The best sat-navs

If you buy a new car these days chances are it will already be fitted with a sat-nav system or that you can buy it as an optional extra. But if your vehicle comes with an inbuilt sat-nav, you have no choice in which system you’re getting and chances are you won’t get the best system available. These days the standalone sat-navs have to compete with free smartphone navigation and a recent survey looked into both options to see which ones where the best. Features taken into consideration in the test were price of purchase, routing and overall quality of the product. The overall winner in this survey was the standalone TomTom Via Live 120 which gave the driver excellent navigation for a reasonable price. It can be purchased for around £146 and yearly map updates costs £20. In the tests performed the sat-nav chose the less congested routes and used real-time data to produce accurate traffic detection. Runner up in the test was the TomTom for iPhone with a price tag of £44. This app features the same clever features as the above standalone model. So if you own an iPhone this is a cheap option to get the highest rated sat-nav. The best app for an Android phone was deemed to be the CoPilot Live 8 with prices starting at £32. It’s packed with features but in the tests performed the routing was a bit hit and miss compared to the TomTom. The second best performer of the standalone sat-navs was the Garmin nuLink 1695 with a price tag of £173. It offers a range of features but the routing wasn’t as accurate as the TomTom. And the maps were found lacking in detail. It is however a good all-rounder. In addition to the above systems, there are offerings such as the Mio Navman and the Navigon 70 which also rated well. But if you’re looking for a new navigational system to use in your new Ford C-Max, why not go for the best and choose a TomTom?