Are there any good cheap Sat navs?

[SlightlyWizened]

Totally confused and don't want to waste my money. Also posting in chat for erm, traffic. Sorry.

Just use google maps on your phone?

Agree. Just use google maps and a holder for your phone.

Google maps and a phone holder.

As PPs have said, by far the best sat Nav on the market is free.

Google maps is excellent. If it detects a quicker route, it will offer it to you and if you miss a turn, it’s quick at recalculating your route.

We use Waze which is an app and free. It's owned by Google but updates current traffic situations much quicker than Google maps.

Ooh excellent! Do you need to have your phone on the charger? Does it use a lot of data?

Waze is much better than Google maps, it finds very inventive ways around traffic. Weird given that they are the same company, but must use different algorithms. Tells you if you are exceeding the speed limit, which I don't think Google does, unless it's changed. Because of the way it works it tell you if people have reported police on the road etc. I find it uses a lot of battery, so I tend to plug it in. Not sure about data? I think it uses GPS but maybe data as well? We never use our Sat nav now.

I've just checked. I've used Waze a lot on the last couple of months. In November it used 90mB of data, and in December 52mB, so not very much.

Definitely Waze.

I occasionally use our sat nav and it's useless. If I go from point a to point b where there is a main, dual carriageway between points a and b, it will send me down unused, potholed tracks and add several minutes at least to the journey. The other day, out of interest, I programmed our journey into waze and the satnav respectively. Waze estimated 24 minutes door to door. Satnav? 53 minutes and a ridiculous route avoiding the main road for nearly the entire journey.

My phone is generally useless so maybe a better phone is a better investment.

Do you need to have your phone on the charger? The most I've needed to do is top up before a long journey.

Does it use a lot of data?. No, you can download routes before you go, so things like traffic updates would be minimal data.

Even not doing this, the amounts are fairly small.

Another vote for the Waze app. My phone is a bit old and useless as well but works well on my phone.

As its partially user updated you get traffic alerts a lot quicker than if you are using a Satnav or google maps.

I can’t recommend Waze - way too much advertising which is distracting when driving. Mine kept offering to navigate me to Dominos. Plus there is no way the traffic updates it encourages you to do whilst driving for ‘virtual candy’ are safe.

I use waize as it uses much less data that google maps apparently. Not sure how much data but its not been an issue for me but i only use it for 30 mins or so a few times a month usually. Occasionally use it for a couple of hours when we go away.

I'd be using it for long motorway journeys. I always go wrong somewhere near Birmingham and find myself involuntarily heading for Dartford.

Google maps is free, easy to use and it doesn’t eat much data.

cheap on ebay as so many now use their phones. A dedicated satnav won't cost anything to run and if the battery is ok will last a lot longer than your phone does.

I have a now unused sav nav that I got about 6 years ago if you really wanted one I'd be happy to send it to you.

I'd have to check it still works as I've been using google for ages.

Google maps and a bit of planning are your friends.

TKMax have phone holders for £5.

If your battery isn't good you can get a charger that plugs into the cigarette lighter in your car (if your car doesn't have usb ports). Then just keep your phone charging when you drive.

Sat navs are a pain, particularly old ones. Unless they're kept updated (and I think often you have to pay for updates) the roads can be wrong.