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[Admin]

Ok, I bought a Medion GoPal350 this week.

£150 from the Medion Shop. It also come with TMC (picks up traffic announcements and automatically re-routes to avoid problems).

Nice looking piece of kit.

And that is where the good stuff ends!

Being returned now!
Over the last 24hrs of use it has crashed 5 times, requiring complete re-installation 3 times!
It is also slow, the touchscreen will not calibrate properly, no matter how many times I try and also has the sensitivity of a brick round the head!

In short... AVOID!

Now this means I need a different sat nav system. Can people please give reviews of what they have?

I have used the tomtom one (cheers Fin) and I have to say it is very good and the Garmin i3 which is not!

All other comments welcomed.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Hasty....particularly when you consider its expected for 1 in 100 to be DOA .....it might be very good when you get a working one.  

[Admin]

Hasty? I don't think so.

Software issues are one thing. But the processor is clearly not up to the job (266mhz compared to the 400mhz+ in other units) and much as I hate to admit it, the tomtom has better guidance sofware (no comment about the fact it is running the software through Windows CE 4.1).

This translates into the slow calculaltion and responses and on one occasion yesterday it took until I was 200yds from my destination for it to realsie I did not have to perform a u turn to reach my destination!

Oh, and the customer service leaves something to be desired, I may have accepted an exchange at first, but their approach just made me say, right, I'll have my money back!

I realise now that I will need to spend more money to get a decent unit, but I have learnt a bit from this.  

[Ghosts in my machine]

I know people generally tell you that the one they have is the best, but the TomTom One was the one I settled on after trying a few. Best value for money and easy to use. Also, you can get loads of voices for it if you fancy having God or Darth Vadar giving you directions (I haven't bothered with these however).

Prefered it to NavMan which was similar price. And now you can get TomTom One for under £200. Maps are good, and features okay. This is one of my gadgets that even Mrs. Ghost will use (although she couldn't work out how to turn off the speed camera warning tone!).

I haven't used one, but I've been told that the Garmin Streetpilot is dirt cheap and works okay for a basic unit (don't think it has moving map, just picture of next waypoint)

[miked]

Mio 269+

Advantages

reliable, can't remember it crashing ever
acquires satellites very quickly, even indoors (SIRFIII)
includes motorway junction numbers in maps and in visual direction instructions (my navman didn't)
includes 2GB HDD with maps of Europe (only useful if you do a lot of travelling)
includes an SD card slot which accepts cards unto 1GB
good battery, mine lasts for 3+ hours continuous use
supports TMC but need to buy external aerial
blocked road facility is easy to use and effective

Disadvantages

Expensive
difficult to include additional POIs (needs an additional piece of software)
PIOs are not displayed in 3D view (or street names, I use 2D view)
poor technical support from Mio *
current maps are over a year old (I've only found A1M work around Ferrybridge that isn't included)
not the smallest around these days

* I have unlocked mine so that I can get to the CE desktop.  This allows me to load other CE applications  on to it, such as a video player.  This was not a straight forward thing to do and at one point I thought I had killed it.  I needed a copy of the original firmware from Mio which took a lot of phone calls and emails.

I would recommend one and I am very pleased with mine

Hope this is of interest

[Gwilym]

I am on my 3rd Sat Nav now and always go for Garmin. I use a 60 CS (Colour Screen).

It is interchangebale between my car, motorbike and mountain bike as well as for walking.

With Mapsource City Select downloaded it gets me anywhere.

It doesn't speak (which I like) and is very accurate. Stopped me walking off a cliff in a Scottish Whiteout once.

[bob.dent]

You could check out this weeks issue of Auto Express, they've done a pretty good review on Satnav systems

[theolodian]

You could check out this weeks issue of Auto Express, they've done a pretty good review on Satnav systems

I thought it was pretty weak.  It didn't look like they had actually used any of them.  Still a good starting point, as they compiled the basics on a decent range of the small portable units.

[Admin]

Have to say the Mio C510E is looking like my next choice (can't bring myself to get a tomtom, everyone else has one!)

Reviews seem excellent (price is damn good too!)

[RonaldMcBurger]

Mine is fantastic. It is made by a company called AZ. It is fairly compact and the pages are easy to read. No waiting for silly voice commands, just flick to the page you want and get lost just like that. Also has the advantage of free meals in the hospital when you crash whilst trying to read the small printed street names.

For further info please write to me:

Marmaduke Nutter
AZ house
c/o Canehill hopsital
25 tablets is enough
London

[Elite Pete]

Ive got a TomTom and it has got its faults (shortest route) but I wouldn't be without it and everyone's got one because they are good. One thing I would avoid is the wife with an A to Z

[Taxi_Driver]

Ive got a TomTom and it has got its faults (shortest route) but I wouldn't be without it and everyone's got one because they are good. One thing I would avoid is the wife with an A to Z

Agreed about the shortest route....but probably other makes do as well...it depends where the manu gets its mapping info from, i think tomtom buys it from Teleatlas.

Ive had 2 Tomtoms now.....the original tomtom go and now the 510....i like the wide screen on the 510...but my 510 has a screen fault on it....it flickers most of the time with a 'ghosting' effect.
Both the 510 and original Tomtom have weak screen mounts....ie after a short time the weight of the tomtom makes them 'droop' downwards.

The 510/710/910 does support RDS-TMC but with an external ariel but tomtom seems unable to produce one!! Ive had one on order since the beginning of June and tomtoms website has just changed the availability of the ariel from Q3 to Q4  

Make sure you have the license number in the box and dont lose it!! (its comes preloaded so generally dont need it) as my orig tomtom wanted to have the licence number entered after an update once and it was missing from the packaging.....even tho i could produce proof of purchase tomtom support wanted £90 to issue another license number for it!

Advance planning on it is weak......once the route is planned as soon as you touch the screen to view the route for example it recalculates from where you are and not where you set the start address.

Thats the bad points......but i generally like it for ease of use, 3d map view, postcode entry (altho doesnt know all postcodes), ability to recalculate routes quickly and automatically if for example you choose not to turn where it says to.

Oh one other thing, it doesnt know bus stations! Try finding Birmingham bus station......its not sign posted until your within 100 yrds of it and can see it by then anyway!  

And one more thing but about satnavs in general, i wouldnt buy one with a hard disk inside it......imo hard disks and vibration only lead to one thing  

[miked]

Have to say the Mio C510E is looking like my next choice

Haven't been on the Mio site for a while.

V2 is good, V3 looks very good.  Nice piece of kit

 

(can't bring myself to get a tomtom, everyone else has one!)

My thopughts exactly