Essential Reports

Choosing a

Satnav

Our top-scoring portable satnavs How satellite navigation and traffic management work

TESTED

BEST BU YS
INDEPENDENT EXPERT ADVICE YOU CAN TRUST

Inside

Letter from the editor
Welcome to the Which? guide to choosing a satnav. The satnav is rapidly becoming ubiquitous it seems that every other car has one sprouting from the windscreen. If youre thinking about joining the stampede for satellite navigation, we provide the information you need to buy the best model, whether you just make the occasional trip or regularly drive through Europe. Whether its giving advice on setting up your TV or choosing the right camera, Which? gives you all the facts you need to make the decision thats best for you. We test more products more rigorously and in greater depth than anyone else, so you can be sure that youre getting the best information available. And we cut through the techno-babble to give you clear, no-nonsense advice thats easy to understand. But the most important thing about us is that we are totally independent. Nobody pays us we take no advertising or freebies, and we buy all our products at full price, just like you. Were funded by consumers, for consumers. So we can tell it like it is and give you the straight facts good or bad. Neil Fowler Editor, Which?

Contents

03 How to buy
We check out the different systems on offer so you can make the right choice What to look out for when buying a satnav, and how the system works Ten satnavs that passed our stringent tests with flying colours
09 Full satnav test results
All the satnavs we tested with prices and scores Putting the machines through their paces on the road Whats coming up for guidance-gadget lovers Common questions answered We look at the best of the mobile phone satnav combinations

04 Features explained

10 How Which? tests satnavs 11 New technologies 12 Satnav FAQs
06 Which? Best Buy satnavs

14 Mobile navigation

About Which?
Which? is a non-profit-making organisation that aims to make consumers as powerful as the organisations they deal with in their daily lives. Which? campaigns to get a fairer deal for all consumers on a wide range of issues, tests more than 2,000 products a year and publishes the results of this rigorous testing and expertise in a wide range of magazines and books, and through an online subscription service and new digital store. Which? is entirely independent we take no ads or freebies and pay full price for everything we test. As a result, Which? is the number one independent source
Independent expert advice you can trust
of buying advice in the UK, with more than one million customers. services that achieve the highest results after rigorous testing by Which?.
WHICH? DONT Dont Buys BUY These are products

Best Buys

Which? aims to help you choose the best goods and services. The nationally WHICH? BEST recognised Which? BUY Best Buy is awarded only to products or
that perform extremely poorly in one or more of our key tests, or that achieve very low test scores.
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Full satnav test results

Price () Score Price () Score

SATNAVS

BECKER Traffic Assist 7926 BLACKBERRY 8800 (sim free) CLARION Map 670 CLARION Map 770 CLARION Map 370 GARMIN Nvi 200W GARMIN Nvi 300 GARMIN Nvi 610T Regional GARMIN Nvi 660FM GARMIN Nvi 760 GARMIN Zumo 500 Deluxe (motorbike) HP iPAQ rx 5900 Travel Companion LG LN505 MIO C320 MIO DigiWalker C220 MioMap v.3.3 MIO DigiWalker C520t MioMap v.3.3 MY GUIDE 3100 NAVMAN F20 Europe NAVMAN S30 ----------------------------------------------------------
NAVMAN S70 NAVMAN S90i NOKIA 6110 Navigator (Sim-free) NOKIA N95 (Sim-free) (Nokia maps)

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Jargon buster

I BLUETOOTH KIT By pairing a Bluetooth device such as a mobile phone with a compatible satnav device, you will be able to receive traffic updates, make handsfree calls, have text messages read aloud, and transfer MP3 music files. I FM ANTENNA A wire antenna attached to the windscreen with a sucker, which receives traffic updates from Classic FM radio transmitters. See p5 for how it all works. I POINTS OF INTEREST (POI) Interesting or useful sites. POIs include petrol stations, cashpoints and speed cameras. You can search for POIs close to where you are, or near a specified location. I SCHEMATICS A schematic is a pop-up window that magnifies the details of junctions or roundabouts so you can see where you should go in more detail. Schematics appear next to the map view showing your overall direction.

NOKIA N95 (Sim-free) (Wayfinder maps) --RAC Sat Nav 200 ROAD ANGEL Navigator 6000 ROAD ANGEL Navigator 7000 ROAD ANGEL Navigator 9000 SNOOPER S600 Syrius Plus SONY NV-U82 SONY NV-U92T TOMTOM Go 520 TOMTOM One 3rd Edition TOMTOM One Europe/Regional TOMTOM Rider Europe (motorbike) VIAMICHELIN Navigation X-960 VIAMICHELIN Navigation X-970T ---------------------------
All prices correct at time of publication
Wish you were here? Touring Europe with a satnav
We sent a selection of Which? readers abroad, to see how they would get on with European mapping. Most found the satnav useful for touring and sightseeing, but generally not as reliable as when in the UK.

France

I MODEL TESTED TomTom Rider (---) I TRIP DETAILS Touring in southwestern France on a Kawasaki 1600 Classic Tourer motorbike, covering 1,500 miles in two weeks I BEST BIT The TomTom calculated routes quickly and was brilliant when it was correct I WORST BIT When it got a route wrong, it got it wrong big time.

Holland

I MODEL TESTED Road Angel Navigator 7000 (---) I TRIP DETAILS Tour of the Netherlands I BEST BIT The mounting cradle I WORST BIT In Europe, it was unable to get us to our final destination.

Europe

I MODEL TESTED Honda Accord Tourer with factory-fitted Honda/Alpine satnav system I TRIP DETAILS Touring through Europe towing a Stirling Eccles Jewel caravan, covering 2,600 miles I BEST BIT The large screen and the way it can track your position when the satellite signal is lost I WORST BIT It lulls you into believing its always right, which stops you thinking about your route.

Norway

I MODEL TESTED TomTom One Europe (---) I TRIP DETAILS Toured Norway covering around 2,000 miles in two weeks I BEST BIT Being able to explore areas not on tourist maps while having the confidence to get back to our destination I WORST BIT Slightly slow reaction times in the city where there were multiple slip roads coming off the main carriageways.
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