It's that time of year again. Given a present of a garmin years back they keep trying to get map upgrades.
When the Sat nav was new it was £150+, years have gone bye and SatNavs now cost from £60 roughly. Should the map prices not have fallen to £10/year when other suppliers give maps away with their phone apps?
What would you deem a reaonale figure and get you upgrading the maps?
PS I do not use it except in the odd Blue Moon.
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I use the Tomtom map update service, £20 a year for four updates.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 17 Nov 10 at 21:19
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TT speed cameras are £20 a year and recent offer of 6 months extra free. Garmin are £20 per country which makes most European trips pricey = 4 countries (£80) just to get to Germany
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I'd check out the interactive map on the Garmin website to see whether it's worth buying. The latest update (the third one this year has just been released 2011.30) seems to be more misplaced POIs, plus increased detailed coverage for Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Turkey; together with new coverage for French Guiana and the islands of Malta, St. Barthélemy, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion - which is stretching the definition of Europe! Meanwhile new roads in Spain are taking 3+ years to appear after opening, and reporting errors to Garmin/NavTeq is a waste of time
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How much do roads change over a year? Not a lot, I'd wager...
My old TomTom still gets me there eventually - maps must be at least 4 years old now.
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I like my Garmin which is now 18 months old but have to agree that the map update pricing is ludicrous, I can't believe that anyone falls for it so have to question whether the service makes them any money (I guess it must do since they haven't reduced the prices).
IIRC they offer a GBP 99 lifetime map update subscription but even this seems pricey given that it's tied to the device, it seems to me that were it to be transferable amongst Garmin devices then I might be tempted to replace my current Garmin device with another one when the time comes, as it is I'll get whichever manufacturer's device offers the best price/features when it wears out.
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I really like the integral satnav in my Citroen but use it as an aid rather than the absolute authority so over the 3yrs I'll keep the car I'm not paying the high charges to update the map SD card.
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I've currently stopped using my Garmin in favour of a satnav app on the phone.
I know we've done to death the disadvantages, but the advantages in map making on this app are excellent, as the maps can be altered by users directly on the main servers down the web, and it propagates to the phone client.
Indeed, I added a road only yesterday on the web, and today it's on everybody's phone app, so this morning it gave me an improved route.
And the whole thing is free.
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This is quite diabolical as many sat nav apps are now coming free of charge in smart phones.
TBH, you don't lastest map always. They should work fine at least 2-3 years.
Last edited by: movilogo on Thu 18 Nov 10 at 10:36
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>>together with new coverage for French Guiana and the islands of Malta, St. Barthélemy, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion - which is stretching the definition of Europe!<<
Well, yes but, oddly enough, no.
They are all (except Malta!) part of the French DOM/TOM - Dominions et Territoires d'Outre Mer - overseas dominions and territories. It's weird, most of them are like ordinary French departements (counties) with French TV, postal services, gendarmes, senior French civil servants and teachers on secondment, etc, etc. Their doings even feature on ordinary French domestic news programmes.
If the UK still did this (instead of having a nice friendly Commonwealth) there would be an international uproar about imperialism but the world in general seems to have missed the fact that France is still what amounts to a colonial power.
Anyway, after that digression...
Who in their right mind still pays huge money for updating outdated gps systems? The existence of a built-in satnav system in a car a few years old might well be enough to put me off buying it because it would be a constant irritation.
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They work forever but they are inaccurate, even on the date the update is published
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>>>The existence of a built-in satnav system in a car a few years old might well be enough to put me off buying it because it would be a constant irritation.
Actually at the point of buying a used car with integral satnav the update cost may not be such an irritant compared with the car's asking price... and a good bargaining point too.
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Typically choosing 2 year leases for my company cars I always marvel at some of my colleagues' willingness to pay thousands of pounds over the course of their (usually longer) leases for options like satnav and leather, only for it to be full depreciated by the leasing company over the period of the lease - whether it increases the residual value or not. Satnav would never put me off a second hand car but I wouldn't be prepared to pay a penny extra for it.
You can take your phone / Garmin etc on holiday or into a rental car......
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Plenty of maps on the Torrents.
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Garmin map updates - £75 - Old Navy
