Road Angel Navigator 6000 Car Navigation

After picking up 6 points in 9 months I bought one of these as you are getting two devices in one. It alerts you to all the blackspots, safety cameras, school zones and even has an over speed alert.

I have only used the sat nav on it a few times and so far I haven't encountered any problems.

Don't buy it because it has an mp3 player (buy an ipod).

If you are buying one of these it's because you want to save your driving licence, and for that purpose it does what it says on the tin.

When I first bought this device, I trusted it too much and let it direct me every inch of the journey I was making to an excellent restaurant in King's Cross, where I planned to have a meal with family, who were following me in a car behind.

I entered the postal code, and we set off. Instead of taking us the obvious way, we ended up going down lots of backstreets, right through the centre of town - that wasn't the worst part - at one point it directed me the wrong way down a one-way street! I had to reverse back into a heavy stream of traffic while my relatives all watched from the car behind, laughing themselves silly! I think it was due to not having the latest update of the map, as my sister's car behind me had a Tomtom and directed us a completely different way. It was also aware of the one-way streets.

Another time - after I had updated the machine via their website - I was going to Worcester Cricket Club and it directed me off the motorway right through the middle of nowhere - nice scenery, but it took quite a lot longer than normal. Now, I make sure I know how to get to the rough vicinity of my destination before I take much notice of the instructions; it works much better that way and we now have a good working relationship!

Incidentally, a 'Road Angel' in Chinese is a term used to describe a working girl who sits by the roadside waiting for clients - I doubt this product is for sale in China!

There are two other niggles - both slightly annoying:

1) The volume for speed camera alerts id very hard to control - it BEEPS LOUDLY for quite a while before it approaches and is very piercing. I must work out how to turn it down as it isn't affected by the volume setting of the voice directions.

2) The cigarette lighter power plug comes out if you hit a particularly big bump. This happens regularly in my Vauxhall Corsa, anyway - not sure if it's the car or the device.

3) It can take a while to 'lock on' to a satellite when you first turn it on - anything from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

Now I know how to work within it's limitations, it's fine. But I'd probably advise getting a better-known brand. The speed camera warning system works very well, but periodically gives a warning about 'safety camera vans' - what on earth are they???

It comes with a mount, and a sucker device to hold it to the windscreen as well as a quick release socket so that it doesn't sit on the dashboard while you're away, waiting to be stolen.

It's cheap for the functionality you get.

Edit 12-12-10: The Road Angel people 'phoned me up the other day and said I needed to pay for the next year's subscription fees for their maps - I said I wasn't going to, as I'd be happy with it as it is for the future Lo an behold, a few days' later, a message came up on the unit saying that the database had corrupted, and that I needed to download the map again - I suspect they were trying to force me to pay the fee. It works very intermittently now. I can't really recommend something that you have to keep paying for every year...

The satnav arrived with one piece missing, the charger that you plug in to the cigarette lighter. I had to go and buy one in town at a cost of £17.00. It was my first experience of shopping through Amazon. And my last.