Tested Nokia Maps in a Nokia 5230 - on a trip to Koblenz in March. Found this to be fine and the widescreen Garmin bought a couple of years ago stayed in the glovebox. Just one blip as i used it in Koblenz on foot to find the shopping centre.

I know.. but if you`re hooked on the technology ;-)

Came home and messed it up by updating the firmware - I know ;-( no going back..

Sold that and we bought the two Nokia E71`s - as previously mentioned.

Spent ages dowloading most of the maps of the world onto the 8GB card. It seems Nokia only let you stream the maps to the phone - you can`t store them on the computer. However you can copy the 8GB card onto another 8GB card as a backup via the computer.

I`m going to skip the procedure to get the maps onto the phone at this point and go straight to using an E71 as Sat Nav.

The small screen I found big enough to use, stuck to the windsreen - on first use it went for hours without losing it`s charge and requiring plugging in to the lighter socket.

I then tried it just sat on a non slip rubber mat - screen obscured.

Went to find the rail museum in York set up like that - just looking at road signs and listening to the sat nav. That worked well and was a surprise to me - the phone reading the street names and the larger road signs.

That`s the main thust of this thread. Without looking at a screen and listening to the very chatty voice - I found I was reading road signs and street names - and was concentrating on them and on the road more. Just as when we memorized paper maps.

We will be going to france later in the year and only there will I be able to really test that further.

Handy though - just popping it onto the rubber mat on the dash - then pocketing it at stops. No sucker marks, cables or my case, the big free standing Garmin mount.

Does anyone else use a phone or Sat Nav like this - voice only?

oilrag

Edited by oilrag (Moderator) on 28/07/2010 at 18:08