Hi all,

I am in need of a new satnav as my old trusty one was misplaced. I have now the option of getting a 4 year old model (Garmin 760, which was top of the range at that time) from a friend or buy a brand new model with all the latest bells and whistles.

Not really sure whether the new models offer that much more than the old ones?

What would you do?

cheers...

depends how old the maps are in the 4yr old one, if they are also 4 yrs old then forget it

I would buy an android phone plus car mount and charger and install a satnav program on it.

careful with that... I've got TomTom downloaded to my iPhone and on the last update they said they something the the effect new updates will not be available for Iphone 4 ( hopefully this will only affect software functionality and map updates will still be available.. but who knows )

well regarding the maps .. I can update them..Garmin offers 2012 maps for 59 euros...it's really more about the functionality.

got an iPhone 4 with TomTom as well...but really wanted something more permanently installed in the car.

really?.... why?

personally.... apart from this latest update issue I think it's great... I've even used the TomTom feature when walking around strange cities.

a new gps can be had for not much more then that

does this 4 yr old one have TMC? that would be the only thing that would swing it for me

oh I see it does have tmc

So the question is how much is your mate selling if for, baring in mind you can buy a new windows ce based median one from aldi for around 150chf that will have the latest maps and that you can easily download tomtom, igo etc etc from the internet for it.

TMC ..... "The Movie Channel" ?

traffic message channel, picks up traffic information from the radio and warns you about it, plots it on the map, diverts you round problems etc

Is broadcast heavily throughout france, not so much here, a bit in the uk etc etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_Message_Channel

I always get a lot of TMC info. here, on my Medion - basically everything put out on the different radio stations' traffic reports.
Particularly useful in winter relating to which roads, passes, etc. are closed and effected by snow.

Also good coverage in DE - and with auto. divert, I have avoided a couple of snarl ups.

agreed, but actually picking up the tmc stations here can be challenging, but when it does finally lock on you do get quite a bit of info. I had to buy a bigger areal for mine, otherwise I could go the whole journey without it managing to pick up the tmc signal. But france seem to transmit on every station and every single little incident is on there, even been warned about water on the road up ahead lol

Swiss TMC is useless it only appears hours after the event. To the OP just download the latest maps for free from gpsunderground

Never been a problem, but I have a wire aerial, suction padded around half the windscreen.

That's more the fault of the radio stations broadcasting reports well after the event.

I used to find the same with radio traffic reports in UK - anything other than on-going, long term problems were always well 2nd-hand by the time they hit the air waves. I always headed for the site of the problem, because I knew most others would be avoiding it and snarling up the alternatives, and most likely all would have been cleared by the time I got there.

garmins are not wince based so hacking them won't be easy, if possible at all, the maps on gpsunderground are usually just for the wince version that you can buy to stick on any pda, wince based phone etc, not the actual garmin hardware.

thats just from memory, I have an original garmin, had a quick look at hacking it and decided it wasn't worth the grief

eta

Garmin has never run on Windows CE. They have their own proprietary operating system which they've never revealed very much about. Some of the new models (800 and 5000 series) run on a Garmin-modified version of Linux.

Best to look again it takes me ten mins to convert a genuine locked to a specific unit garmin map to a universal use on any garmin map .

There's a lot of RDS-TMC all over Switzerland, with excellent coverage

I'm very happy with my Nuvi 2460LMT. I got it from mediamarkt on sale for 259chf a few months ago. I guess the cheapest around now is 267chf which is still a good deal.

I had a Nuvi 360 for 5 years then I upgraded to this.
The features I like best about it, which the 360 was missing, are:
- lifetime map updates
- big screen
- voice command
- split-screen junction view
- lane assist
- shows speed limits
- the power cable and tmc antenna plug into the base, so you can just remove the gps from the base and take it with you without having to plug/unplug wires.

http://www.toppreise.ch/prod_238213.html