Posts Tagged ‘Atlas’
Tom Tom Sat Nav
In these days of high tech gadgets you may think reading a map is extinct. A lot of people have a sat nav car gadget. A device that tells you where to go, how long it will take you to get there and re route you if you go wrong.
If you are ‘old school’ you may prefer to use a map to plot your route, but don’t knock the Sat Nav Car gadget until you’ve tried it. Although, I suspect that there are many people out there who can’t read a map, it is useful to know how to. A car atlas is usually under a fiver so it’s a good investment to keep one in your car for emergencies. Your sat nav may not be able to connect to a signal so you do, at least, need an idea of where you are going. If you use your sat nav in more than one car, you need to be aware that some vehicles with heat reflecting windscreens do not cope well with the satellite signal.
However, there are many good points to having a sat nav in your car. If you are travelling alone, it is very useful to have a sat nav telling you which road to take so that you don’t have to keep stopping and looking at the map. Also, if you happen to need to wear glasses to read, it means that not only do you have to stop to look at the map but you have to find your glasses too!
One of the best points about a sat nav is that it tells you what lane to be in and makes driving through towns so much easier. It will also tell you if you are over the speed limit and most sat navs will beep at speed cameras.
If the thought of having an automated voice nagging at you is putting you off of having a sat nav, you can use it without the voice. Better still you can download a celebrity voice! Some sat navs will allow you to download music or audio books. Many have features that will tell you if there is a traffic jam and redirect you to the quickest route.
Overall, a sat nav in your car is far better than a map. They are easy to install and use. The extra features that many have are really useful. Being able to read a map and carrying one in your car is always going to be useful but the sat nav has taken centre stage.
Recently we were invited to the Tele Atlas roadshow, where Tele Atlas explained how they created the digital maps used in a lot of the SatNav systems such as TomTom, NavMan, ViaMichelin, Mio etc. This video show us out on the road with a Tele Atlas mapping van
Operation of the new TomTom Go series. But this applies to almost all TomTom GPS devices. Some of the functions are not available on the less spec models. The differences between the new Go models are as follows: The 530 & the 730 are the same apart from the fact that the 730 has European maps as well as UK. The TomTom 930 is the same again, plus it comes with USA & Canadian maps & a remote control. It also has “assisted navigation” which helps continuous navigation when in tunnels. The same models with a “T” on the end come with the TMC Traffic Receiver.
