Becker Sat Nav Feedback please!

Do-more

I recently had my Garmin Nuvi 300 stolen and am thinking of replacing it with a Becker 7977.

I've used various different Sat Navs in the last year (Mio, TomTom, and Opel and Ford in-car units) and have found all of them to be superior to the Garmin in different ways.

In particular I don't like the address input on the Nuvi 300 which keeps all letters of the alphabet active all the time. The others look up the database of addresses and "fade out" letters which can't be used next. This greatly reduces the possibility of hitting the wrong letter with your finger, something that often means you have to start from scratch again with the Garmin.

Another thing that the other units do better is to forewarn the driver about what lane to be in coming up the roundabouts etc. The Garmin has no icon to display the upcoming roundabout, you are relying solely on the map display which may not show the roundabout detail until it is too late.

The prevailing speed limit is not displayed on the Garmin either, something that I have found handy on other units.

Of course the downfall with the Mio and TomToms is the use of teleatlas maps which in some cases has left me with fields when I was driving down some side roads.

Of course no unit is perfect but the Becker, which uses Navteq maps, does seem to tick an awful lot of boxes. At €234 delivered it offers widescreen display, bluetooth handsfree, lane assistance etc.

As you can see I pretty much have myself convinced (with the help of some feedback from Ircoha) but I'm still open to all opinions!

Everyones 2 cents appreciated.

Do-more

No one got an opinion on the Becker? Or want to leap to the defense of the Garmin?

Krusty_Clown

As the saying goes 'If you haven't got anything positive to say, don't say anything at all'. Buying a Becker means that you will be part of a club. A very small lonely club.

Joking aside, I'm sure the functionality is there, and at a good price, but there's a reason nobody has responded to your thread (or more interestingly this thread). It's because few have purchased them. I would do a search on this forum, and pm any of the other boards users who have purchased them before, and ask them for their opinions.

I'm on my third Garmin and agree with you about the shortcomings you've listed. Address search is painful, it doesn't list speed limits (but to be frank, these can't always be trusted as in reality, they change so often).

Not sure what you mean about the roundabouts. When I approach one on either of my last two automotive GPS's it would zoom into the roundabout and indicate which exit I should take. As for which lane I should be in, that's a rule of the road, rather than something you need help with on your GPS (unless you're talking about the Sandyford Industrial Estate, which bears no resemblance to anything in the rules of the Road!).

I continue to buy Garmin, because they're extremely reliable (for me), interface extremely well with my PC, have a strong community and use pretty open standards (GPX/TCX).

As to your original question, I've never seen or used a Becker. Maybe that says it all.

Do-more

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

As the saying goes 'If you haven't got anything positive to say, don't say anything at all'. Buying a Becker means that you will be part of a club. A very small lonely club.

Joking aside, I'm sure the functionality is there, and at a good price, but there's a reason nobody has responded to your thread (or more interestingly this thread). It's because few have purchased them. I would do a search on this forum, and pm any of the other boards users who have purchased them before, and ask them for their opinions.

I'm on my third Garmin and agree with you about the shortcomings you've listed. Address search is painful, it doesn't list speed limits (but to be frank, these can't always be trusted as in reality, they change so often).

Not sure what you mean about the roundabouts. When I approach one on either of my last two automotive GPS's it would zoom into the roundabout and indicate which exit I should take. As for which lane I should be in, that's a rule of the road, rather than something you need help with on your GPS (unless you're talking about the Sandyford Industrial Estate, which bears no resemblance to anything in the rules of the Road!).

I continue to buy Garmin, because they're extremely reliable (for me), interface extremely well with my PC, have a strong community and use pretty open standards (GPX/TCX).

As to your original question, I've never seen or used a Becker. Maybe that says it all.

Thanks for the reply.

Updating maps is done directly from the Navteq website rather than from the Becker website. (I've answered the other thread)

I take your point about Garmin being the biggest community, but that IMO is down more to their marketing spend (and navteq maps) rather than the product being the best available.

As regards the roundabouts my 300 didn't zoom in on roundabouts as I approached them, maybe higher models do so or I didn't have the settings right. I normally had the unit muted, so many times I didn't know which exit it was telling me to take until I was on top of the roundabout. On other units I have used even if the upcoming roundabout is still off the display an icon indicates which exit is to be taken so that you have plenty of time to get in the correct lane (as per the rules of the road;))

It does appear that earlier Beckers had a clumsy interface but this years models seem to have a nice interface.

The biggest problem Becker seem to have is a lack of retailers here, reviews of the 7977 on German websites rate it very highly.

Guess my best bet is to find a bricks& mortar retailer with one in stock so that I can see a demo.

Krusty_Clown

Do-more wrote: »

I take your point about Garmin being the biggest community, but that IMO is down more to their marketing spend (and navteq maps) rather than the product being the best available.

From my perspective, having been a customer for a few years, it's more down to their products' suitability for purpose (and Navtech maps). Also, their customer support reputation (not their customer service phonelines!) and as I mentioned, their support for open standards. There is a large community of third-party (and amateur) mappers, who create maps based on Garmin formats. Some of the maps I have used:
Shannon Waterways
Scottish mountaineering contour maps
EmeraldIsle contours peaks and summits
Beijing City Map (try and find a map elsewhere for Beijing!)
World Map (Garmin).
etc.

