Binatone Carrera X350 Sat-Nav Comments

New Sat Nav user but generally very pleased with the Binatone Carrera X350. Takes some funny routes to get me on and off the nearby motorway and has a ridiculous diversion off of the main road as I approach home involving two unnecessary right turns. OK if you know rhe area and ignore it but I wonder about strange places. Spots some speed cameras which appear only to be traffic cameras - better safe than sorry!
Detour from suggested route brings immediate recalculation and screen is fairly easy to see. Woman's voice rejected by both myself and my wife, she appears tetchy if you do not follow her route though have not noticed this with the man. Ridiculous because they would probably both say the same thing!

Presentation is quite good, visually and verbally but navigation is very poor. The 'full post-code' navigation isn't, there are many 6 and 7 figure post codes (and not new ones either) which it truncates to 3 or 4 figures. Even in large cities like Birmingham. I also found that it failed to recognise the names of some roads (not new roads either) which were present on another Navteq mapped satnav. I didn't find it too slow calculating routes but sometimes it failed to find a route at all. If you want to rely on your satnav don't buy one of these.

I aggree with the comments made already but would add that although the machine itself is fairly robust and the actual navigation appears to be reasonably good, the lack of up-to-date mapping is pretty attrocious. I bought mine from Tesco on 26th December and I'm taking it back on 5th January as it is not fit for purpose. Of my four children, who live in properties built between 35 and 4 years ago; NOT ONE, had an address which was acceptable to this machine. My Wife's work did not even have a road going into it. Tesco dingwall - petrol station appears but the actual store does not even exist. The only way I've been able to get this to work for me is to save locations AFTER I've been there in the favourites. - Rating - a waste of an opportunity, hardware good - software rubbish.

I actually bought this sat nav from Argos when I was staying at a remote caravan site at Easter 2008. I went on a shopping trip and couldn't remember the way back to the site, I thought, oh well I'll buy a cheap sat nav, as I'd been meaning to get one. It did get me to the general area, and I managed to find my way back eventually, but it didn't recognise the full post code and it was quite disappointing. The maps are quite out of date, and you can't seem to get any updates when you go on the website, very disappointing. The unit has malfunctioned on a few occasions as well, and sent me around the block a few times. But on the whole, when reset it will generally get you to the general destination, as long as its been there over 10 years! On a more positive note it's quite easy to use, but can't recommend it, unless you can pick one up really, really cheap, and just want something very basic.