As a rule of thumb, the older the device becomes, the longer it tends to take to calculate your route. The speed the GPS calculates your route is also something to bear in mind. It can be very annoying sitting in the car waiting for your GPS to find your location, particularly if you’ve just loaded the kids into the car! Any parent will sympathize with having to listen to “when are we going to get there” on a seemingly eternal loop! It’s also worth considering how quickly the sat nav obtains a satellite lock onto your position. This could make the interface a little more difficult to navigate and understand – making them perhaps not the best Christmas gift for granny! Some devices come with a huge range of options. The route bar on the side of the screen provides information in a cyclical manner – current time, estimated time of arrival, etc The graphics and onscreen icons are clear and easy to understand – exactly what is required when your driving those busy roads. The TomTom on the other hand, is not so clean a display, but it does provide more information to the driver when traveling. In my experience, the Garmin interface is a little more intuitive and easier to use. The searching, finding, and the calculation of your route is fairly straightforward. To be honest, despite having different methods, both of their interfaces do the basics well. It is possible to specify avoidance of toll roads and or motorways etc. Once you have chosen your destination, the device will calculate the best route for you to take. In both cases, you begin entering an address and the device will prompt you with potential matches. How easy is the sat nav to use? There are differences between the user interface of the Garmin and the TomTom. ResultĭRAW – both Garmin & TomTom have a range of devices that should suit all budgets Ease of Use

If, on the other hand, you are looking for a top of the range offering (with an in-built dash cam) then the Garmin nuviCam 6-inch Sat Nav With Built-in Dash Cam could be just up your street. If all you want to do is type in the address and get going, then a device like TomTom GO 50 5-inch Sat Nav should be sufficient. Then as a next step go and find a device that provides value for money and gives you the features you want. ” Let’s be honest, there’s not much point in looking at those top of the range devices that cost around $400 when you only have a $100 to spend.Ī more sensible approach would be to decide on your budget. How much do you want to spend on your sat nav? Both Garmin and TomTom offer a range of devices that will suit most budgets. This is far more important than having a top of the range GPS device. The best sat nav should be easy to use and provide the driver with clear and easy to follow navigational instructions. Both TomTom and Garmin produce quality devices that are fairly similar in their offering. In all honesty, whichever brand you end up choosing you probably won’t go too far wrong. Here are a few key questions that may be helpful to consider when making your decision.īetter at some things than TomTom, but, the reverse is also true – TomTom is better than Garmin at other things. Garmin has the DriveSmart have produced the As no two devices are the same, perhaps the sensible approach is to concentrate on what your actual requirements are for a sat nav. How, then, can we fairly compare the two manufacturers given that they both produce a number of different GPS products? Also, adding to our difficulties is that they both produce a number of different models within the same range. Okay, perhaps this isn’t the best example as most GPS devices today have a Bluetooth function, however, hopefully you get my point! As an illustration, not everyone will require Bluetooth integration with their auto GPS, whilst others will find the lack of Bluetooth an absolute dealbreaker. Some factors will be far more important to some people than others. We place different levels of importance on various items when making our purchasing decisions. How then can we decide which manufacturer is better? Garmin or TomTom? BackgroundĪs consumers, we all take different factors into consideration when comparing products. Our task of deciding which is better Garmin r TomTom isn’t easy! Each of these devices, however, have different features, sizes and price points. They both produce a number of different devices that provide the core function of getting you to where you want to go. Between them, Garmin and TomTom produce the best sat navs available on the market today. We have used lots of devices from both of these manufacturers over the years, both as a consumer and as a reviewer, and it’s still a rather difficult question to answer.

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