Sat nav suggestion

[sheriffjonny]

Having a look through ebay for a sat nav system. Last year we were going to southern Spain so i bought a sat nav from ebay. It was a chinese jobby that had Igo 8 loaded on to it with full european mapping. It worked an absolute treat. We came home and the mrs put it away somewhere, when i went to use it again, I found that the screen had been smashed! Gutted.

Anyway the long and the short of it is I want to get another system to load the POI's on. I want to have European mapping on it as i often hire a car when we go abroad. But I hav an aversion to spending money and also i tend to but the alternative to the popular,( I bought the original xbox when ps2 was cool, i went android instead of apple, amd instead of intel). So can someone suggest a good cheap sat nav that i should be looking out for on ebay?

 

[bigpieeater]

Having a look through ebay for a sat nav system. Last year we were going to southern Spain so i bought a sat nav from ebay. It was a chinese jobby that had Igo 8 loaded on to it with full european mapping. It worked an absolute treat. We came home and the mrs put it away somewhere, when i went to use it again, I found that the screen had been smashed! Gutted.

Anyway the long and the short of it is I want to get another system to load the POI's on. I want to have European mapping on it as i often hire a car when we go abroad. But I hav an aversion to spending money and also i tend to but the alternative to the popular,( I bought the original xbox when ps2 was cool, i went android instead of apple, amd instead of intel). So can someone suggest a good cheap sat nav that i should be looking out for on ebay?

i tend to but the alternative to the popular,( I bought the original xbox when ps2 was cool, i went android instead of apple, amd instead of intel). So can someone suggest a good cheap sat nav that i should be looking out for on ebay?

Have you tried one of those Map Books? I think Collins print one, about £1.99 from a motorway service station....a cheap alternative:lol-049:

 

[fairytooth]

If you want to do cheap, and you already have an Android phone with A/GPS, you can use Google Maps for navigation free. (And surprisingly good, all things considered).

Just download it from Android Market free. You can also download and pre-cache maps on the phone/sd card while you have a wifi connection to avoid unnecessary data costs too.

 

[Northerner]

If you want to do cheap, and you already have an Android phone with A/GPS, you can use Google Maps for navigation free. (And surprisingly good, all things considered).

Just download it from Android Market free. You can also download and pre-cache maps on the phone/sd card while you have a wifi connection to avoid unnecessary data costs too.

It's not quite as simple as that I'm afraid. I agree that Google Maps is very good and I have used it on my Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone. However, there is always the risk of data being downloaded, when you go off route for example, and it has to recalculate. Also, when away from home and wanting to input a new journey you may not have access to wi-fi and again, you'll use a lot of data as no maps are stored on your phone and they have to be downloaded each time. As for pre-caching maps, it is my belief that you can only cache an area ten miles square from your present location, not much use for a long journey.

This data use may not be a problem if you have a decent package and it isn't for me - as long as I'm in the U.K.! The big problem of course is when you're in Europe where data costs are horrendous and you could end up with a huge bill.

After a lot of research I opted for an application called Co-Pilot Premium, which is probably the best sat-nav that I've ever owned as it happens. Co-pilot works just like a normal sat-nav in that the maps are preloaded onto your smartphone and from then on all it needs is a GPS signal, so there is no chance of using data when abroad.

The mapping is superb and covers all of Europe with extensive mapping in most countries and major roads in places such as Albania. I think I paid about £38 for mine.

CoPilot Live Premium for Android

 

[Viktor]

The TomTom app on the iphone works that way too, as you can have the choice of getting updates to your
map data only when on WiFi....I intend to flick my iphone over to Airplane Mode when in Europe and just
go roaming for a few minutes in the evening to get texts or phone calls at certain times.