car sat nav question(s)

[Dave_S]

OK
off to florida soonish with the family and have decided to buy a sat nav system which we will obviously use in the UK to find more obscure dive sites

but

i want to be able to download/buy a disc map of Florida transfer it onto a SD card for use in Florida.

1st question
which sat nav system - i'm being advised Navman/TomTom/Garmin are the best three buy various people [all of whom have an interest in my buying one of those] does anybody have any recommendations
we use TomTom at work which i've always found to be faultless and Garmin i gather is massive in the USA so would seem to make sense to have that there.

2nd question
where do you go to download a reasonably priced map Garmin seem to be quoting £100 for a map of the whole USA & Canada [i only want to not get lost in florida]

many thanks

Simmo

[dct]

Not specific advice, but read in a pc mag that navman have stopped support, inc new maps, for products they were selling only in 2006. Tomtom support all their products. It also mentioned costs new maps between the two were vastly different, in tomtom favour.

Me, i use my nokia n95, every map free, the whole world. It's not as good as a dedicated system in other ways though...

Dan.

[dry suit diver]

tom tom just for the support though.

if you can afford it then a cheap bluetooth enabled PDA/multiphone thing with tom tom as a standalone program then you can take advantage of the offers from tom tom and later on use it as GPS on a boat with a waterproof housing ( £10 for a 3m rated bag from cameras underwater) and cut your own maps from admiralty charts for a small fee.


Pocket GPS World is a good starting point for all the right advice

[Hickdive]

I wouldn't bother*, your car-rental rep will try and sell you an upgrade, just insist that if you do upgrade, it comes with a sat nav. You might even find your car comes with sat nav as standard.

*i.e. I wouldn't bother bringing my own sat nav but they are definitely extremely useful in Florida.

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by dct

Not specific advice, but read in a pc mag that navman have stopped support, inc new maps, for products they were selling only in 2006. Tomtom support all their products.

No they don't but I still upgraded the unsupported TomTom 5 on my PDA to one of their newer all-in-one systems because I wanted all of Western Europe.

This was because it had worked pretty flawlessly for years.

[madscuba]

I had navman but had a lot of trouble tracking satalights even with the booster arial and i never had heated screen and i was almost at my destination before it found them.
I now have a tomtom go 520 and totally recomend it its a great piece of kit
Hope that helps

[Treerat]

I use Tom Tom on my pda phone.

This can run on any gadget that supports window based applications, IPAQ, smart phone, PDA etc- it also means only one gadget to carry and I don't run the risk of leaving it in the car.

I can then download any maps required or buy electronic maps that Tom Tom can read.

Works for me.

Andy

ps - can you drop the suit in - I need it in a week on Friday