GPS - Garmin versus Tom Tom

[ElfyX]

we have tom-tom...and think its been one of our best buys...only thing is mr elf doesnt like the womans voice.....he said he does'nt want a woman telling him wot to do!...... elfyx

[BartyB]

Jul 21, 2011 23:46:18 GMT 1 Ali said:

iPhone, Android - how do you know which is which - what are they?

Only iPhones are iPhones ...... all other smartphones use either Android or Windows

iPhones use there own Apple operating system., not used by any other phones.

Android is an operating system developed by Google and is available on lots of phones from ones that cost £100ish to flash phones that cost £500 and more

There is also a Windows operating system for phones, that's available on the same selection of phones (more or less) as Android.

[Ali]

Poor ElfyD ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D don't tell him he can change it then

Ta Barty, so Fli has a Samsung touchy feely phone, guess thats 'android' but how would we know?

(PS I dont use mobs anymore, had nuff of that over there )

[BartyB]

unless he specified that he wanted a windows phone, it's probably Android......
Does it have Google maps installed and use Chrome as the browser?
also if you find the "settings" or similar screen, that should tell you

[Ali]

Had a first time fiddle with it this morn and yus it's android. Cant get web tho so paps thats to do with the sim cards (virgin and sfr). Thanks Bart - phones have changed a lot since my old works Nokia

[BartyB]

If he doesn't have a data contract then you won't get data (web email etc)

[Elkay]

I've still got my old works Nokia I can txt and talk to people on it - what more could I want

[Bunty]

Grumpy old things that we are we still the old fashioned map

[Madame Moorhen]

According to the Terminator there's another thing that's not anything that Barty mentioned and that's what he's got.

My phone is lovely and doesn't do anything except phone calls, I can't even text on it (don't know how) and doesn't take photos either. It folds in half, looks really cool and I wouldn't change it for the world.

[The Terminator]

Yus, I have a Nokia N97 which runs on the Symbian operating system. This is one of the four main OS for mobile phones (the others, as bartyb said, are iOS from Apple, Android from Google and Windows Mobile from Microsoft). I chose the N97 cos it has a slide-out minikeyboard, and I'm an old-fashioned cyborg... otherwise I'd have gone for an iPhone.

Ali, you can prolly browse the web via WiFi if his phone has a WiFi chip on board -- I do that with mine, and pick up email etc., even tho I don't have a data contract with my SIM card.

As for Garmin versus *$€£%!!! TomTom, I've never tried a Garmin. The TomTom takes an age to download map updates (you always have to download the entire Western Europe map again, it seems) and the device crashes quite often when transferring the updated map to it. Then you have to reboot the device, then download the blerdy map again... aaaaaaaaaargh!

If you have a TomTom, always back up the device to your pooter before downloading any updates, just in case it crashes. If it crashes repeatedly when you're updating, either bin it (my preferred option) or hold down the on-off button for about 5 secs until the device resets to factory settings. You'll lose all your favourites etc., but at least you can download the map update, then restore your favourites from the backup. Did that, and it now seems to be behaving itself during updates.

My phone has Nokia Maps, which is free, as are all future map updates. You tell Nokia Maps to take you somewhere, and it plots a sensible route. With TomTom, you can pick "fastest route", which takes you a million miles out of your way to find a stretch of dual carriageway where you can do 130 kph for five minutes; or it takes you the "shortest route", which means down any cart track or bridleway it can find in its database. It sucks.

In short, when SWMBOMA is in the car, we use the TomTom, when I'm on me tod, I use Nokia Maps.

-- Da T