I have not been in any of you. (Despite what many might wish.)


It's perfectly normal for people to have specific requirements - but unfortunately it's also normal for people to suppress them for everyday things, and not pay enough attention to what they really want.

If you did, everyone would be happier, and the world would be a better place, and I wouldn't have to moan so much. :P

(cheer)

Peter, your moaning brings more joy than you can imagine. :Y

Wow! I can imagine a great deal, so that's a lot of joy! (bounce)

Actually, what people should be looking for is not the clarity of the maps, but the clarity of the voice instructions. My old Avensis had built-in SatNav which ran on a teeny mono LCD screen on the dash, but was good since you never really needed to look at it while navigating, the voice directions were clear, making use of adjectives.

 

"In 200 yards, turn HARD right, followed by a SLIGHT left."

:O That looks perfect!

Pete: yes, sort of - saying I don't care about the colour scheme isn't exactly right as it's integral to the legibility of the map (other factors being angle of view, antialiasing, map design etc.)

Also, this review is what they should be like, despite being in French. It's what convinced me that the new TomTom map display is quite nice. It's also rather long, but has the good sense to show plenty of footage of the device actually being used.

So to recap: all I wanted was a satnav with clear, easy-to-read-at-a-glance maps, and have found a couple. The issue I have is that this information is so bloody hard to find and compare, and shouldn't be.

Heh, was actually ponderjng that - I navigate mostly by the voice rather than visuals.

Though there have been a couple of times when checking the display has been required, and at those times I would want the targrt path to be the most obvious line (unlike in that yellow mess above).

Although, what I also like to do is look up significant junctions in advance, using Street View, which means they're more familiar when arriving in person, though I don't think I've done that in conjunction with usjng satnav yet, but in theory it'd make visuals even less important.

One of my friends in the office went to Florida for the first time last year. He started to panic about getting lost, so he sensibly bought a road map. Then, despite admitting that his girlfriend was very good at reading maps he proceeded to buy further, more detailed maps, planning each day in minute detail; then checking Google maps to double check he knew each day's route. That wasn't enough though, he proceeded to buy the Florida maps for his TomTom, and then spent hours "driving" the routes one Google Streetview. Well, at least he didn't get lost :)

Are road signs over there not trustworthy?

I've had many discussions at work about road maps, sat nav and people being idiots.

 

I only see the real need for sat nav to do the very last part of a journey. I can definitely get to pretty much all the major towns and cities in the UK without sat nav, or a map, by just using road signs (and looking up where abouts they are beforehand). Getting to an actual destination is where sat nav is actually useful.

What was his plans for if there were any diversions?

Roadsigns don't do "find alternative route" , and sat navs don't require xray vision when stuck behind/beside large vehicles.

I agree for the most part, however I do find it handy to have a readout of time and distance remaining. Especially since it lets us give Owen a reasonalbly accurate ETA when heading to the in-laws.

I am amused by people who completely give up any working knowledge of where they're going when they use sat-nav. But I also occasionally catch myself doing the same!

Also yeah, alternative routes and automatic traffic avoidance is cool.

I couldn't agree more on that, I do often use it for the ETA reason.

 

PB : That's very true also, but I don't often want to deviate.

I find too many people decide that they don't need to look at road signs on junctions and follow the sat nav..... which is a little bit slow and hasn't updated quick enough.

That's got me thinking - since most satnavs these days seem to come with 3G built in, I wonder if there'd be some way to have them automatically show a Street View image when approaching complex junctions?

On my most recent journey, I went the wrong way twice.

First time, I followed the sat nav's "take the third exit" and went back the same way I came (because it was counting a bit of pavement as an exit), which I obviously wouldn't have done if I was paying attention to road signs.
Realised the mistake before I made it, but wasn't thinking straight (my car was doing stupid things) and I still trusted the satnav. Fortunately it wasn't too far back to a previous roundabout, and I turned around and came back and went the right way.


Second time, following road signs for a "simple" route, I missed the bit where the M25 splits off to the left, and not being in lane 1/2 results in finding yourself on an A/B road going towards Hastings. :S
That time, I pulled over once it was safe, turned my Satnav on, and was guided back on course - probably could have managed it with road signs, but much nicer having someone talking to you, reassuring you that you're not going to get shot in the eye by a Norman.

But in both cases paying attention to the roads and signs would've stopped both things happening?

I suspect there's Google and copyright nonsense that might prevent that, except on Androids, which is probably a rather low percentage.

For roundabouts, it's generally satellite view which is more useful. Street View road overlays always seem to be pointing in the wrong direction, and too awkward to actually get to a useful position with.


I've also been pondering recently how long we get arrows drawn on the road to point the way - possibly not far off with Augmented Reality starting to gather momentum.
Also wondered if there might be a networked thing, so you can see where other cars are trying to go, and avoid getting cut up (or cutting someone up)... though there's obviously bad sides to having inter-car communications which might prevent that from being implemented.