audi so there is every chance that the previous owner was a thieving gypo and has had the screen away.

All I can say is these satnav detractors/atlas advocates must be bloody dextrous. I certainly can't be arsed with paper objects in cars! I don't have a satnav but if I had one I'd prolly use it.

Usually, though, a quick shufty on mappy or a similar website, combined with attention to roadsigns and my (lucky) inbuilt strong sense of direction do the trick. It's still bloody pants though when you get past a lorry you are overtaking just in time to see the road sign pointing to the exit you should have taken.

Ages ago when technology was still at least 50% mechanical I bought a car compass from Halfords. Now that WAS unreliable. A car is mostly made of iron you see (or was then).

Can't understand people slagging them off like, what's the point???
I got one when I moved down to Pompey as I didn't know the area, so most places I went I hadn't been before. The tom tom has never failed me yet (obviously you've got to use it with a bit of common sense like anything), and is miles easier than using a map or printing off directons for wherever you're going.
To say people who use sat navs are thick is just silly..... a bit like saying people who have central heating are soft as you can live without it.

A paddy labourer on his tea break.

Simultaneously trying to keep various people happy each in their own way. In other words, keeping off the computer to avoid grief.

This is where I was on Saturday. One of the best excuses for a piss-up I've ever seen, and just a handful of miles from here.

http://www.wheewall.com/hood/

I saw that on the telly on Sunday morning.

try here mr ripper
http://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/show ... php?t=1711

Cheers Mr Bus, I've posted a question on there to the anoraks!

Thats the Ball Game , oh BTW bought a Tom Tom One last night.