On 09/11/2010 12:09, Steve Firth wrote:

I have both TomTom on a smartphone and a Garmin satnav. In the UK it's a
50:50 thing. I can't find anything to recommend one over the other. In
Italy it's a clear win for the Garmin, not least because the TomTom
interface is bloody fiddly to use compared to the Garmin and because for
some reason TomTom maps seem to be permanently wrong compared to the
Garmin. I can route using the Garmin to the multitide of small farms,
restaurants, hotels and B&Bs located on "Strade Bianche" in Italy.
TomTom sort of gets one vaguely into the area then gives up. The
postcode database in Italy and the UK also seems suspect. The garmin
will, using postcode alone, get me to within around 100 metres or so of
the destination. TomTom does some bizarre things including taking me to
the industrial estate next door to the one where my customer is located
(i.e. completely the wrong postcode).

We had an interesting experience in Spain this year with a borrowed
Garmin Nuvi. The pronunciation was ... interesting. To the extent that
when it said a road my wife and I both looked at the screen to try and
work out what it meant. And it reckoned that all the numbered roads in
Asturias were in American Samoa, while all those in Castilla e Leon were
in California. AS-nnn abd CA-nnn - must be states?

On the other hand, the actual navigation was pretty darn good.

Andy