France in Focus

My dearly beloved has asked me if I could ask you lovely people the following;

Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced car GPS that has free 'danger zone' alerts, that don't need a subscriptions S.V.P.

Many thanks

Char, I've been a TomTom user for many years. I used to like them, easy readable display. Cons: the so called life time scam: only updates as long as your model is in production or supported. The old models, without internet, updates take a long time using the usb cable. After downloading the Western-Europe map another 43 minutes to go to install everything, I'll keep my fingers crossed. The same goes also for the newer generation. Updates about every three, four months. During updates things can go wrong, very wrong. After my last update in June: no maps found. Busy for hours, in vain.

Okay, let's go downstream, mainstream, where everybody is going, easier swimming. I installed an app by the name of Waze on my smartphone (Moto G Pro, Android 12) and bought a car air vent phone holder. It uses of course the GPS satellites and also a little bit of internet to keep you updated from minute to minute if necessary, obstacles on the roud, bouchons, deviations. It does what it is supposed to do, and very fast. Googlemaps gives more information about restaurants, fuel stations, shopping malls along the road and is perhaps a little bit less agressive in taking every short cut possible to gain 20, 30 seconds.

Here in front of me my TomTom, already scheduled for repair this afternoon, I must hurry. It’s just that I’m not very good at accepting defeat....But I’ll probably stick with Waze from now on, I’m used to it now. What I also find handy is that the directions are displayed well in advance and are also backed up by a voice prompt.

And another thing: a CEO at TomTom let slip last year that they were still making and supporting ‘those little boxes’, but more out of loyalty to an ever-shrinking band of loyal (older?) followers than because it was an attractive market for them. Other lucrative opportunities were proving far more profitable.... That gives pause for thought regarding the commitment to support. The bottom line: most people already have a smartphone. For one of those ‘little boxes’, you’re easily out of a hundred euros even for the most basic models. They can be much more expensive too......Waze is free of charge, you can download it from the Google Play Store or the Apple Play Store. Map updates: almost instantly. Money: only an amazing small amount of internet usage and wihout internet it still is your loyal servant guiding you in the right direction without too much comment.

Why not just use your phone & google maps? Cheap enough to buy a dashboard holder for the phone & a charger that plugs into the lighter socket.

Little friend repaired. What went wrong during an update in June? The gods of internet decided that a 100% to the last bit perfectly aligned map was a bit too much for me, missing bits and bytes. A lot of memory space was used by this defective map, a non starter. Also for the following update, not enough memory available, it told me that it almost reached the finish, but broke down just in front of it. Back in June I saw not any tool to delete the defective map to free up memory space. Let's wait and see, let's embrace Waze.

Starting the TomTomMyDriveConnect app on a Windows 10 laptop I discovered a repair option (new?). After just over an hour and a half, the little TomTom came back to life and obediently showed me the destinations I’d entered earlier. It’ll come along on the next trip too, but as a spare this time. If I'm going to update this static map after three or four months? I don't know.

I use the free Waze and Google Maps on an Android phone. Neither have a complete set of 'danger zone' alerts, but I believe they are updated more frequently (and automatically) than the dedicated sat nav with a paid subscription. I also have the free Here WeGo.

Waze is my default but the others can be useful as they have different place/location databases. They really need a phone with a mobile data allowance for updates and live traffic information. Here WeGo have full downloadable offline maps. Waze and Google Maps only have limited offline maps created by planning your route somewhere where you are online

Plus 1 for Waze and Google maps .. both free.

Generally use google maps, but only need a gps occasionally, i have also used Tom Tom go, mainly for trips to the states and Australia, where mobile costs were high, or in the case of Australia no mobile signal once you get out of a town, it is an annual subsciption, but nothing compared with buying a tomtom that has world maps.
As other people have said Waze is supposed to be good, also i understand a lot of french have started using roole maps I have installed it but havent had a chance to try it out.

Does a mobile phone suck up a lot of data time if you use a routefinder on it? We never take our phone away from the house in case we run up a huge data bill.

The last four weeks in France I was surprised: Waze behaved very data-efficient, consuming about 5 to 18 MB per hour of driving. I had a look at the data consumption by this app over the last 30 days: a total of about 200 MB, on the road exactly 2737 km. The exact amount depends on traffic density and rerouting frequency. To check your current Waze data consumption on an iPhone, go to Settings > Mobile Data. On Android, visit Settings > Apps > Waze > Mobile Data. It doesn't have a real static map, if you don't want to use your precious internet MBs load your route while connected to Wi-Fi. Google Maps uses about 3 to 5 MB of mobile data per hour for standard navigation. Not too much, surfing on the internet waves and visiting websites, reading papers consumes much more (without Wi-Fi). See also Elsie's earlier remarks.