Nuvi 40 end user experience

[fugglefeet]

I recently (Sunday and Monday gone past) had the task and privilege of having to install CN Australia and New Zealand NT 2013.2 (Navteq) on my friend's Nuvi. After having done the map install on the device, there was no obvious way to test if the maps for Auz/NZ would work due to me being in ZA (duh!). I decided to simulate a route from the north island to the south island of NZ to see if it works. There were no apparent glitches and I would have to rely on the report back from my friend when he is there and let's me know if it's working properly or not. Ironically he had previously purchased a TomTom and was told by the salesperson that Garmin is just for South Africa and TomTom works for the rest of the world Putting the actual device through its paces the Monday evening prior to handover was the fun part. The Lane Assist feature is a very nifty and handy tool when navigating the highways and freeways of the greater Johannesburg Metro. This feature also appears about 1km to 2km before the due turn to forewarn you move into the appropriate lane (a very nice to have when needing to negotiate Johannesburg with a Nuvi 2200 and missing a critical turn off). The choice of voices wasn't much but also enough to get you going (used James who sounded like a chaffeaur wannabe for the Royal Family directing me through the streets of Kensington). After the handover of the device to its rightful owner, I was suitably impressed and it is definitely my next "On the Road" GPSr. As soon as my friend is settled in NZ (he has emigrated to there), I will ask him to join the forum and see if we can get feedback from him about the unit.

Darryl

[Jan Horn]

Else where Trevor Rennison wrote the following about his newly acquired Nui 42.

I used the 42 on my commute to work this morning. It behaves somewhat differently to my old unit. Seems to have many new features, most of them I like, but the thing was driving me crazy with the bongs for speeding! It obviously came preloaded with some Cyclops safety camera data and then I went and loaded the most recent RHD files that I had downloaded just before the old forum shut down. So now it warns me twice about everything!

My strategy of driving 10km/h above the posted speed limit on my clock speed translates to a true speed of about 5km/h above the limit. Not enough to trigger any of the camera traps but enough to get away from slower drivers. With the old unit this wasn't a problem, but this 42 bongs repeatedly and shows the speed and the warnings in red because technically, I'm over the limit. I'll use the POI Loader to remove all the old RHD data before I add any more. Hopefully that will quiet things down a bit. It's very difficult to speed with this unit and not know that you're speeding, which I suppose is a good thing. Very useful in unfamiliar areas where you don't know the limit and don't see any signs.

One thing I've noticed is that in cruise mode, the 42 doesn't show me what streets are coming up, like my 300 did. I presume that is a feature of the mapset? That was quite handy if you knew more or less where you were going and were just looking for a street name. I like the lane assist and junction view. Could have done with that when I was driving in the UK last year!

Anyway, so far, so good and I really can't complain about a unit that only cost me R1000. I'll report back when I've got the latest data loaded.

I'll also play with the unit over the weekend and get to know it better.

Thanks for the review Trevor

[F.Viljoen]

" One thing I've noticed is that in cruise mode, the 42 doesn't show me what streets are coming up"

These new models does this.
Once you're over a certain speed, some minor roads on the sides disappear completely.
You can Zoom in then to let them show up again, as well as the names.
Or you simply slow down till everything displays properly.