Tom Tom or Garmin?

I have also had both. 3 Garmins (Nuvi 200, Nuvi 350, and Nuvi 2595) and now a TomTom Go Live 1005. Both have their pros and cons. For the sake of leveling the playing field I am only going to compare the Nuvi 2595 and the TomTom Go Live 1005 as they were both released in 2013. Both include traffic updates.
I drive around a lot for work mostly in Gauteng. I tend to use the GPS as a drive companion even if I know exactly where I'm going. I like to check how accurate the arrival time is and what route it tries to navigate you on. I also prefer a dedicated navigation device as using your phone as a GPS has one major drawback for me. Making and receiving calls while the phone is being used for navigation. I found it very irritating that my navigation was interrupted by incoming calls during tricky driving conditions. Like city driving. I split up my preferences into 6 categories.
Interface: Garmin
Traffic: TomTom
Maps: Tied
Screen: TomTom
Navigation: TomTom
Features: TomTom
The navigation and traffic updates on the TomTom are superior and in my humble opinion makes it the better navigation device.
 
If you're looking for a new garmin, I heard on the radio just now that you can trade in any other old GPS and get R300 off a new garmin with live traffic and what not. Having said that, I'm not sure how much the new one goes for, so I'm not sure if it would be worth it or not. It's at any authorised garmin reseller
 
abitofbyte said:
I have also had both. 3 Garmins (Nuvi 200, Nuvi 350, and Nuvi 2595) and now a TomTom Go Live 1005. Both have their pros and cons. For the sake of leveling the playing field I am only going to compare the Nuvi 2595 and the TomTom Go Live 1005 as they were both released in 2013. Both include traffic updates.
I drive around a lot for work mostly in Gauteng. I tend to use the GPS as a drive companion even if I know exactly where I'm going. I like to check how accurate the arrival time is and what route it tries to navigate you on. I also prefer a dedicated navigation device as using your phone as a GPS has one major drawback for me. Making and receiving calls while the phone is being used for navigation. I found it very irritating that my navigation was interrupted by incoming calls during tricky driving conditions. Like city driving. I split up my preferences into 6 categories.
Interface: Garmin
Traffic: TomTom
Maps: Tied
Screen: TomTom
Navigation: TomTom
Features: TomTom
The navigation and traffic updates on the TomTom are superior and in my humble opinion makes it the better navigation device.
Click to expand...

A really good post. Thank you for the detail.
 
abitofbyte said:
I have also had both. 3 Garmins (Nuvi 200, Nuvi 350, and Nuvi 2595) and now a TomTom Go Live 1005. Both have their pros and cons. For the sake of leveling the playing field I am only going to compare the Nuvi 2595 and the TomTom Go Live 1005 as they were both released in 2013. Both include traffic updates.
I drive around a lot for work mostly in Gauteng. I tend to use the GPS as a drive companion even if I know exactly where I'm going. I like to check how accurate the arrival time is and what route it tries to navigate you on. I also prefer a dedicated navigation device as using your phone as a GPS has one major drawback for me. Making and receiving calls while the phone is being used for navigation. I found it very irritating that my navigation was interrupted by incoming calls during tricky driving conditions. Like city driving. I split up my preferences into 6 categories.
Interface: Garmin
Traffic: TomTom
Maps: Tied
Screen: TomTom
Navigation: TomTom
Features: TomTom
The navigation and traffic updates on the TomTom are superior and in my humble opinion makes it the better navigation device.
Click to expand...

Similar experience on my side. Agree with all the conclusions!
 
abitofbyte said:
I have also had both. 3 Garmins (Nuvi 200, Nuvi 350, and Nuvi 2595) and now a TomTom Go Live 1005. Both have their pros and cons. For the sake of leveling the playing field I am only going to compare the Nuvi 2595 and the TomTom Go Live 1005 as they were both released in 2013. Both include traffic updates.
I drive around a lot for work mostly in Gauteng. I tend to use the GPS as a drive companion even if I know exactly where I'm going. I like to check how accurate the arrival time is and what route it tries to navigate you on. I also prefer a dedicated navigation device as using your phone as a GPS has one major drawback for me. Making and receiving calls while the phone is being used for navigation. I found it very irritating that my navigation was interrupted by incoming calls during tricky driving conditions. Like city driving. I split up my preferences into 6 categories.
Interface: Garmin
Traffic: TomTom
Maps: Tied
Screen: TomTom
Navigation: TomTom
Features: TomTom
The navigation and traffic updates on the TomTom are superior and in my humble opinion makes it the better navigation device.
Click to expand...

must agree - nice post and informative as I am looking to get a new GPS soon for both myself and the wife
 
abitofbyte said:
I have also had both. 3 Garmins (Nuvi 200, Nuvi 350, and Nuvi 2595) and now a TomTom Go Live 1005. Both have their pros and cons. For the sake of leveling the playing field I am only going to compare the Nuvi 2595 and the TomTom Go Live 1005 as they were both released in 2013. Both include traffic updates.
I drive around a lot for work mostly in Gauteng. I tend to use the GPS as a drive companion even if I know exactly where I'm going. I like to check how accurate the arrival time is and what route it tries to navigate you on. I also prefer a dedicated navigation device as using your phone as a GPS has one major drawback for me. Making and receiving calls while the phone is being used for navigation. I found it very irritating that my navigation was interrupted by incoming calls during tricky driving conditions. Like city driving. I split up my preferences into 6 categories.
Interface: Garmin
Traffic: TomTom
Maps: Tied
Screen: TomTom
Navigation: TomTom
Features: TomTom
The navigation and traffic updates on the TomTom are superior and in my humble opinion makes it the better navigation device.
Click to expand...
The latest Waze can now "stay on top" so navigation is not interrupted by calls.
I used to use an S2 for nav that remained in the car as my dedicated nav device because of the call interruption on the phone. Now with the new Waze I just use my phone.
 
Waze is crap for use in Sandton. Sends me to the wrong place. Google maps works, but chows battery. That's the reason for wanting a standalone gps.

Battery just drains so much on a phone.
 
lcbxx said:
If you have a smartphone it is almost unpractical to buy a standalone GPS. Garmin Navigator is now free on the Android Play store with a paid subscription for advanced features such as Live Traffic & Speed Cameras (R720pa). TomTom South Africa costs the same but has no free version with basic features.

Waze and Google Maps/Navigation offers a lot of the premium features that the 2 above offer but the maps not offline, meaning you need a data connection, and things like speed cameras/traffic are user generated, meaning that as others with Waze/Google Navigation drive it updates the traffic conditions.
Click to expand...

If you use the maps feature over wifi, it will cache from your location to your destination, I think this has a limit though. Used it when I was in Brussels on my android phone. Also GPS systems on android phones don't use data I think, since it still knows your location, even with data off.
 
What are you going to use the GPS for? City driving? Some weekends away into the bush? If the latter, Garmin is the way to go so that you can load tracks4africa on it, which shows all the gravel/2WD/4WD roads. Garmin also does rugged GPS's for all kinds of other activities, not sure about Tom Tom.

For Garmin, if you want to plan trips and routes beforehand on your computer, and send them to your GPS, it's advisable to go a model above the basic ones. The basic ones can only do waypoints, and the GPS calculates the way to get there each time. If you want to make your own routes beforehand that purposefully goes on a detour, you'd preferably want a gps that can load routes.

Ignore the above advice if all you want is a GPS for the city that takes you to addresses.
 
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