Nuvi 660 or TomTom One Europe?

Anan1

I'm going to buy a sat nav unit today, for use mainly in Ireland but also on the continent. The main things I need are good mapping and a good interface. Money no object, which should I go for?

Anan1

Anyone?

sharkman

I personally am a fan of TomTom as they seem to be more user friendly (Unless we are talking about their Cust support) .

Go in and have a try of them , I was in Harvey Normans and the Sales Guy told me that the only reason that they diddnt sell as many TT's as other units was that they had to remove the SD card from them and that people couldnt get to play with them . Seems silly to me . I suggested that the super glue a SD card in place in the demo .

digitalsnap

Hello. I can tell you my reasons for going with the TomTom One Europe but a lot of it is purely personal preference. I was considering the Nuvi models as well, primarily the 370 and 670 in order to get NA maps as well (where I'm from and travel back to).

The main factors for me where:
- driving interface. I much preferred the tomtoms' interface, in particular the way the next maneuver is displayed on the bottom left. I find it much easier to glance at that when driving and don't look at the map display much at all. I can turn the sound off completely and always know what's ahead without having to have a voice instruction repeated. The indicator shows the next maneuver even if it is very far away. I'm not sure how the nuvi handles this since it seems to only draw the arrow on the map itself. I know the nuvi displays a 'turn in x distance' on the bottom right but it doesn't seem to indicate the direction, etc. and I find the little picture on the tomtom easier to view in a quick glance.
- track log. By using a free program, the tomtom can record your track so that you can later download to a computer and do various things (google earth, etc). Maybe not important to you but I don't think the Nuvis' can do this.
- You can create a multiple stop itinerary. You do have to put the stops in the order that you want though (it won't automatically put them in order of distance, etc) and you have to mark each stop as being visited manually as far as I can tell though.
- I had read that the tomtom software handles going off course better, in that the nuvis' will keep trying to send you back to the original road, but I'm not sure if that's really true. The tomtom has good rerouting options, including avoid roadblock, travel via, and avoid part of route. I think the Nuvi has these as well but I can't remember. In the end, they're probably close enough that this isn't really a factor.
- I found the map display 'cleaner' than on the nuvi but that's a very personal thing. There are also an unlimited number of color schemes available (you can make your own). I prefer a very plain map display so that it's easier to pick things out in a quick glance (although as mentioned I tend to just look at the next maneuver indicator instead).
- portability. I bought the case for the One and it's very easy to carry around. I wanted something smaller so that I didn't have to leave it in the car and also for when walking around somewhere new (I have a terrible sense of direction!). The Nuvi 3xx's are slightly smaller though.
- keyboard interface. Two items in particular: you can use a qwerty layout (I really dislike the abcd layout) and when you start typing, letters will grey out if there are no matches. I think that both of these make for faster input.
- I got the One Europe for €299 and the NA maps were about €100 when I looked (haven't purchased them yet). In the end, aprox €400 to cover Europe and NA seemed like a good deal on top of the other reasons.

The first two reasons were really what made me go with the One (driving interface and track log). When I was looking at them in the shop, the Garmins were really pushed on me even when I said that I was just there to pick up the One (made the mistake of asking a salesperson's opinion). The salesperson told me that the Nuvi's could do all of these things as well but I don't believe that is true(?). Anyways, I'd depend on your own research to make sure whatever model you're looking at does everything you want.

Things that I thought were going for the Nuvi:
- navteq maps for NA which seem to be better based on what I've read. I'm not sure how the newer tomtom maps compare though so there may no longer be as much of a difference.
- the screen on the 6xx series seems to be much nicer. In the end though, I decided a more compact model would be better and ended up looking at the 3xx vs One.
- extra features like mp3 player, ability to use bluetooth speaker phone, audio through car radio (660FM or 670).
- better battery life. The one only lasts about 2 hours on battery which isn't great if you want to use it outside of the car. It can be charged using a usb port though which is handy.
- your symbol on the map can be a tank, motorcycle, etc. On the tomtom you're stuck with being a boring arrow. Wasn't a factor for me but just throwing that out there in case it is for you!

Besides the NA maps, using handsfree phone over the car radio speakers was the primary reason I was looking at the 670. I don't currently have a handsfree unit but in the end I decided that I don't want to talk on the phone when driving anyways.

There is a new version of the One in NA that has 1GB of internal storage instead of using just SD cards but I'm not sure if that one is available here yet. I think it also uses a different receiver so I'd check on the performance of that as well if you were looking at that model, although I'd say it'd be fine. The One Europe uses sirf star III and has a logo at the bottom. The Europe model also has the navteq maps with good coverage of Ireland. There were new maps released recently but I would guess that any model you buy now would have the v660.1256 Western Europe maps.

If looking at the Nuvi 6xx series, I would look at the 660FM and 670 to get the FM transmitter (unless the 660 is marked down enough to make a difference). I'm not sure but I would guess the 660FM would sell for the same price as the 660.

As sharkman mentioned, the tomtom interface is very user friendly and I'm very happy with the One. Hope that helps.