UK driving directions
 

Is there a UK version of maps.yahoo.com or mapquest? I tried www.theaa.com but it won't recognize (recognise? :)) the street name.

Thanks,
Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

Buy a nav unit sixto, and toss your travel worries out the window.

I bought a Navman iCN 630 (http://www.navman.com/land/index.html) a year ago while in UK, as it came with the UK maps, and it is truly liberating to use. I drove everywhere across Britain... museums, shops, tourist areas, and got back by the quckest route every time - even when I wandered way off the track.

It is truly a modern-day wonder. After driving each year in Britain trying to use paper maps, Microsoft directions from my computer (whatever it's called) and a Garmin eMap, this is by far the best solution, and way ahead of the Garmin equivalent.

Ken Silver
--------------
~1993 SL500, glistening triple black, xenons: http://www.kensilver.com/SL
~1999 SLK 230 Kompressor, silver/black leather, CD, immaculate (my wife's)
~1991 Daimler, shiny grey/grey leather, best in country!
~ex 350SL, 230E, 280E, MX5 and a lot of other makes not nearly as nice.

how about www.multimap.com

The multimap link found it. Thanks. I just wanted to see the lay of the land. I have no plans to go there.

As for the Navman, it's high on my list of nav units for the S420. Seems to be in short supply as none of the stores I've been to have stock or even a display unit. I also want to be sure it has the features I like in the StreetPilot III we have in the minivan. The key requirement is being able to save current position as a waypoint. Some places we like to return to don't have a street address (third hill north of mile marker 24 on Hwy 57?). That feature is worth the penalty of the SP3's clunky address input interface.

[diatribe] The Magellan NeverLost is ridiculously slow to initiate compared to the SP3 and there's no ability to save waypoints other than entering an address. It doesn't seem like the Roadmate series allows you to save waypoints either. And I'm concerned about what I read that the Roadmate gives up recalculating a route after n tries. I drive around SoCal by feel. I don't want the nav unit to give up on the destination becasue I keep jumping freeways.

The iQue takes a long time to pick up satellites but it will start cranking from the last known position, the touch screen is nicer to use than buttons and it recalculates routes faster than any nav unit I've tried. It's not in contention because I can't see the display when I have dark glasses on.[/diatribe

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

Sixto,

From memory my Navman iCN 630 with the V1 software won't deliver on waypoints, only on addresses. In fact it won't get the route started until you are on an existing road it recognises. At one point the home I was staying in had a long driveway, and the first instruction it gave was to get to to a recognised road. But 50 yards down the driveway and on the edge of the road it was fine.

Route calculation is about about 30 seconds from cold, and recalculation on the run is very quick - I think 10 seconds was the slowest I had at any point, with a few seconds being the norm.

A warning - the V2 version, which you will probably get as standard issue, uses a different map set, and many people on the Navman forum seem to have had problems understanding how to use it. It appears to have some errors, but I'm not sure whether this is because some owners haven't figured it out yet. This is the one with a 3D viewpoint and better POI features. My brother in UK has V2 in his iCN 630, and doesn't care for the 3D feature, so while I still have the V1 I will be able to test both out again when I'm in UK in a couple week's time.

While I haven't used the Navman's competitor, the SP3, from my initial research a year ago, the Navman came out ahead in several areas - and of course the most powerful feature is its screen quality and brightness... absolutely superb in any condition, even in the brightest sun.

I liked the fact that it will soon perform here with New Zealand software, which no other nav unit can do at the moment.

The Navman forum is at http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=36&sid=fa190eaec1868ed2fdf7e586610db3df

Ken Silver
--------------
~1993 SL500, glistening triple black, xenons: http://www.kensilver.com/SL
~1999 SLK 230 Kompressor, silver/black leather, CD, immaculate (my wife's)
~1991 Daimler, shiny grey/grey leather, best in country!
~ex 350SL, 230E, 280E, MX5 and a lot of other makes not nearly as nice.