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I'm looking at getting myself a SatNav but am totally lost as to which one to get. There just seem so many out there with different features, that I'm totally confused.

I don't really want any fancy MP3 player or bluetooth wotsits, just something that'll get me from a to b and doesn't cost all that much.

What are your opinions, from what I'm reading, Garmin seem to offer more features for the price than TomTom and as I use a Garmin GPS running watch, they're my prefered brand.

The traffic feature sounds like a good thing to me, does anyone know what it's like?

Just after some advise and tips from anyone who knows about these things. I don't have a clue where to start and the guy in Comet just confused me even more.

Thanks all

I bought a Tom Tom One with European mapping for my jaunt around Italy earlier this month - £129.97 from Tesco.com - and it worked exceptionally well. OK, on one occasion it tried to take me through a ploughed vineyard field but that's no worse than the one I hired from Hertz last year which did exactly the same thing! It's not a big problem to turn around, drive on a while and see how the route changes from there. At one point I thought it had gone pear shaped on me as the screen kept returning to the start screen. I quickly found out that it was because I'd left the protective transparent film on the screen which, as the daytime temperature changed, expanded or shrank and operated the touch screen feature. Removing that film solved the problem !

The level of mapping detail was superb, even tiny little side roads which only the locals would know about or use are covered. UK coverage is just as good. The basic one includes Speed Camera alerts and Speed limit alerts although it wasn't fully up to date for every road in Italy, it usually erred on the side of caution so doing the right thing. You can link Tom Tom to your computer to plan routes, check out prospective routes via the Demo facility as though actually driving it and, of course, updates and modifications etc are all downloadable. Points of Interest are included and very useful - we needed to find a supermarket in Como and with just a few prods on the screen we were given a choice of 4 within 2km. Same goes for Petrol, Hospitals etc - all preloaded. As a basic SatNav I'd certainly give it 9/10, certainly for that kind of money it seemed to be exceptional value.

Watching close as I'm looking at purchasing one as well. And the guy at the store confused me even more.

I can say my Father loves his Tom Tom. His store perfect magic, (yes a shameless plug) is 15 minutes from his house. He has been going there everyday since the mid 70's. He got himself a Tom Tom and now for some reason he can't get to the shop without first consulting Tom Tom.

With the possible exception of John Lewis, I have no confidence in shop assistants having sufficient product knowledge. Most of them are next to useless and I often know more than they do, even when I know very little. I don't blame them, of course; the companies are to blame for investing precisely nil pounds in training staff up to adequate levels. Shop assistants are largely superfluous to the whole shopping experience.

Shop assistant: Can I help you?
Replicant: I don't know, can you?

Sorry, Lomster, I can't offer advice on satnav systems; I just felt like having a bit of a rant. My apologies.

I fully agree to be very wary of shop assistants' advice - often no more than a flimsy attempt to just sell any old item plus an unnecessary extended warranty! I took the advice of our Travel Agent who'd researched the market for other clients wanting to drive all over the place rather than take trains, buses etc.

I bought a Navman F20 for £120 a couple of years ago to get me to gigs in far out places i've never been before. It was the cheapest I coulde find that had features like speed camera warnings, post code searches & automatic re-routing for when I take the wrong exit off roundabouts.

It's got me to every gig so far but could do with an update from the interweb for new roads which have been built. A feature it doesn't have is the famous voices, it would make long journeys much more enjoyable to have Mr. T calling me SUCKA but you can't have everything for a cheap sat nav.

A very good starting point though & you can now get it for under £100

Russ
www.smartmagic.co.uk

I bought a Tom Tom One XL last year and I've been very pleased with it.

What I like is the Tom Tom Home online software that lets you back up, change and save settings as well as downloading additional maps, voices etc.

Highly recommended.

whatever you get lomster, please make you get one with Mr.T's voice!

Turn right sucka!

I got a TomTom last Christmas purely to get me to gigs. I don't know how I ever lived without it! They are genius.

I also enjoy winding it up by taking a different route when I have "local knowledge". I know it's just a machine, but I'm sure I can detect just the slightest bit of tetchiness as it says "Turn around when possible..."

Russpie,

I also have the Navman F20 and cannot fault it, I think its excellent.

I bet that you're more confused now that at the start of the thread

I got a Garmin SatNav from my mum and dad for christmas, and it's fantastic. I live in Scotland, and have been asked to do parties in several rural areas, and it's got me there no problem every time. You also get a protective leather cover for it, and the car charger/sucker for the windscreen.

I've also had it take me up north, and my wife has used it from Edinburgh to London and Edinburgh to Blackpool and hasn't had a single wrong turning etc.

I would highly recommend you get a Garmin from my own personal experience. They sell them quite cheap on Amazon if I remember correctly, although I seem to remember seeing a sign outside Halfords this morning about a sale.

Did you notice at the weekend that the TomTom One prices have come down to under £100 at Halfords and Amazon?

I got myself a Gamin lyesterday for under £100 in Argos. Very very inpressed with it, I played with it on the way to work this morning. very easy to use and I love the traffic notifications, I can see that coming in really handy. And it plays MP3s which is brilliant too.

Very happy with it but do you realised how your brain just switches off and you're looking at the map to see where to go, even when it's a route you do every day?

Oh yes, I tend to put the SatNav on in map mode 'just in case' I need to do a detour and have the map at eye level to help. It's never happened of course but you never know....

Congrats on buying one anyway, if it has speed camera alerts it's worth it, not just for the safety aspect but to avoid being fined and having points on your licence.