sat nav (gps) with bluetooth

kkhurler

Can someone recommend a good sat nav or gps (not sure what the difference between those two is) but with bluetooth .;)

mrmac

Sat Nav, or Satellite Navigation, usually describes a unit found in a vehicle (bike, car, boat), while a GPS (Global Positioning System), can be any kind of unit (vehicle or hand held). It doesn't matter which one you use, both are correct.

There are two main manufacturers of Sat Navs, TomTom & Garmin. There are others, but I'd stick with one of these. I've used both, and they are both great, very little between them. For personal reasons, I've decided to stay with Garmin. I just prefer Garmin over TomTom, so I can tell you about the Garmin stuff. Someone else can fill you in on TomTom???

Oh, whichever make you choose, please pick a widescreen one, 4.3" across the diag. You will thank me later for this! All these units are widescreen.

Garmin units with Bluethooth:
215WT
760
765T, 775T - use a better quality A2DP bluethooth tech.
865
1310T, 1370T, 1390T
1490T
1690T

Each unit has slightly different features, so is there anything else you're looking for that may narrow down the selection?

nimbinsurfer

Hi mrmac I'm also looking to buy a Sat Nav with bluetooth you seem very knowledgable!have you tried out any sony models was looking at the Sony NV-U73TW have you any experience of this? Or which of the Garmin range you have mentioned are in the €150 - €200 range?

mailforkev

Recently got a Garmin Nuvi 275T, around the €230 mark from the UK (via the interweb). Good savings to be had from UK at the moment.

Might not be the fanciest unit in the world but has everything 95% of people will ever need (incl. Bluetooth) and comes with maps for Ireland, UK, Europe and the US. I imagine if you could live without the US maps you'd pick up a lesser model for 200 sheets or less.

mrmac

nimbinsurfer wrote: »

.... have you tried out any sony models was looking at the Sony NV-U73TW have you any experience of this? Or which of the Garmin range you have mentioned are in the €150 - €200 range?

I've tried 'em all at some stage! Sony, NavMan, Route66, AA, RAC, iGO8, Navigon, Becker, a few others I can't remember! I haven't tried that model of Sony, so I really can't tell you much about it.

In general, the actual unit themselves, are fine. They'll all work, and the very most of them work very well. You may find you'll get loads of features for less money than a similar TomTom or Garmin. :eek:

However, what I'm really interested in is the maps, and the ability to keep these up-to-date, at a cheap enough price. It has been my experience, that when dealing with any other supplier, other than TomTom or Garmin, I've had problems of all sorts. In the long run, and for an easy life, I'd personally only recommend dealing with either TomTom or Garmin. Sorry if that isn't what you wanted to hear, but perhaps someone else can tell you about the Sony.

The best features of that Sony are, bluethooth and lane assist. These features, and a shed load more, can be got in the Garmin 765T, currently available for £170 inc. delivery from Amazon.co.uk. This unit used to be twice the price, but they brought out the new 1300 series, (uses microSD, and much less features), so the prices on the 765T fell sharply. It's a bargain, and should still cost less than €200.

mailforkev wrote: »

Recently got a Garmin Nuvi 275T, around the €230 mark from the UK (via the interweb). Good savings to be had from UK at the moment.

Might not be the fanciest unit in the world but has everything 95% of people will ever need (incl. Bluetooth) and comes with maps for Ireland, UK, Europe and the US. I imagine if you could live without the US maps you'd pick up a lesser model for 200 sheets or less.

The 275T is a great sat nav, which come with the full maps of the US, which are expensive. I think the 775T and the 1370T would be the widescreen versions, but you won't get one of these for under €200.

So - go for the 765T, it's the upgraded 760T which won all sorts of awards in 2008.

HTH

mrmac

Opps, I should point out that I was wrong when I said the 765T was £170. That's the price using the UK VAT rate. If you try to buy it, Amazon uses the Eire VAT rate, and the price increases to £179.60. Still free shipping though.

Just figured this out myself tonight, as I've just bought another one as a xmas pressie!

nimbinsurfer

cheers mrmac, you do know ur stuff. u can call urself mr. sat nav from now on!:D