We recently returned from a trip to the South of France and Northern Italy and I took a TomTom 910 GPS unit along for the ride. This thing is simply marvelous. It is prelaoded with maps for all of Western Europe and the Americas and it lets you set up a variety of voices (in several languages!) to guide you around flawlessly. It also has a real time speedometer which is useful when the average sppedo reads 4 MPH off. Our rental Peugeot 407 had a GPS unit, configured to speak French, naturalment, and it did not have detailed maps of anything but major cities. The Tomtom however was perfect with excellent instructions in convoluted places like Florence where the streets make no sense at all and little towns like Pisa where some of the streets are inaccessible to cars. It is portable and battery driven, so it can be taken on walking tours as well. Having used it, I really believe there is absolutely no reason to ever order a factory GPS unit anymore. This unit is so superior to the lousy graphicless units offered in Ferraris and it beats the poor maps in Mercedes. It was the only unit I found that was already complete with all the maps. I guess some of the other brands offer additional maps as downloads post purchase but this solution worked great for me right out of the box.
HI Alex- I'm glad you guys had a great trip-that TomTom sounds terrific. How much was it and where did you get it? Regards to Roxy and the boys
Hey i just bought a Tom Tom 910 last week, for my trip across europe in a F456 to get to Maranello. They are a great piece o kit
Prior to my recent sojourn to Italy I bought the magellan 760 and found it equally amazing, although not a battery powered model. It has many languages, touch screen and stores information like a built in computer, except for gas info, of course. It was acurate everywhere but a few rural towns in Sicilia. Every time I though"that cant be correct", it was in fact correct, even down to the correct lane to board the ferry boat in Massina. It was not as good as my built in units for restaurants etc, but if you cant find a restaurant in Italy w/o gps you are a poor thing.
ive got the tomtom 710 and it's top-notch..more accurate positioning than anything else i've used [i.e. it won't tell you to turn after you've already passed where you need to go -- it'll tell you to turn about 100 ft before oyu need ot turn, and warn you well before that, so you can position yourself accordingly]
Hey Lonnie. Hope you're all staying cool in the Florida Sauna. The Tomtom is really wonderful. I found it at Circuit City for around $800 - worth every penny and more if you consider that an optional factory GPS in most cars runs north of $2,000!
Tom Tom is awesome. I was first introduced to it on a trip to the Netherlands in 2004. I bought one for my wife so we could avoid the whole Spiccoli "I'll drive, you navigate" scenario. Those Dutch are very crafty - it even warns you when you are approaching photo radar speedtraps on the highways (at least in the Netherlands, where the Tom Tom originated).
I have been using the Garmin iQue3600 for several years now and it has been great. http://www.garmin.com/products/iQue3600/ I believe the Garmin model has been replaced with a newer version. The iQue also acts as a PDA and has a spot for a memory card for extra storage. Garmin supplies a lot of maps for the iQue, but you have to pay for them. When mine bites the dust I will take a look at the TomTom.
