GPS advice please!! Forums

peejay · Campsite DB Admin

Hi,

My neighbour kindly lent me his Tomtom Go satnav thingie for my recent trip to the NEC, i've always been a bit wary about these things and never considered them worth the considerable expense for yet another 'gadget' but now i think they are the bees knees and even the wife was impressed (and she doesn't normally 'do' high tech) and i've graciously been given the go ahead to maybe get one (me, under the thumb? Never.). The tomtom was simplicity in itself to program a route and the directions were spot on. I can see the immense benefit one of these things could have when both in UK and particularly abroad and searching for the elusive aire or campsite. I now want one!

On further investigation a few things have come to light. If i was going to have one i'd want one with all european maps already in it. don't want to be messing about loading a country in on each border. The Tomtom Go doesn't have that (£400 with UK preloaded), you have to purchase additional cards for all the different countries req'd, at the considerable extra sum of about £100 per country (unless someone knows otherwise).

I've scoured a few websites and the one that seems ideal for us is the soon to be released Garmin C330, similar to the Tomtom (ie, easy to use)but complete with all europen countries for around £550. Obviously i'm going to wait until its been released and read a few reviews about it before deciding, but a few questions until then..

The tomtom has the ability to download poi's (aires, stellplatz and lpg stations abroad etc would be a great help to me), can the Garmin versions also download this sort of information?

Can any of you GPS experts advise whether i'm making the right choice or can you point me in the direction of a more suitable set up (£600 max).

I need full route planning for all main european countries.
The ability to download poi's of my choice.
It must be easy to use.
Where on earth do you get poi info for m/home related stuff, aires, lpg station etc.

So many questions, but i know you'll come up with the goods........

pete.

claypigeon

Hi Pete take a look at the medion pda gps easy to use european mapping all in the price

Dave

muncy

Check this site for loads of advice.

bsb2000

Hi Pete,

I've used several GPS units, and for ease of use I have to admit the Tom Tom go is spot on. It is so quick compared to others I've had (Last year had to pull over in France to redo a route) you can plan a route in seconds. With regards to European maps, the ones you've seen on the disks are for people who just want to buy that country and plug it in, for about £110 you can get all the Western Europe street level maps and download them onto your own disk (You will need one a lot bigger than the supplied if you want them all on at the same time).

Tom Tom Go does come with European main roads on CD.

Couple of downsides, it is designed as a simple, quick easy to use unit so doesn't have some of the options you'd find on some more complex units, and you need to keep an eye on the road when driving something the size of a motorhome, it tried to route me down a country lane once.

POI's can be found in many places (On the downloads page here for instance) and include the very usefull 'Bridges under 4m'

MandyandDave

Poi can be obtained here

peejay · Campsite DB Admin

Thanks all.

What a great response so far...

Claypigeon, Thanks for the info on the medion system, is that only sold at Aldi outlets at certain times of the year tho?

Muncy, thanks for that link, i actually spent a few hours browsing that site, loads of useful info there, haven't looked at their forum yet tho...

BSB (Ian), cheers for the info, i knew the downloads were there, but they appear to be for tomtom, can they also be used for a garmin system?
Are you saying i can get all of europe (detailed) for £110 plus the price of a blank sd card? If so, sounds a better bet than buying each country individually.

M&D,

Many thanks, campingcar-infos is a great site but i can't find the english version for the aires and i think there is a charge (telechargement?) for the info maybe. I'll certainly take on board your comments about the detail available on the full european versions.

Thanks to all for your trouble and keep the suggestions coming....mucho appreciated.

pete.

lydgate

This site has detailed "road tests" of all the stand alone systems available in the UK including the Navman ICN 510 which is worth considering as the company has just issued details of a new version with full European maps for arround £500.

bsb2000

Pete,

Maps of Western Europe, cut from one of many suppliers sites.............

This is an add-on product for TomTom GO. The product TomTom GO Maps of Western Europe can only be used in combination with TomTom GO. This product can not be combined with any other TomTom product.
You will need an additional SD-card(-s) to install the maps on your TomTom GO. No SD-card is included in this product.
All maps of 16 Western European countries in one package including 4 CD-ROMs.
Maps of Western Europe now with a GO specific version.
Most recent and detailed Tele Atlas maps, door-to-door navigation.
You can download a map segment of 64 MB, the map of a country or the map of a region (seven regions are available) on your TomTom GO.

Maps and Coverage for TomTom GO

Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg

Benelux region: 58 MB

France
Map of France : 233 MB
64 MB map segments

Great Britain

Map of Great Britain: 100 MB
64 MB map segments

Germany, Austria, Switzerland

South of Germany/Austria/Switzerland region: 185 MB
Map of Germany: 231 MB
Map of Switzerland: 23 MB
Map of Austria: 40 MB
64 MB map segments

Italy

Map of Italy: 195 MB
64 MB map segments

Spain, Portugal, Andorra

Spain, Andorra and Portugal region: 125 MB
Map of Spain + Andorra
Map of Portugal

Scandinavia

Norway, Sweden, North-Denmark, South-Finland region: 110 MB
Map of Norway: 58 MB
Map of Sweden: 90 MB
Map of Denmark: 21 MB
Map of Finland: 27 MB

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All Poi's are just a database of Lon/Lat/info, they can be imported into other systems by opening the raw data.