Sat Nav / Gps

[Julie L]

Has anyone bought a sat nav whilst in the US. We were thinking of doing this instead of hiring one. We only want one for our America trips so thought that getting one out there would be cheaper than buying one from home that covers Europe and America??
Anyone have any tips / thoughts!

 

[Jakey Rowling]

Walmart have the TomTom one 3rd edition for £199 plus tax.

you would expect to pay around £120 ish here for one with UK and Ireland Maps.

A decent saving if you only want maps of the US, as they cost about £30 for the south east US or £35 for the whole US from TomTom which is what you get from Walmart.

You can always buy other European maps at a later date if you want.

There are other cheaper Sat Nav systems out there but TomTom has a good rep.

 

[sandshal]

A word of warning - we puchased a Tom Tom One in the Uk before our last trip and had all sorts of problems with the USA maps on an SD card, spent a lot of time on the support line before we departed and for the first 3 days in the US.

My advise would be to buy one in the states and then download the UK maps when you get home and have more time to mess with or if you really have to buy one in the UK then download the maps from the Tom Tom website rather than purchase them on SD card. Trouble seems to lie with updated operating software versions on the Tom Tom being compatible with pre-loaded software on the SD, and you can't really check whether its working until you get a GPS signal in the States.

Hope this helps rather than confuses you!

 

[Julie L]

Thanks for your thoughts. We are only interested in one with pre-loaded US maps - £35 for the whole of US from Walmart sounds a good offer . When we were in LA last year we hired one and i,m sure it cost about £5 per day to hire!! We dont really want it for the UK so we shall try to find a Walmart in our first couple of days!!!

 

[Jakey Rowling]

I didn't make myself clear.

The TomTom device loaded with US Maps is the $199 bit from Walmart.

To purchase the US map separately is £35 from TomTom.
If you could borrow a device before you go, you could load it with the TomTom maps.

The other option is to buy the UK version before you go and load the US maps separately from TomTom. This is the most expensive way if you don't want to use it back home.

Hope that's clear

 

[wayneg]

I bought TomTom US maps for my PDA with gps, works great. Used it in Florida, Nevada and California. perfect.

 

[Julie L]

I didn't make myself clear.



I thought that was a bargain - thanks for explaining!! Still think we will go down the route of puchasing one whilst on holiday.

 

[mikki.young]

I bought TomTom US maps for my PDA with gps, works great. Used it in Florida, Nevada and California. perfect.

I have just done that. The UK stuff works fantastically so I have added some USA maps in the Tomtom sale to use in Florida. It's cost me about £100 to get the system plus coverage for UK, Europe and USA. It's an economical way of doing it if you have a pda!