Garmin Streetpilot i3

[jimdiesel]

Afew people have suffered from lock ups on 2.70 I still have a copy of 2.50 which was completely stable. So if you do have poblems I can email it to you.

I have not been anywere yet with the 2.70 to test it.

On the forum in www.pocketgps.co.uk some guy called MAFT has created loads of other POIs to download (Essentials like Burger King, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Weatherspoons etc). His POI files also contain the bmp icons for the speed cameras. All you need to do is rename the bmp files to match the csv speed cam files and bingo the correct icon appears on screen.

[dazdot]

I'm glad you are happy with it.

The garmin is my first sat nav unit so it took me a while to choose what to go for, then i read Jimdiesels review, looked at the unit in the shop and purchased straight away. Not looked back since, not encountered any mistakes with the navigation or the speed cameras. Totally impressed.

[Ari]

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I've discovered that the whole of Europe (maps) can be purchased for about £30 and downloaded online from Garmin.

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Thats brilliant, that makes it Europewide for under £200 total cost!

[NewNiceMrMe]

Just a friendly warning here - as Jimdiesel has mentioned above - there are definately problems with the v2.70 software. My unit has locked up 4 times this morning when entering new favourites and stuff.

I need to 'downgrade' to v2.50.

[GTiMK5]

Chris,

Just out of interest what version maps did yours come with mate?

Cheers

[NewNiceMrMe]

It's come with v7 maps. I've been reading up on this and it turns out v8 maps are on the I5 as standard and that this might be a reason for the units (I3) being discounted so heavily right now.

However, one of the online forums on Pocketmaps quite rightly points out that as with paper maps, v7 will suffice for 99% of roads and occasions. The replacement for the I3 is meant to be about £240 too, so I'm delighted to take this saving on the I3 whilst it is available.

[GTiMK5]

Thanks for that. Completely agree, there wont be much difference and any version becomes out of date in a short space of time but as you say only a small percentage of it. Was just curious as some have received V8. I have one on order but am not in the UK at the moment so will have to wait and see what version it has.

[NewNiceMrMe]

Right, I've now downgraded to v2.50 (cheers Jimdiesel) and everything is running without a hitch.

Just a word of warning though....the downgrade meant I lost all POI's but much more to my annoyance...the 29 favourites I'd spent an hour or more putting in yesterday! Argh!

The v2.5 comes with an updater that reminds you you're about to go back to a previous version and then it asks you to confirm you want to proceed. After that is was plain sailing. The POI's have then been reinstalled.

Job done now.

[jimdiesel]

Glad its sorted Chris.

Ive just been out, and on a short test journey 2.70 seemed OK. But I think I will swap back to 2.50 just to be safe. How do you install an older software version. All the updates I have done have been fully automatic, so ive never selected which version to install.

[NewNiceMrMe]

Download v2.50, open the directory that you save it to, then run the 'Updater' program. It'll ask if you want to go ahead and replace the newer version with the older one - hey presto.

[NewNiceMrMe]

I thought my new little guardian angel deserved a mention today.

See, it's guided me without a single wrong turn to a location in the back of beyond near Falkirk. What an absolutely fantastic piece of kit.

I also did a little test - by having the Road Angel II on at the same time.

Interestingly the Garmin I3 picked up every camera that the RAII did without fault. The only thing it does that is different is that it also points out cameras on the opposite side of the carriageway, which I don't mind too much.

The only thing I'd comment on it's ability to highlight POI's (speed cameras) is that it does so very early. It flashes a red message on the screen saying Speed Safety Camera Alert, shows the road speed limit in a circle at 'approximately' the location of the camera and then gives 5-10 little chimes (very nice chimes as it happens and much better than the annoying beeps of the RAII).

However, it then stops - and you're never sure where the camera was if you don't spot it. The other concern I'd have if this was my only alert device for speeding is that it's audible alert (on full volume in this case) could be missed quite easily IMO if you had music playing.

I had the stereo on most of the way and would regularly turn it off in order to hear the directions that the Streetpilot gave. However, that was because I was very unsure of where I was going.

The v7 maps were very accurate other than one incident when it missed out what was a very new roundabout. Nonetheless, the road line showed which direction I needed to take and by simply sticking to the direction the route went in I was able to know which exit to take.

The display was crystal clear throughout what was a bright sunny journey.

The unit was running on batteries throughout the journey (3 hours) and when I'd arrived at my destination the gauge indicated half power - and I'm happy with that. In this wireless guise it happily sits in the bottom right corner of the windscreen, hidden from outside view from most angles, and looks so neat and unobstrusive.

The suction mount is very strong too. In fact when I went to release the unit it had to be pulled off at the balljoint connection - which makes it even easier to carry around or pop in my laptop bag in this case.

The map draw speed never gave me any problems and seemed instantaneous.

There were 2 occasions when it told me to turn left onto roundabouts ahead. However, both of these roundabouts were at the bottom of sliproads. My monitoring the route on screen I could easily see this though so it wasn't too much of an issue.

I'm pretty useless at following directions normally and with the SatNav on my 6 series I am regularly guilty of not following it's guidance properly. However, with the Streetpilot I3 I found it much easier, much more intuitive and overall much better.

So there you have it. My £169 stick on SatNav is, IMO, better for basic navigation that the £2,500 system in my 645. Ok so it can't do all the extra flash things that the BMW SatNav can....but the fact is I don't need it to and probably will never need the BMW version to do so either!

In many respects you could also use it to replace the likes of an RAII....but I'm not quite that brave and I trust that little black box with way too much to gamble like that yet!

Bargain of the century, and now I can safely say it works supremely well.

[jimdiesel]

Sounds like your experience mirrors mine Chris.

Its funny you should mention how it compares to the £2.5K BMW system. I was talking to my dealer the other week, and glasses guide knocks my A6 £2K for not having sat nav. I think the car manufacturers are going to have to wake up to the fact that they cannot get away with charging over £2K for there factory fit systems.