Sat Nav system for Spain

[ian_ok]

Hi all,

I'm looking to get the Navman icn630ns for use in Spain and have a few questions.

I'll be using it 80% in Spain, mainly small villages around Jerez and a few large towns

other 20% mainly in the UK

Is this system going to be fine for my requirements?

I'll also be buying a car, so anything particular I need to look out for and check that it will OK with the SATNAV sys.

Anything else you think I should know?

Thanks
Ian

[Charlie]

Welcome to our forums.
The iCN630 should be perfect for you. You may consider some memory cards to keep you maps ready for use instead of loading to the 64MB of internal memory.
The only thing to check with your new car is wether or not it has an athermic windscreen coating (heated screen). If it does you will most likely need a Navman external antennae.

[ian_ok]

Thanks for that....

Silly question but are the memory cards like Camera memory cards?

You say you have to keep maps on a memeory card, do you mean visit a certain location and then save the local area map that has been sent to your navman?

What XXmb are the memory cards sold in?

Ian

[Charlie]

Some cameras take them. The iCN range accept SD & MMC cards.
The iCN has 64MB of internal memory but some maps are larger than that so would require and extra memory card. They are installed to the card through the software supplied with the iCN so you need a PC for that.
Cards come in a wide range of sizes from 16MB to 1GB. You can see what we offer @ http://www.totalpda.co.uk/section310.aspx .

[ian_ok]

I've been told of the following:

Whilst the ICN630 would work in Cadiz, you would be restricted to seeing major roads only. Navman are shortly going to release a new model - the ICN 510 which will have improved software and be a better product all round.

ALSO:
I also presume you need a card reader to update maps etc on the memory I only have pc and not a palm. Or does the satnav system connect via USB into your pc and you can then upload from web/cd rom to the memory?

Ian

[terryh]

Ian

How weird, just bought an iCN630 for almost the same reason, and I'll be flying into Jerez!! So far I'm chuffed with it's performance in the UK, far better than I could have ever dreamed but not used it yet in Spain.

In answer to your question, yes, it does connect via USB into your PC and from there you can upload or delete maps as necessary plus a fair bit more besides, it also gives you the option to upload into your built in 64mb memory or sd card letting you know the file size and how much room you have left to load to, very easy to use.

Charlie, Navman say that the maximum sized sd card you can use is 256mb, do you know if this is correct because a 512 would be ideal.

[Charlie]

They do indeed say 256MB. I don't really understand why though.

[terryh]

Charlie, good point, perhaps I should ask why 256mb is suggested as the largest memory card size.

[Charlie]

I got a long winded reasong but the basis is that it slows the performance down as the SW has to search a bigger card making it operate slower.....opinions? I've used 256MB, 512MB and on 2 occassions a 1GB SD card with both TomTom and SmartST and to my knowledge I didn't experience problems with either of them.

[ian_ok]

Terry...I'd be grateful if you could feed back on how the system was for use in Spain, inparticular which areas you visited and what the peformance was like.

Has anyone any comments on this:
the ICN 510 which will have improved software and be a better product all round than the icn630

Ian