[amber3279]

I am just about to buy my first sat nav system and have no idea which one to go for. I've been looking at the garmin nuvi 250 W as that is about the price range I'm after, up to £150. I've heard tom tom are a bit unreliable?
Any advice for me??

[hermitd]

well i used to have navman (same maps at tom tom) and i have garmin 250 now... and i am impressed. i have travelled around europe and its been a great asset. with garmin you can either choose to enter postcode (worked in portugal and poland) followed by street name and house number.
alternatively you can just choose to view the map... use touch to scroll around (zoom in and out) and just pick the location (if it can't find the street and you know its whereabouts from internet maps).
i haven't used tom tom but i would rather now prefer garmin to anything other pna

[Jamz]

Ahh the big Garmin, TomTom debate....

TBH there isn't much in them... TomTom has its advantages and Garmin has its own advantages.

In your basic Garmin satnav you get, full postcode lookup, street name, house number (takes your right to the door)... Points of Interest near you or in a city.... Speed camera locations (fixed camera) and thats basically it (Garmin are a more basic satnav)

In the basic TomTom range, you get all the above and you get extra functions such as diversion (if you find a roadblock you can re route yourself for 1-3 miles around the block, great for motorway accident traffic) you also get to use the TomTom as a road atlas scrolling around the country selecting roads and things like that.

TomTom release updates pretty much once every couple of months, which will update the firmware on the unit. There is also more for the TomTom as to voices and add-ons then there is for Garmin.

TomTom do take a lot more to maintain though... Need to keep on-top of the updates, and make sure you make a backup of the WHOLE satnav as soon as you take it out of the box, as sometimes the TomTom can crash (nothing a plug into the computer and a restore can sort out)

Garmin don't release as many updates, and you are stuck with the one voice.

I'm nit picking here, as they are both great units! I get to play around with both of them all day every day, and i couldn't decide between the two (which is why i have a TomTom and a Garmin - Only because of one of my websites)

Hope that helps you a little

[ronlizpatsimon]

I have had a Garmin 250 for a year. Generally it has been excellant. However; the maps are not as up to date as one would wish. I recently travelled extensivly in France for 5 weeks. There were many roundabouts and newish streches of road which were not on the Garmins map. My own UK road (built 6 years ago) is not on the map! I have heard that the Tom Tom maps are more up to date.

[Jamz]

TomTom or Garmin do not do the maps for their units, they buy the maps of other countries, so they have to wait for the other company to do the mapping.

TomTom do have a nice little app called MapShare, which allowes its users to submit road changes to the TomTom server, and allows other people to download these updated maps.