Do-more wrote: »

Guess my best bet is to find a bricks& mortar retailer with one in stock so that I can see a demo.

Dublin:
http://www.icesecurity.com/
http://www.safesounds.ie/

Portadown:
http://www.audioadvice.co.uk/

ircoha

Updates
Just looked at the website: upgrade is 149 euro: the unit cost me 159 with version 1.0 in March 2008:)

I am told that Garmin updates are free, is that correct?

Road blocking.

Just back from Spain where the suggested route to the apartment was through a garden centre:)
The Becker offers the option of blocking a road so it redoes the route but the blocked road is not stored in the unit so once you turn it off the blocking is removed. This is a pain.
Is that a feature of the garmins also?
Thanks

Krusty_Clown

No, Garmin updates are not free. If you purchase your Garmin GPS receiver after a newer update has been made available, then you can upgrade to that update for free. After that, they are around 75 euro each.

As for the avoidances, yes, Garmin units have this feature (my two Garmin receivers have anyway), and the avoidances are non-volatile (they remain after you turn off the unit).

ircoha

Thanks KC for the info:
in passing what Garmin units do you have?

With Garmin, is it possible to upload user created positions from the pc using a Garmin provided interface: there is no such interface with the Becker and the coordinates can only be input as ddd.mm.ss.sss as opposed to ddd.dddd which is the way google presents the lat long
I find this link useful for conversion.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html

podgeandrodge

a mate got the becker 7977 and i took it for a test down the country.


He has never had a sat nav before (so nothing to compare it to) and is very happy - especially with bluetooth function whose built in mic is more than adequate.
I have the Airis T920 to compare it to. Having used the 7977 for a day I still prefer the Airis for the following reasons (these are only first impressions)

The 7977's screen seemed cluttered with too many icons that I would prefer were hidden in a menu somewhere

The voice guidance had a couple of annoying features - instead of saying (like my Airis, don't know about Garmins) "In 300 metres please turn left" the Becker said "Please turn left in 300 metres". Now this may seem irrelevant but when you don't know where you're going and you hear the first part of the phrase "please turn left" and you happen to be at a left turn it panics you. The positioning of the "in 300 metres" at the beginning of the sentence in the Airis is far more helpful. Granted, when you get used to the Becker, you will probably get used to the fact that it is going to give you enough notice therefore the "please turn left .." is never going to be at the time of taking the left. But.....

The missus was holding the Becker in the passenger seat as I didn't borrow the holder. Thus I noticed that, when I blared at her to show me the screen to see the map, the screen is very reflective and has to be pointing right at you to be clear. The Airis (and others?) could be viewed from more forgiving angles.

Some roads were coloured in the same colour as the route direction on the Becker which was a tad annoying. Again, I don't know if this applies to other brands but it ain't on my budget Airis.

Finally, and this applies to most sat navs, including the Becker, Garmins and Tom Tom's AFAIK, I didn't like the search facility. The Airis uses Route66 software which has a search facility I believe is called "fuzzysearch" - in other words you have one search line to enter data into and it will throw up all the relevant results from that search. No messing with "street number" , then "town", then "post code" etc unlike the Becker. Now I know that some people prefer the more specific address entry so it's a matter of taste.

So it didn't convince me to upgrade my Airis as of yet. (Note that the new Airis models have moved to Teleatlas (I think) so that's put me off going with a new Airis as well!)

Only had the Becker for one day so apologies for vague comments.

parsi

I have a 7926 and a Nuvi 250. The routing is identical. The becker maps are paler colours. However the becker does show the next 2 turns on the main screen - with the Nuvi you have to go to a second screen.

It's fast, reclaculates grand, good volume and clicking on the turn icons will repeat the instructions. The english used for instructions _seems_ to be more fluid and conversational. Entering addresses is handy with the predictive text.

Regarding map updates - it seems they are payable but Irish maps are quite stable now so this would be less of an issue.

At the end of the day (like) go for whatever gives the best bang for yer buck.

edit: the beckers come with a years speed camera subscription from navigon.

Krusty_Clown

ircoha wrote: »

Thanks KC for the info:
in passing what Garmin units do you have?

Garmin Quest - Since sold on to someone else.
Garmin Zumo 550 - For navigation on motorcycle/car, hiking etc
Garmin Forerunner 405 - for running/training, but also use for geo-tagging.

ircoha wrote: »

With Garmin, is it possible to upload user created positions from the pc using a Garmin provided interface: there is no such interface with the Becker and the coordinates can only be input as ddd.mm.ss.sss as opposed to ddd.dddd which is the way google presents the lat long
I find this link useful for conversion.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html

It surely is. You can use Garmin's proprietary software package MapSource to upload locations in a wide variety of Grid/datum formats. The package could be better and it could be worse.

mondeo

I have my Garmin and I think it is pretty good. I have a TomTom also which is groovy! Alot more fun to use. I'm not afraid to go astray and try a becker even of they are cheaper.

Those new Sony Satnav's look cool. I would take one of those with my own money!