2 Months Later

Well, it's the best part of a couple of monthe since I opted for the TT5 upgrade from TT3, and to say that I am bitterly disappointed with its performance would be a bit of an understatement.
Apart from my gripe with the out of date maps, I found TT3 to be just fine , with loads of customisation options, quick lock on to the satellites etc.etc.
I am running an HP 4150 with an Arkon integral receiver.(And same car)
Every day is the same............first thing takes at least 10 minutes or more to spring in to life......(just as well we all probably know the first 10/15 minutes of our journey.) Strange, (to me as a non expert,) as when I check the satellite page, 4/5 of the bars are all jumping around up and down, but sort of Greyed out until as I say 10 minutes later they go black and I'm up and running....but...not for long...for the next 5/10 minutes it's a question of 'now you're on, now you're not.' On, off, on off...talk about frustrating and it seems that the 'strength bars' (?) take their time to gradually get off the base, one bar , then two, then if you're lucky 3 and 4....but I just know that throughout my journey it will continually lose the signal...get it back again, and so it goes on. I was interested in the thread where somebody said that , yes, 'you can use TT5 maps with TT3'...if only...but as an ordinary customer with little software knowledge...the 'how to do it ' bit completely lost me!
And of course I can't turn the stupid voice off without losing the warning tones. All in all, if this is GPS progress, then what a con...in fact I'd say that I've been a sucker to have been sold crap.
So, my predicament is to whether to try and get rid of the whole lot on Ebay (TT3 and so called 5 and patch upgrade,) and start again...but with what ? Are the competitors equally as bad or is there something out there that actually works ? Never, ever, in a million years could I, or would I recommend Tom Tom based upon the performance of TT5.