hevs

Oh. Really.....maybe sonar would be more useful

Kim67

Love my Tom Tom, hate my Garmin.

Alfresco

Yep even the bats get lost around here with all the road changes.

paulry

EvannTel

We go to Margs a lot so dont really need the sat nav (Garmin) but the other week it happened to be on and told us to turn left at Sues Rd between Capel and Busso, With some trepidation we decided to obey and it took us a really nice back route avoiding all the small congestion.

Fab

Cheetah7

Tell you one thing, never ever ever will we rely on GPS for long journeys ever again. I have never been able to read maps - I dont know if it is to do with my dyslexia but I struggle with map reading and directions.

Our Tom Tom ran out of battery on the way down, it had the recharger in but ran out, my Garmin couldnt pick up signal but luckily we had printed out a map from google.

On the way back the Tom Tom decided we should cut across the Bunbury Highway - yes straight across and turn into a field, it kept saying 'sharp right' for about 30 mins, When there was an opportunity to turn right, Mr PP said 'do you think we should'.

Visualising us going back on ourselves down that bloody highway, I checked Google maps on my iphone and said nope, we are going in the right direction. (My GPS couldnt get a signal until back in the suburbs)

We did get home and only 20 mins later than planned but someone once said to me that map reading skills and gaining a good sense of direction along with a good journey management plan are worth ten times more than a GPS and its vital to have a sense of direction and know where you are according to a map.

Slowly I am learning to map read and this basic knowledge served us well both there and back when the GPS didnt, although would welcome any tips from any BE'ers that could help me do this

For short journeys (local), I can see its uses but for long journeys, my god map reading supercedes it for me and I will deffo do a JMP for each and every journey and will never rely on a GPS ever again.

Kim67

I agree finding your way around with GPS is great. I hardly use it, but my husband uses all the time and doesn't know how to get anywhere without it. But we hired a car in Thailand in October and did a two week driving holiday (Bangkok to Chiang Mai and back again on different routes) - couldn't have done it without the GPS, it was brilliant. Even the small country mountain roads were in it - we would have definitely gotten very lost in some places without it.

paulry

As new arrivals in Australia our stress would have been far greater without one

GarryP

Thought I should mention here that Target are doing the 4.3" screensized Navig8r GPS for $99 until the 2nd Feb.

http://target.dynamiccatalogue.com.a...=&pageview=two

This uses the iGo Primo software and NOT the Sensis maps, which makes it my pick (I've never liked TomTom or Garmin).
http://www.igomyway.com/igo-primo

Kim67

Yep, I couldn't have lived without it in Dubai. Traditionally there are no actual addresses in Dubai, most suburbs have their streets numbered, so for example you'll get a suburb that's split into three numers, Al Safa 1, Al Safa 2, Al Safa 3 and then within that you'll get the streest 1a, 1 b, 1c, 1d etc etc. If you ask for a street address nobody knows them - they pick a landmark and say it's near that and you just have to wing it from there. Even with a GPS when we first arrived, some places took a couple of hours to find.