On Wed, 03 Feb 2016 11:21:46 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

On 02/02/2016 22:38, T i m wrote:
On Tue, 02 Feb 2016 21:30:34 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

On 02/02/2016 20:42, Chris French wrote:
snip

Google maps on my phone will tell me were I am

...and does turn by turn navigation on mine as well

As does mine but daughters (later) Garmin Nuvi also describers the
name or designation of the road you are supposed to turn into and has
better 'lane control', handy for use on motorways (when some of the
road signs may not be pertinent to your immediate need to take the
left or right lane).

google speaks the names of roads as well, as do later versions of Tomtom
I believe...

Makes sense. Yes., I know Google maps do that because we thought it
was a bit quiet because we hadn't actually tapped 'Go'. Then she
wouldn't shutup (as it was all local stuff). ;-)

Is it only me who would be happy with 'Clockwise' or 'Anticlockwise'
on roads leading onto the likes of the M25? I may be very aware that I

Indeed, I would much prefer that to the radio announcements that say
things like "M25 northbound" etc!

Yup, ridiculous. Thinking on though I wondered how many people don't
have the mental map of the country in their heads and who may not even
realise the M25 was a ring? There are also some people who have to ask
which way to undo a tap or a nut. ;-)

need to go clockwise but don't know if I want Heathrow or Luton, when
neither are on the M25! ;-(

I'd like to add I think TomTom v Garmin is nearly as bad as Windows V
Linux or Cats V Dogs. I've never liked the TomTom marketing and
everyone I been with who has one seems to be beholden to what *it*
wants to do. One, and older guy got frustrated with his TomTom and
asked me what I'd got and went a bought the same (the Garmin Nuvi).
Much to my surprise, he found the Garmin 'brilliant' (his words) and
gave me the TomTom to 'play with'. I think it's still on the shelf
where I put it. ;-(

Can't say I am that partisan... I have an old Tomtom (GO 700) that works
well - nice clear voice, works as a handfree for a phone as well. Plus
it has maps for all of western europe built in - so no dependence on a
data connection.

Ok.

On the downside its not got any real time updates on
traffic, like the current models. Not used a Garmin in the car (although
have used their eTrex for walking etc).

Yeah, I guess you really have to compare like with like (model / age /
price spec wise) but from my experiences so far, more seem to complain
that their TomTom sent them the wrong way than Garmin users did (only
a tiny survey of course). [1]

Maybe TomTom attracts the less technical user (their marketing / TV
ads seem to support that) and so maybe their 'typical' users doesn't
investigate the routing settings or somesuch?

I love my old Garmin GPS V as it has a fully programmable display. Say
it can display 100 different fields (like altitude, dusk / dawn, ETA,
current speed, max speed etc) and you can choose what combination you
want on each display screen.

As these units have become more common / cheaper they have also been
simplified (from my POV) to be more 'user friendly' and therefore some
of the things I might find useful (like current lat / long) hidden, if
available at all. ;-(

I guess that's also why I generally / still refer to such things
(especially the portable jobbies) as 'GPS units', rather than 'Sat
Nav' as my early ones didn't have any autorouting type navigation,
just a generic 'Go that way' pointer. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[1] It used to amaze me how many people simply don't update anything
.... from GPS maps, system firmware (inc PC BIOSs) or their PC OS's
(when it's often the first thing I do when given some stuff to play
with).