Monday, Mar 16, 2009 at 17:30
Gady Greg. My personel use has been with a Road Angel, a Navman & 2 Tom Toms including a current release GO730. I live in a rural town & all these units I've opperated have struggled to choose the fastest route (1st time) when travelling long distances. For example a trip to
Robe in SA initially suggests a route zig zagging accross central Vic & would take almost 10 hours. After suggesting an alternate route (travel via) it reduced the travel time by almost 1.5 hours. (Why didn't it think of it?) Now when I was about to return from
Robe you would think if I typed in
my home town it would come up with it's first suggestion but no, it came up with another route about half way between the 2? Then when almost back it asks me to exit the freeway (away from
home) & go who knows where because by then I turned the thing off :-)
I found with these longer trips it better to break the route down into shorter sections then accuracy improved.
On local rural roads they are particually bad taking long routes to many destinations. I'd suggest this is a mapping issue common to almost all units & although it has improved with the latest map version, unless I ignore the navigator at some point (& let it choose an alternate route) it will not take me the fastest way 1st time around.
Recently I was stopped just out of Wangaratta by a couple from
Sydney & heading down to Gippsland. I just calculated the route their navigator said to take verses the quickest & it had added 2.5 hours to the trip!!
So hense my advice. Yes they are a great tool, quite accurate for short trips & around the city but my experience in rural areas & over long distance suggests having a closer look at it's 1st suggestion.
Cheers Craig...............
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