Sony NVU50TG.EUR Portable GPS Navigation System

What’s in the box – the sav-nav unit, the cradle which houses the TMC unit, a TMC FM ariel, a car charger (which can be used whilst in car operation), a mains charger, carry case for the unit when removed from car, a PC connectivity CD, USB/mini USB connection cable, basic manual.

Useful stuff they don’t always tell you:- unit battery lasts about 4 hours, but as is always plugged into car charger that’s a little superfluous. The NV-50T comes complete with Navteq maps of UK preloaded onto its internal 512mb flash memory (note no SD removeable SD cards on these units). The UK maps fill about 188mb of the memory so there is spare capacity to add additional maps should you wish. The European DVD map disk can be purchased from Sony separately. Alternatively buy the NV-U70T which comes compete with 1mb internal memory and the European map disk.
TMC works well (no subscription required) and is primarily for use on major roads i.e. motorways dual carriageways etc and offers integrated re-routing options should your route ahead be problematic.
The unit has a single voice (which can be muted) and is a nice posh UK lady.
Connecting the unit to the PC enables the sat nav’s map to be backed up onto your PC (in the event of some unforeseen problem). I subsequently burnt the map off the PC onto CD – just to be sure. Connectivity to the PC also allows you to download software (firmware) updates to the unit from the Sony site. This is recommended as while the unit has only been out a couple of months, there are two firmware updates available already.
Navteq mapping software is very accurate, not had any problems or wrong direction, or ‘turn left into brick wall’ stuff so far. No freezing of the unit problems either, or bits falling off.
Points of Interest works well for; car parks, fuel stations, restaurants etc, but doesn’t have the location of fixed safety cameras (this is available for the TomTom’s however).

Room for improvement stuff – You can only plan your route from the sat nav unit, it is not possible to plan the route from the PC and then download onto the unit (like some other units). Also, it is not possible to tell the unit to save the specific route that you have just driven (i.e. a tracker option). Only 4 digit postcode search is possible, then you have to use street name. This works well actually, and isn’t the problem I thought it was going to be. That’s about it.

I assume that as the unit uses Navteq maps, it will be possible to buy updates maps in the future?
If you are considering other units, the fruits of my research pointed at the Garmin c310 streetpilot as another near contender (not sure if it offers TMC). TomToms were OK but didn’t seem to have TMC (only ‘traffic’ option which links your mobile phone GPRS through a Bluetooth connection – subscription required).

Hope this ramble has helped, all-in-all I am very pleased with the unit and have no regrets.