It’s my birthday on Monday, so my family have decided it’s time to replace my rather long in the tooth TomTom Go520 (with Truck mode hacked onto it), and have bought me a Navman Panoramic
Got it this afternoon, so only had a brief chance to play with it, and not tried it on the road yet. First impressions seems good; It has an incredibly long, strong screen mount which is double articulated, with a ball joint on the end, so adjustment looks like it will be simple. The power cable clips into the mount bracket, so one movement attaches the device to the mount and connects the power. The unit itself is slim and light, but it has a MASSIVE screen - 7" diagonal measurement! The touch screen needs a much more positive press than my TomTom, but it clicks reassuringly on each press. The menu system and options seem pretty intuitive, and it was easy to setup my Truck dimensions and preferences.
I’ll report back more later in the week, when I’ve tried it in anger - but as long as thr routing lives up to my expectations, then it seems a bargain. £130 new in Halfords, plus an extra £70 for a permanent Truck mode subscription, so £200 all in.
Anyone else tried one of these? What did you think of it?
Personally…I don’t rate Navman…Each to their own. A report would be good though. I got a Tom Tom start 20 Full Europe for my birthday off Mrs Vern. I said I’d never buy another Tom Tom, but this one is the dogs danglies so far!
Connected unit up to the PC, with the (bundled) software installed, to make sure it’s running the latest OS and maps. The software is a bit clunky, but works okay, so I ran a full backup, then checked for updates. OS update went on fine, then a restart. Map update available - v10.10 on the unit, v11.09 available for download - so clicked to download. Download speeds from the Navman servers were painfully slow. I appreciate it’s a 1.6Gb download, but my 30Mb broadband normally manages 500kbps downloads with no sweat. I was lucky to see 120kbps from Navman…
Not to worry, I thought - it’s only a once a year update, so a slow download won’t matter too much. And it eventually completed. So, I click to remove the existing maps, and install the new ones - except the internal memory is insufficient for the latest maps. 1.42Gb available, and 1.6Gb needed for the whole of Europe.
It’s not a major issue, as I rarely drive abroad (and never for work, just leisure.) So I’ve just removed Norway, Sweden and Finland, and the rest just squeezes on. It’s not terribly impressive, though, that a brand new unit marketed as having full European mapping included, can’t fit the whole of Europe on it’s internal memory, and would need a MicroSD memory card added (which is not included in the cost).
It would normally fit on but the truck data on the maps you downloaded would push it over the memory on the device so as newer roads are on there this should explain it
A good quality 4GByte MicroSDHC card costs very little now - probably no more than £7 or 8. Still, as you say, it’s a shame that Navman have scrimped so much on internal flash memory.
djw:
A good quality 4GByte MicroSDHC card costs very little now - probably no more than £7 or 8. Still, as you say, it’s a shame that Navman have scrimped so much on internal flash memory.
Aye - I have spare SD cards, and I have no pressing need for the whole of Europe to be on the satnav right now - just, as you say, a shame that brand new unit advertised as having the whole of Europe and Truck Mode, actually can’t provide that out of the box, with the latest maps.
I’ve got the smaller version with the 5 inch screen. Bought it just after new year updated it there and then. Activated the truck mode evaluation and it still hasnt expired. I don’t think the display is as good as Tom Tom but for the price I cannt complain. It does seem to try and keep you on motorways as much as possible though
nedflanders:
vern that tom tom start you got is that just the car version am i right ?
Yes mate. I sold the Garmin cos’ it did start playing up a bit(Fixed before selling!) And my Mrs topped up the difference for the new one. It has 42 Full European countries on and Partial coverage Romanian/ Russia/ Ukraine. I didn’t want a sat nav with too many gadgets this time. They always seem to clog up the system.
So far I’m well chuffed. It’s mega accurate. Maybe I’ll get to use it over the water one day!
I never knew Mio was the same company as Navman. On the Mio website it seems you can download the same truck mode to any of there satnavs. The mio sprint 480 is only around £70 so with a truck update downloaded you can have a trucknav for around £140 which actualy routes around low bridges and not just warn you. I will send them an email to make sure all there satnavs are compatable as i only need a 5 inch screen.
1.42Gb available, and 1.6Gb needed for the whole of Europe. 