The dedicated in car satellite navigation device looks to have has the shortest life span of many bits of technology as the humble mobile phone slowly eradicates the need to have gadgets apart from your GPS-enabled smart phone in your pocket…Or does it?
Using your smart phone as a sat nav is great for trips around the UK. You can charge it up as you need using a cigarette lighter or just letting it do its thing for shorter journeys. You know that using it as a sat nav means that you aren’t going to accidentally pull up at a petrol station that went under in 2011 as the information is kept constantly updated; unlike perhaps the sat nav you bought way back when unless you purchased a subscription along with it. The Android handset has Google Navigation built in and this gives you up to date traffic information along with your route. IoS users should make do with the TomTom app, but it costs almost as much as a dedicated device at 39.99 for UK and Ireland maps. This option is better than trusting Apple maps, that’s for certain.
But what about when you go further afield? A driving tour of the villages and vineyards around Rome sounds great, especially with cheap flights to Rome available from budget airlines, but can you really afford to pay the roaming charges on your mobile phone bill as you drive around the beautiful countryside? Not just that, but unknown lanes that wind and veer off over big drops can be difficult to manage if you are just using your small touch screen phone. You need to be able to concentrate on the road when driving on the other side!
There are lots of dedicated sat nav devices which you can use over on the continent. For a cheap option, Binatone do a sat nav that has no frills but which comes with European Maps for the same price as the TomTom app on your mobile phone. All dedicated sat navs will also have better mounting systems so that they don’t slide off the dashboard like a mobile phone will.
TomTom is one of the more well known sat nav brands and that is for a reason. While pricier than your more budget end of the spectrum, the Start range comes in at around £80 and for that you can feel the difference in quality. For the European driver, TomTom Go Live 825 comes in at a whopping £199.99, but comes with live updates for road and traffic all across Europe.
[Photograph by Gareth Simpson]