Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Sat nav or trusty old paper map, a word from the wise needed.

[Redsps]

As a long standing fan of a good old paper road map etc, the time has now come to upgrade to sat nav, not becuase i like them , but more from a business point of view.
My customer base is growing all over the uk now, but I am finding it harder to get to some of them up north and all around london without spending hours reading a map and sorting out a route.
Can anyone advise me on a good aftermarket sat nav for the car etc, I had a look in halfords on saturday, but the sales guy was as much help as a hole in the head.
The whole sat nav things looks to be a bit of a mine field at present,who is the prefered manafacturer to go for, any particular model that peeps have or avoided for what ever reason.
I don't do overseas trips, so that is one area less from the spec sheet requirements to start with.
Anyone know of any problems with particlar models etc.
I am not looking at spending shed loads, but would like something that works and is sensibly priced aswell for the functions available.
can anyone advise me, all feedback appreciated.
cheers
R

[crm250]

R, have used several flavour of sat nav for some time, and even used it on my last spain / france jaunt. they are not without flaws. IMO i have had better success with tomtom, for a simple plug and go solution get a basic tomtom, loads of plugins and users who can help. garmin offerings are also very good but i prefer the tomtom interface personaly.
I use a PDA solution which is great but it got a soaking en route to portsmouth then cooked in spain which finished it. good thing is you can easily get loads of accesories for a pda to attach to a bike if needed too without the expense of tomtom rider.
but with all satnav it can take you to the wrong side of level crossings, a few doors away etc etc.
hope it helps.

[Chaz]

Tom-Tom only way to go brill.

[Dementor]

Tom Tom with out a doubt, just be careful if you download any of their updates and make sure you save a backup first

[Rob B]

I have had two Garmins. Streetpilot III and now a 2610. I would liek a 27xx now. Just like every other tool, you have to use it with a bit of added inteligence. They all have their quirks and if you just blindly accept what they tell you, route wise, on the shortest option, you'll end up going through the centre of every town and village. Switch to fastest to take the by-pass. I alway like to have a big scale map with me that I can glance at to see what options I have for routing around big towns etc...

rgds, Rob

[nelly]

I bought a tomtom a while back. haven't looked back since. The time it's saved me has already paid for it.
If you drive on your own, then there's no dodgy map reading or if you do take a wrong turning or hit a diversion, it just recalculates the route and off you go again.