Do I need a standalone satnav?

[JayMax]

I'll be doing a weekly commute round trip of about 700 miles to areas of the country that are unknown to me.
I currently have an 2006 Audi with integrated MMI/RNS-E satnav but the maps disk is 2006 also. I think I can get the 2013/14 maps disk from ebay for £30.

However, my big concern is I'll still lack live traffic data and speedcams etc.
When I'm returning home I'm looking at a 5-6 hours drive, if there's a problem on the roads I want to be rerouted and get home asap with minimum fuss. I won't know the area so for me to decide 'live' on alternative routes is not what I want to be doing.

I can't decide whether to get a Garmin, or to update the in car satnav maps and use my Android phone with something like Google Maps, Waze or Trapster?

Cost isn't an issue, if it's ~£300 for a Garmin 3598LMT-D, then I can handle that. I'm concerned about most effective travel time, not money.

Cheers

 

[Scania]

Get the updated discs, use the Highways agency app to monitor traffic delays and pick a radio station with good traffic reports ( I use BBC Radio 5 ) and you should be fine.

I use Navfree on my iPhone which is a bit hit & miss not to mention it's for cars and I drive a six axle 44ton artic(!) that said, I use the nav to plot a route and then make note of any low bridges and weight restrictions (using my old school truckers atlas) and re route accordingly.

Given I'm limited by my tachograph to my driving hours, I still find it's a lot better than the days when I had no navigation aids at all and manage fine with it.

I think you'll be fine.

 

[Puzzled]

I'd say use google maps on your phone and perhaps get the updated discs as a backup.

My car has built in sat nav but I still use google maps as I find its the best at getting around traffic. Only issue with it is when you have no data signal but I go into the South West countryside without much trouble.

Get a phone holder as well, even the cheap vent jobbies off ebay can be pretty good. Charger too as the phone will run out of juice pretty quick.

For speed cameras I use CamerAlert:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pocketgpsworld.cameralert

It will overlay camera warnings on top of google maps navigation and has audio alerts too. Gives you the first database update for free and then you can choose to subscribe or just keep using the original camera list.

 

[geekman]

A good nav like the 3598 really makes a difference IMO, particularly with regards to speed cameras, live traffic and road closures. The mobile app Waze is the next best thing but I'd definitely be getting a decent nav like the 3598 if I was in your position.

 

[Scottland]

Personally I find the google maps navigation very good at ETA and traffic detecting. What it's not so good at (IMO) is plotting routes to avoid a road closure etc if it doesn't already know it's closed.


Personally I'd say try it out, get the updated discs and see how you fair.

 

[Luke_Bowman]

Honestly I'd just use Google maps on your phone if it has a decent sized screen.

You could even use a tablet if you own one for a larger screen

 

[unrealrocks]

I often travel for work, sometimes to similar offices and sometimes to unknown ones (~10k a year, as well as commuting when I'm not), and often drive into Europe - personally my Tomtom 820 has got me out of potentially massive queues I find the ~£40 a year for the traffic subscription totally worth it. I believe if you purchase the more top end Tomtoms at the moment you get traffic and map updates for free.

If you want low hassle, and guaranteed shortest route I would highly recommend a decent nav unit with proper traffic alerts, not just TMC.

 

[Conscript]

Could buy the full CoPilot navigation app for your phone?

Better than most of the free apps, but still offers a huge amount of features and is cheaper than a TomTom.

 

[amkan13]

I'd recommend waze instead of google maps, the traffic routing on that is pretty good, and has speed cameras, and best of all its free! There's a lot of users reporting hazards and incidents, and after being brought by google there has been integration of google maps traffic into the app. If it doesn't work out, I'd look to a dedicated sat nav.

 

[lordrobs]

Maybe I'm just unlucky but I found Waze to be useless for mapping. Luckily I was trying it out on roads that I knew but it would try and take me on a mile long detour because a section of road about 10 yards long was missing off the map.

I do use Google maps but I find the routing to be quite illogical a lot of the time. Maybe that is a Norfolk thing though because we only have two proper roads

When I'm touring the country a bit more I'll either upgrade my Sygic account to have live traffic at £10 a year or buy a new Sat Nav unit.

 

[IC3]

What about using a app Route 66 or Google maps+Waze?

 

[JayMax]

Thanks for the replies guys, I think I'm going to go have a look at the Garmin 3598LMT-D.
It may be expensive, but for the miles I'll be doing I want the best and most reliable solution.
If it only once gets me out of a jam and saves me a couple of hours it'll be money well spent for me.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I'd stick with the OEM nav as it's far better than faffing around sticking things to windscreens etc. You will get traffic on that unit through TMC.

 

[Demon]

Thanks for the replies guys, I think I'm going to go have a look at the Garmin 3598LMT-D.
It may be expensive, but for the miles I'll be doing I want the best and most reliable solution.
If it only once gets me out of a jam and saves me a couple of hours it'll be money well spent for me.

