Someone was telling me today "Tomtom is absolutely useless in Portugal". I know nothing about these gadgets, but am thinking of getting one as they drop in price.

Any thoughts, anyone out there?

I have a tom tom
And it works well in Portugal if the program is loaded
do-not think there is a sat.shield over Portugal

Depends which model you buy, you have to do a bit of research and you can sometimes find coloured maps which show the coverage you get in different countries.

My husband has a Tom Tom One Europe and it is pants! Only shows main roads and not the detail we needed.

Have you looked at a Garmin Nuvi 660? They are good, I'm going for that one when I get enough spare cash.

G

I have a Tomtom Go710 sat nav with Western European maps version 7.15. This gives excellent coverage of all of Portugal that I have been in. There are various versions of the maps and some of the older ones are pants. Also you can get UK maps with major roads of Western Europe. These are not very good for use in anywhere but UK as they are what they say on the tin, only the major roads of europe.

Hi,
I was over in Portugal recently and my ViaMichekin X970 with all europe was excellent. You can use ViaMichelin on the web to get instructions on how to get from A to B and the beauty of their sat navs is that you can download directly from the web onto the sat-nav.

Dave

Navteq supply the best grained maps of Pt, so if your satnav has their maps in it you'll be OK.

Okay, so what about the locally grown offerings? I notice that Lidl and Aldi have sat nav offers, has anyone any experience with them? Logically (but perhaps incorrectly) I would have thought they'd be more accurate.

Both shops are good value for money.

Hiya I live in Portugal and have a TOMTOM GO 700 with a new version of european maps downloaded on it. I live in the Alentejo & drive down to teh Algarve to work & work all over the place!!

Couldnt manage without my TOMTOM & the wonderful voice of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth guiding me through each work day! (you can obtain different choices, aswell as language preferences so should you want to improve your directional portuguese then you can for free!)

I love it! Life is great, uncomplicated, you can just listen to the instructions, save favourite repeated destinations, do advanced route planning, i.e from x to y how long will it take..? The estimates are brilliantly accurate, can phone home to get the kettle on & be there for hot cuppa. The main roads in Portugal are fabulous to drive on, ie can actually drive at recommended speed limit with ease unlike UK car parks!!!

Have had a different model in the past which was hopeless, cannot praise TOMTOM highly enough for ease of use, accuracy & 100% doing what it is supposed to do, get you there easily! Have no experience of lesser known models, but GPS systems, like most things are not all created equally!!! Boa Noite & bem viagem x

Hi there

I am coming out to the Algarve and have a TomTom ONE system - currently loaded for the UK - could you let me know what the disc is called for Portugal or would I download it from the net? Loved your message - glad to hear you are enjoying living out there - hope to hear soon
Cathy

I used my Garmin Nuvi 250W when in Portugal recently and it worked a treat. The European maps were pre-loaded and seemed to be very up to date.

Tim.

You could always borrow one from a mate!!
TomW

Cathy22 - you should be able to load the map for your TomTom from the net. There is one that covers Portugal and Spain. I have the same model as you and recently successfully downloaded the France map. Mine is quite old, relatively speaking, and the Portugal map at that time could be purchased on a separate memory card but unfortunately they don't do that now.