[mrdini]

Hi,

I'm thinking of getting a sat nav, perhaps a Tom Tom (but TBH, I have no preferences).

A couple of features that I'd love to see would be...

*) As I live in London, traffic avoidance would be awesome. However, as I understand it, the majority of traffic info (RDS-TMC, Trafficmaster & suchlike) are restricted to motorways, & A roads - which is kinda useless for roads in London. My friend mentioned IQ Routes, which sounds almost exactly like what I'd want. But how good is it?

*) Since I have a MX5 I'd love the ability to get nice B-roads recommendations, instead of defaulting to motorways. A bit like the Navigon "Scenic routes" option. (How well does that work anyway?)

I don't really have a budget in mind, but since I notice a basic TomTom ONE with IQ routes is £150~, I guess that's about what I'm happy to pay. I notice that it doesn't have a SD card slot - would that be much of an issue?

TIA!

[mrdini]

No-one has any comment on traffic info on sat navs in London....?

[Sunil]

The IQ Routes system does not know anything in real-time about traffic on a particular road at the particular time you are using it, but it does take into account what average speeds were for drivers in the past going to your destination at the particular time/day of the week you are driving.

For real-time traffic info you'll either need the TMC receiver (about £30 one-off fee), or subscribe to one of the LIVE services.

The SD card facility is only really useful if you want more than one map on the satnav, or want to store music/photos on it.