I recently got a new Sat Nav and had my mind set on the 3598-LMT-D as I saw too many negative reports on the latest tomtom devices.

However, after trying them out in the shop, I actually went for the Tomtom GO 6000. It was far easier to input addresses(especially when going abroad) or search for places, it had way more POIs.. Not to mention it has it's own sim-card with Map updates and HD Traffic for life (You only have to pay for speed camera updates after 3 months). It also searches online for POIs which is cool.

I took it on a road trip through Europe and it's been superb, the HD traffic worked really well, and finding addresses quickly was a breeze..

The main thing with the Tomtom has been the updates, it originally was quite featureless and got a ton of negative reviews, but tomtom have massively updated the software so just about all major criticisms have been addressed, even the Voice works amazingly well with full address input working well for the UK.

Not to mention the new tomtom front end and graphics are so much cleaner and more modern then the very old school garmin.

I paid £240 for the GO6000 with case and fast charger, and it's been worth every penny.

The main thing is the traffic, Tomtom's HD traffic is second to none IMO, way better then the TMC traffic.

Oh, I also use a small plastic disk that discreetly sticks to the dash, and mount the sat-nav to that, this avoids sticking it on windscreens and lets you place it in a more discreet location so prying eyes won't easily spot it.

 

[wez130]

I'd remove that website name snapdragon, it leads to illegal download links

 

[Duke]

As mentioned you can get updates maps quite easily. Some have the speed cameras built in or you can just download them and add them as POI which is what I did.

There are loads of firmware updates for the units as well (separate to the map updates), so worth checking that as well.

 

[atpbx]

Wave is good, but it chews through your battery like a mofo, it seems to run my HTC one at full whack as well, combined with the weather a couple of weeks ago it got so hot it wouldn't charge.

 

[Uriel]

I'd stick with the OEM nav as it's far better than faffing around sticking things to windscreens etc. You will get traffic on that unit through TMC.

But TMC traffic is utterly archaic compared to Tomtom, Google's or Inrix XD traffic. It's like recommending someone gets a PC running Windows 95 or something.

Of the 3, Tomtom has the most extensive road coverage. I'd suggest trying out the free 30 day trial of Route 66 Navigate on an iPhone or Android. Aside from the free trial, it's the cheapest way of getting Tomtom's traffic (same system as TT Go 6000 etc) and routing with fully automated hands free redirection.

As for standalone Tomtoms, there has been a problem with the Tomtom 5000 and 6000. They rely on Vodafone's 2G network which is currently having some severe capacity problems. The result is that for busy times and locations, with lots of people using satnav at once, a significant proportion of users can't get a traffic signal. This also affects older Tomtom Live units and the Carminat Tomtom units built into Renaults / Mazdas etc. Tomtom's smartphone apps and their smartphone linked satnavs (Go 40-60 and Go 400-600) are not affected.

 

[[TW]Fox]

But TMC traffic is utterly archaic compared to Tomtom, Google's or Inrix XD traffic. It's like recommending someone gets a PC running Windows 95 or something.

No, it's like recommending that somebody who already has a PC running Windows 95 doesn't instead replace it with a better PC that you have to use sitting in the garden

Sticking crappy portable things to the window is annoying and frustratingly impractical - I find it a real pain especially as you have to faff about removing it and all trace it was ever installed every time you stop for a coffee or whatever lest some mouth breather breaks in to steal it.

That said I really don't understand why TMC is so useless at times. I agree with you, it is, but I can't understand why - it's almost as if the people who enter the data can't be bothered to do it properly.

 

[Uriel]

The simple reason is that TMC tables only cover about 15% of the UK's roads at a very rough level of precision and a 15 minute update interval. There is basically no coverage of most B roads downwards so traffic rediversion is basically out of the frying pan into the fire. If you turn on the traffic layer on Bing maps you can see which roads are covered. Compare this to the traffic on maps.google.com or routes.tomtom.com in a city during ruch hour and you'll see what an enormous difference it makes.

Tomtom claim to cover 99% of the UK's roads on a 2 minute update interval. They achieve this using 'floating car data' probes (basically they constantly track anyone with a tomtom based app or satnav, plus anonymised location data from Vodafone and Apple). They also get roadworks data from the highways agency, traffic wales, traffic Scotland and TfL. The degree of precision for jam locations is down to 10s of metres where they have good data.

Occasionally Tomtom does fail to pick up closures on Local Authority controlled A roads that are covered by TMC but it's a comparatively rare occurrence. I keep badgering TT customer services hoping that they'll sort it out one day.

I don't use a window mount by the way. I use an osomount dash grip. It's an innovative suction cup design that sticks to textured dashboards.