iPhone vs. Sat Nav

I keep reading various reviews that always seem to favour a dedicated Sat Nav over the iPhone. One particular point of contention seems to be price, i.e. needing a dedicated GPS cradle (TOM TOM) to be effective. Does anyone have experience of both and would they mind offering their advice. I need to purchase something in the coming weeks and must admit to a great deal of indecision. With dedicated Sat Navs, are some more Mac "friendly" than others for updating maps and such. Cheers.

Hi,

I've got the iPhone 3GS (and before the 3G) with Co Pilot. Don't have the Tom Tom kit, or even a cradle until recently.

Works very well. Incidentally, I got Tom Tom as I wanted to see if it was worth nearly double the price of Co Pilot, the answer is no.

Matt

Dedicated units are often easier to see and louder.

Plus Tomtom don't provide all the same features on the iPhone version.

But the downside to a dedicated unit is the faff of plugging it in, sticking it on the dashboard. Nobody leaves them in the car overnight on the windscreen for fear of it getting nicked.

I've always used phones or PDAs for GPS.

Edited by deleted (Thu 25-Feb-10 22:16:32)

I have Navigon, it does the job. None of the reception issues Tomtom talk about, I think that was a marketing ploy to sell some hardware.

I have both...

I use a Garmin Sat Nav in the Car if I am going long distances or don't know where I am going.
Both you have to mount anyway.. and most sat Navs come with a Window mount at least.

At this point I would still say built in Sat Nav's come first.
Then the dedicated Sat Nav's
Closely followed by the iPhone and the Tom Tom Cradle.
Followed last by iPhone on its own without a Tom Tom but with some other sort of mount.. although your GPS signal may not be that great (also check if you have a solar reflecting windscreen since then your possibly stuffed either way without an external antenna.

Co Pilot works very well and half the price of Tom Tom....

Gotta say I was a long time user of TomTom but recently got an Android phone, Copilot was very cheap compared with my previous incarnations of TomTom and IMHO is actually better than TomTom.

So +1 for copilot (I tried it first on my mates iPhone, seems to be the same as on Android).