Car satnav - Garmin or Tomtom?

[Monsieur]

Going to cost me £60 just to upgrade mapping on my nuvi 250.
I quite like the look of the lane assist models - but do I stick with garmin or move to tomtom
I need...

• full EU mapping
• speed camera alerts
• reliability

What do you think

 

[the large one]

No Contest

No Contest!!!

 

[Monsieur]

No Contest!!!

Really helpful

 

[NAB]

No Contest

Really helpful

No Contest, Garmin.

 

[beemerboy9]

It would appear that Tom Tom introduce the wizz-bang features one step ahead of Garmin.
Having said that, I shall remain loyal to Garmin at the next upgrade - they have given me exemplary service in the past.

 

[Monsieur]

It would appear that Tom Tom introduce the wizz-bang features one step ahead of Garmin.
Having said that, I shall remain loyal to Garmin at the next upgrade - they have given me exemplary service in the past.

Must admit that Garmin's service is what is swaying me to stay with them. I've had two quest's, a zumo 550 and now a nuvi 250 and when I've had an issue their service was first class.
Do garmin do lane assist with car satnav's?

 

[IainMac]

Facing a similar quandry and it appears that garmin have bluetooth connectivity at a lower price band than Tomtoms if thats important ?

 

[Tank]

Garmin all the time for me too.

Google 'Garmin Lane Assist' it shows the models available with this feature.

Garmin have also been first class with any issues I have had in the past which to be honest in 7 years of using various Garmins I have only ever had one issue and the unit was exchanged with no hassle at all.

 

[KTMmartin]

Just got a Garmin 1340T. Utterly disappointed - worse than useless. Why? You can't force it to avoid a specific road - only a detour it decides. So if the road is blocked with traffic, and it doesn't realise, tough. Honestly, completely useless.

 

[Schtum]

Just got a Garmin 1340T. Utterly disappointed - worse than useless. Why? You can't force it to avoid a specific road - only a detour it decides. So if the road is blocked with traffic, and it doesn't realise, tough. Honestly, completely useless.

Am I missing something here....? You do know that you don't have to follow it slavishly, don't you....?

It's not so much a problem with the GPS unit as it is of driving in the over-crowded hell hole which is the Sarf East of England. However, if you find a road which isn't quite so congested, just take that and the unit will re-route you to the destination you've selected.

 

[beemerboy9]

Just got a Garmin 1340T. Utterly disappointed - worse than useless. Why? You can't force it to avoid a specific road - only a detour it decides. So if the road is blocked with traffic, and it doesn't realise, tough. Honestly, completely useless.

A good point - traffic rerouting is only useful if the information being received by the SatNav is accurate and up-to-date.
Not so much a problem with Garmin, of course, as with TrafficMaster who provide the information.

Does anyboby know if TomTom LiveService is better than Garmin in this respect?

 

[Tomcat]

A good point - traffic rerouting is only useful if the information being received by the SatNav is accurate and up-to-date.
Not so much a problem with Garmin, of course, as with TrafficMaster who provide the information.

Does anyboby know if TomTom LiveService is better than Garmin in this respect?

I bought my Zumo 550 with the Garmin FM traffic receiver to use in the car but TBH, the Garmin traffic info is close to useless. The problem is that it is so often wrong - eg showing complete closure of the M4 when there was no problem at all - that I mostly disregarded the traffic info. Then on the occasions when it was correct I ran into a jam . The 550 is unbeatable on the bike, but for the car I bought a TomTom Live HD Traffic - think it was about £170, inc maps of Europe. The TT HD traffic is way ahead of the the Garmin - much more detailed, and almost always correct. It updates every 3 mins or so, whereas the Garmin updated every 30-40 mins. The only downside is that you pay a monthly sub of about £8.

Oh, and the TT allows you to avoid specific sections of a route too, which the Zumo doesn't.... The TT also gives a very good estimate of journey time in the car, whereas the Zumo figure is pure fantasy which seems to be based on the assumption that it is possible to travel at the legal limit on all roads at all times!

My advice is Zumo for the bike (if you want to pre-plan routes) and TT for the car.

 

[sven]

My ex had a Nuvi 210 and the routing was illogical at best and rubbish at worst - I much prefer Tomtom products as they always seem more intuitive and user friendly. My Tomtom Rider v2 has been faultless both on the bike and in the car.

It's slightly conservative on the ETA as I normally knock an hour off my home to London times in the car, but my Garmin 2610 used to be the other way and was far too optimistic unless your name was Lewis Hamilton

 

[swissrob]

tomtom is far easier to operate and you can customise the info bar on the screen how you wish, on the garmin there is no option and it only displays "time to destination" which is useless. It would be far better to have distance to destination as on tomtom( garmin needs few screen clicks to see this info).

halfords seem to just push garmin for some reason.

i prefer tomtom to garmin since owning both makes.

 

[HMR]

tomtom is far easier to operate and you can customise the info bar on the screen how you wish, on the garmin there is no option and it only displays "time to destination" which is useless.

Please don't make statements about issues you don't understand.

Some Garmin models are, by far, more customizable than any TomTom. Some models are not.

On Zümo 660 you can select among several infos to show in the corners on the screen. On 276C/278 you can select between about 40 different things to show in each corner. Altitude, voltage, clock, speed, ETA, time to A, distance to next turn, time to next turn, distance to target, etc, etc, etc.

On most Garmins you can customize map appearance, vehicle icon, city label size, etc, etc.

This doesn't mean that TomTom is a bad choise. But please don't make misleading statements.

 

[JASONBC]

Must admit that Garmin's service is what is swaying me to stay with them. I've had two quest's, a zumo 550 and now a nuvi 250 and when I've had an issue their service was first class.
Do garmin do lane assist with car satnav's?

If service is an issue and you've had all those garmin units for what ever reason wouldn't it be time time try something else they're all reasonably new units
I've got 2 a tomtom510 faultless for road riding and a garmin gps60csx faultless for offroad riding