David Jenkins
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| posted on 4/8/14 at 02:12 PM |
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Nope, I'm confused...
For the previous 3 weeks I have been driving in NSW Australia, using my Android phone as a satnav. This was not a huge success as it gave me all
sorts of problems, such as it not knowing precisely which road I was currently on, and trying to give me 2 completely different sets of directions
simultaneously! The phone also got very hot while navigating, which is not good in that climate.
Now that I'm back home I thought that I'd see if I can get an Aussie map for my old neglected Garmin 250W (a good-enough satnav, but I
don't use it because my current car has TomTom built-in) so that I could use that instead. Took me ages to find what I wanted on the Garmin
website, but eventually found out the cost - £112 for a combined Oz/NZ map.
So over to Plan B - I look on the website for a well-known electrical retailer in Australia (roughly the equivalent of Currys) and find that I can buy
a better Garmin model for just £90, with free lifetime map updates! I can get a basic TomTom for £65, also with free updates. These may well be
older models on discount, but personally I don't care.
I just can't see how Garmin justifies the cost of new maps in the UK (apart from the 'Rip-off Britain' philosophy). Guess what
I'll be doing when I go back over at the end of September...
UPDATE: Just had a look at the cost of an Australia map for my Toyota's TomTom - £55 - which I think is much more acceptable. However, I
don't want to mess up that one as it is from my main car, and I've just got it set up nicely with the UK map (and it isn't very
convenient out of the car).
[Edited on 4/8/14 by David Jenkins]
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Slimy38
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| posted on 4/8/14 at 03:06 PM |
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Might be worth finding out how much a UK map is to purchase for an aussie device, it might simply be their standard price for a second map?
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 4/8/14 at 04:15 PM |
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Too complicated! My current plan is to go into the Aussie electrical retailer shortly after arrival to purchase their cheapest offering - it's
still cheaper than hiring a satnav from the car rental people for the length of time we'll be there.
I've just had a look at the OpenStreetMap project for their free maps; as a first test I tried to find my daughter's address, which I
would be using quite often - nope, the street was shown on the map but unnamed, so a route search would fail. Their house is probably over 20 years
old, so there's no excuse.
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