Car Sat Navs - any recommendations?

Having got mahoosively lost on my may up to Cadwell last Thursday night, I think it's time I stopped relying on a print out of a route Google maps and my crappy Blackberry map app.

I don't have an Iphone so no chance of decent app support.

Car Sat Nav it is then. I don't care if it's not top of range, but it must be slim and easy (and I do mean real easy) to use. I don't want Euro maps and I don't need all the bells and whistles.

I just want to punch in an address or place name and get reasonable graphics and oral directions. I'm lazy at research hence the question folks?

Don't want to spend much over £50 if I can help it. Possible or do I have spend more?

Any recommendations, any pitfalls to look out for? What options do I have?

Cheers for your thoughts.

[DJ123]

http://www.ebuyer.com/265595-navman-...em-uk-mio575uk

[embee]

Not necessarily a recommendation, but noticed that Halfrauds have the Garmin Nuvi 30 at £55 on the web offers here

Basic but seems to have what you ask for. It does have lane assist (useful) and text-to-speech (i.e. it says the name of roads, not just the numbers), which is nice.

Originally Posted by embee

Not necessarily a recommendation, but noticed that Halfrauds have the Garmin Nuvi 30 at £55 on the web offers here

Basic but seems to have what you ask for. It does have lane assist (useful) and text-to-speech (i.e. it says the name of roads, not just the numbers), which is nice.

Get a Tom Tom, they work I drove across Europe with on of them and they took me right to the hotel front door in Poland. Garmin are a steaming pile of poop, I used one to drive down to the South-West I wanted to smash it into bits it would have been more useful in that state!

[tigersaw]

Have to agree that Garmin are pretty poo in the UK.
I have 2 tomtoms, I find the cheaper smaller tomtom one is my favourite

[Sir Trev]

Are you sure you want to go for the car nav? Can you upgrade your phone to Android and use the built in mapping? I decided not to have a separate unit to save wieight/clutter on the bike and have to say it works very well. Sits in the map pocket of my Bagster so I can see the directions clearly.

[Geodude]

Tomtom one version one has an earphone socket and are cheap second hand.

[NTECUK]

Phone nav drains the battery faster than anything.
Best keep it separate if you have room.
None are that good .
Mum has a tom tom . Its ok but does have a habbit of saying turn left when it means right .

[Bibio]

i agree that tomtom are better than garmin but garmin work great with tyre and almost all of them do but its a hit or miss with tomtom. both tomtom and garmin are still crap with voice directions though and you soon get fed up with the never ending prompts.

one really bad thing about garmin is the direction indicator as it keeps wanting to tell you there is a turn up ahead but its just a bad bend.

one good thing with tomtom is the maps as the road in 3d follows the curves great and you can almost drive by it where garmin is rubbish.

i prefer tomtom but use a garmin as it's cheaper and works with tyre.

one more thing. tomtom will give you a countdown from 300yds where garmin goes from .3-.2-.1ml to xxyds and its bloody anoying when your traveling at a fair old rate with close together junctions.

[Sir Trev]

Originally Posted by NTECUK

Phone nav drains the battery faster than anything.
Best keep it separate if you have room.

When researching options at Halfrauds the monkey there suggested that dedicated units only last a couple of hours on battery power alone so much of a muchness. Hooking up power is no problem - I've already got an Optimate socket which can be swapped out for a ciggie lighter job in minutes.