GARMIN SAT NAV # 2

Hendo · Guru

GARMIN SAT NAV # 2

Cruising Granny · Guru

I've had 2 Toms. The first one was just way out of date, so I upgraded with another Tom. Upgraded but a little out of date, but I persevered until the heat wave we had last summer seemed to have cooked the LCD (liquid crystal display).
So I changed to a Garmin 42. It's very basic and not as much detail as Tom display screen, but I'm coping.
All I've been told by the "experts" is don't do Navman. Something to do with reliability and accuracy.

MollyW · Veteran Member

I am a professional driver and I love my Tom Tom. His name is Ken he is an Australian !! I bought him over 15 years ago and he is used regularly.

Olley46 · Guru

MollyW wrote:
I am a professional driver and I love my Tom Tom. His name is Ken he is an Australian !! I bought him over 15 years ago and he is used regularly.

I was a professional driver and I have a tom and his name is Ken to and he is an Australian to he is about the same age,I wonder if they are cozens,and he has been a good boy over that time.

Lance C

nano · Member

Personal opinion only but based on experience of all three brands, my first unit was a Tom Tom, very fiddly to use and completely failed during the first day of use. Next was a Navman, ok but not very user friendly. Recently bought a Garmin 2797 which I have found very easy to use and the 7 inch display is great as It only needs a quick glance to view distances, speed limits, turn instructions etc. I bought mine from J.B. hifi, they seemed to have good stocks.

03_troopy · Guru

Had a Navman My75, excellent unit until the battery finally died after a few years, so I tried TomTom. Found it to be very basic, and not as many functions as the Navman of similar price. I tried a Garmin for a day, because of the great screen display but found awkward to use and not as many functions as the Navman. Took the Garmin back and swapped it for another Navman, the MyEscape II. Works great, accuracy as good as any other and you can load your own custom POI files. I only wish it had the glass display like the Garmin though.

Kisha · Senior Member

I was using a Garmin on my way to Jandakot airport about 2 years ago, it was telling me to take the next exit left, there was no exit left just a paddock, maybe there will be a road there in the future. Though its clarity of voice and graphics were fabulous......Kisha

scooner · Veteran Member

hi i have a navman my60 also a my85 had the my60 3yrs no problems ,my85 had 1yr no problems not got lost yet

Vic41 · Guru

Regards Garmin GPS, I have the Nuvi 1450LMT with Lifetime Maps, see my thread here on General,

http://thegreynomads.activeboard.com/t57513580/hats-off-to-garmin/?page=1#lastPostAnchor

Mark M · Member

We used a Garmin 2455 for about 3 years and then upgraded to a NAVMAN My Escape 11 prior to heading off from Brisbane to Vic for a month. Got to Coffs Harbour and put the Navman in glove box and got out the old Garmin. Very disappointed in the Navman, reason for buying it was because you can load info such as towing a caravan and it also has 4x4 tracks loaded. Didn't get to see if those functions work! If you just want to go from A to B it would be fine, but if you need to know where next fuel or rest stop are then be prepared to manually use the touch screen lots to find this info out. Then when it does show you what is in the area it stops tracking your journey and keeps an image of where you were when you last pressed the screen. My old Garmin also shows altitude which is came in handy when towing the caravan over the snowy mountains, no such info on the Navman. I thought maybe I wasn't using it correctly so I called Navman but found out that all was working as it is intended. My old Garmin shows fuel/rest stops etc on screen as you travel, very disappointing that the My escape can't do this. I had also loaded CAMPS 7 onto my old Garmin which was another reason the Navman didn't come back out of the glove box. I suggest you write a list of what you would like you GPS to do/show you on screen and go from there.

03_troopy · Guru

Mark,the Navman can show fuel, rest stops, banks, supermarkets etc etc. on screen as you travel, if you select them in the setup screen, and I have camps 6 loaded on mine too. They show up as icons on the map as you travel. I used to also have Auto Parts shops, Aldi supermarkets, Big Things Australia, plus heaps of other POI's, I downloaded from various sites, onscreen too, but it gets a bit cluttered so much easier to only have them loaded but not displayed. You then use smart word search when you want to find particular POIs in the local area. Plus the with the Navman, you can setup 10 or 12 (I forget which it is) waypoints and optimise them so that they are arranged in a logical sequence to travel. Great if you like to do the garage sales on a saturday morning.

If you don't plan on using your Navman MyEscapeII, would you send it to me so I can put one in the wife's car as well. :)

Another thing, never rely on sales staff to explain the details of any In Car Navigator you buy (very few actually know what they can and can't do). Do your research, then go looking and play with them instore. They may get a bit p*ssed off at you, but if you're spending upwards of $300 on an item, you wan't to know it does what you want it to. I took a couple of different systems on the understanding that if they didn't perform as required, i'd be bringing them back to the store. JB-HiFi didn't have a problem with that.

Mark M · Member

No one would be more pleased than me if my opinion of the Navman is all wrong. So, I'm going to give it another go and start from scratch. If it doesn't workout it will be coming to your wife, via airmail.

cheers

03_troopy · Guru

Mark M wrote:
No one would be more pleased than me if my opinion of the Navman is all wrong. So, I'm going to give it another go and start from scratch. If it doesn't workout it will be coming to your wife, via airmail.

cheers

Hahaha.. Hopefully you will be more impressed with your Navman on your next play with it mate. Read the documentation and play with all the functions to check it out. Good luck with it. ;)

I downloaded a heap of POI's from a site called POIDB and loaded the into the Navman, but I found that many of the POI's for things like Businesses and shops and tourist attractions were already available and could be found using "Smart word search" It's just a shame it doesn't have a better screen like the higher end Garmins, although it it quite readable unless you get full sunlight shining on it. Oh yeah, the voice operated command doesn't seem that great either, but my wife says I mumble anyway.