am hoping to drive down to south of france in next week or 2 in the tin top and am not sure i fancy takingpages and pages of notes to get me there so i was thinking of buying a sat nav.
i have never had one before and know nothing about them,so any recommendations for a decent one which will work in europe? and a place to buy? or is second hand from ebay the best option? cheers

To be perfectly honest, each has its good and bad points. I have a Garmin Nuvi which has been fine, but others swear by TomTom.

I'd just look for a big named one that's on special offer (usually last year's model!) and make sure it's got UK and Europe maps installed - some are UK only.

Never heard a bad thing about the TomTom range, my TomTom Go has also been brilliant.

Garmin gets my vote, but as said its a personal choice, i just cant get on with tomtom but do get it with uk and euro maps

One afterthought about second-hand satnavs - you won't know how old the maps are before you buy.

At least when you buy a new one you get a new map - or at least a free upgrade to the very latest one.

Other thoughts:
You might like to look at Navigon as well as Garmin & TomTom.
A 'wide-screen' is often easier/nicer than a square one.
Get the largest screen you can afford, but not so big that you can't put it on your car without obscuring your view!
Get a look at the display when it's in driving mode - see if it is easy to read, or cluttered.
Check out how much map updates cost (usually expensive!)

[Edited on 17/7/11 by David Jenkins]

I buy from argos, and pay a bit extra for the 3 year warranty. That way, when it is almost 3 years old and you break it, you get a refund of the purchase price, so the warranty is effectively a hire charge think the last one was £16, the latest may have been £20.
I would stick to garmin or tom tom. And avoid secondhand, honest.

Im one of them who swears by tom tom having used garmin for a short time too,

We have just changed from a garmin to a tomtom. I can't help but feel the tomtom is clunky to use in comparison, a lot more faff and so on.
However, I suspect it is just "different" and we all like what we are used to

Also with Tomtom, expensive map upgrades and apparently abysmal customer service seems to be putting a few people off lately.

recently started using tomtom on the iphone 4, works better than my actual tomtom!

I like my Navigon. Never used a Tomtom or Garmin though.

U2U. sent

........ Neil