Travel gadget: TomTom Start 10

5:00 AM Tuesday Aug 2, 2011

TomTom GPS. Photo / Supplied

I took the TomTom Start 10 with me to Europe because it's very small and easy to pack. Small enough, in fact, that I thought that in places where I would be walking I could just slip it in my pocket in case I got lost.

It came pre-loaded with maps on New Zealand (RRP $249) and it was easy enough to go into the TomTom website and (at $98.18 a time) download maps of the British Isles and Greece. So far so good.

Unfortunately when I got to London Heathrow, collected our rental car and turned the TomTom on it seemed to think it was in Wellington.

The booklet told me I could change country maps at any time by clicking on the flag. Unfortunately there was no flag. In my mildly jetlagged state I didn't know what to do. Help.

Eventually I discovered, via TomTom's NZ agents, that to change the country maps I had to go into Options and then Advanced Options.

It turned out that the instruction booklet is designed for European TomToms which come pre-loaded with maps of of Europe and are set up differently.

Once the device got going it was fantastic. It greatly reduced the level of marital discord. And in one or two towns the TomTom came up with shortcuts that were simply magical.

Next time I go on a driving holiday in a foreign land I'll definitely take a GPS. But I'll also make sure I've got the right instructions.

By Jim Eagles

Maccajo (New Zealand) | 09:03AM Wednesday, 03 Aug 2011

We download our map before we left NZ and pre programmwed our first hotel stop (because we thought it was enough to think about driving on the "wrong side of the raoad" when we first arrived. The only issue we had was the battery life had mysteriously shortened during the trip. This meant we could only use the Tom tom in the car when the car was going.

Other wise we found the Tom tom to be everything we needed and especially appresiated the ability to vary the trip when we had time to go off the beaten track.

Glow_worm (New Zealand) | 03:36PM Wednesday, 03 Aug 2011

I bought the Garmin nuvi 1350 before I went to Europe in May. When I got to London my gadget was 'unable to locate satellite'. Finally found solution on Garmins FAQ's site that if you have travelled more than 500 miles with the unit switched off then you may have difficulty locating satellite. Two solutions: reload software or just sitting outside and keep trying. I sat outside for over an hour until it found satellite.

Driving in London on your own with Garmin was awful; nearly had a mental breakdown while avoiding buses and cabs as Garmin struggled to give me instructions in a timely manner so that I could be in the correct lane. Driving outside London wasn't so bad, though some of the routes were bizarre.

Shortest route versus fastest route. Occasionally it seemed like I was being sent miles out of my way so I could travel at 70mph. When I selected shortened route it kept taking me off the motorway, thru a small town before putting me back on the same motorway - maybe I saved myself 0.5 km.

In the end I went and bought a road atlas so I had a birds eye view of where I was going.

adbee (New Zealand) | 03:01PM Thursday, 04 Aug 2011

There are free aps for smart phones that will do not quite but almost as good a job. Did I say that they were free?