A sat nav comparison – New Kate is a TomTom 950 Live (old Kate was a 520) and Rosie refers to her built-in RNS-E device (Rosie being an Audi RS4).
Background
Old Kate was very good and served me well for the last (nearly) two years, but shit software from TomTom meant that syncing and updating a device with an SD card installed was just too much grief and finally the whole thing became too much so I bought New Kate that had all the maps on the internal ‘drive.’ Much better and also had the cool LIVE services.
Rosie’s RNS-E is built in, but has maps circa 2006 and lacks a few features.
So, here’s a feature comparison:
Viewing experience
New Kate’s screen is smaller than Rosie’s but is higher resolution and brighter. Also, New Kate, being stuck to the windscreen, is more in line of site, so you get to keep your eyes on the road more. On the other hand, Rosie also puts turn information on the instrument cluster right in front of you.
Having driven a few hundred miles now with Rosie’s sat nav, I’d say there’s not really much in it.
Route accuracy
New Kate wins hands down here. Not only does she know the roads better (up todate maps), but knows about crap roads (and to avoid them) and can do eco routes and – here’s the winner – has live services so can route based on actual traffic conditions.
Rosie has TMC, but not very often. She doesn’t know about eco routes and is much slower at recalculating a route when you ignore her and go somewhere else.
Ease of programming
New Kate is very easy to program. On screen keyboard means you can type in names and places. Unfortunately, the responsiveness is crap, so you end up retyping and generally taking ages. On the other hand, you can pre-program routes from the comfort of home or hotel room, whereas with Rosie, you need to be in the car.
Rosie is a bit more fiddly to enter destinations (no keyboard) but surprisingly has many special destinations built in, eg, I couldn’t enter the postcode for a place I wanted in Margate, but she did have the place itself.
Ease of use when driving
It is very hard to do anything with New Kate when driving. Mainly because she’s just that much further away (stuck to the screen), and the touch screen requires a bit of accuracy of prodding, taking attention even more from the road. So basically, don’t.
Rosie is a bit easier. All controls are via the MMI interface which can be used without looking and is within reach.
New Kate can be controlled via voice, but only you prod the right places on the screen first. RNS-E also has voice control but not in Rosie (needs some phone preparation hardware).
Sexiness of voice
Rosie. Hands down. Although Kate is quite bossy 
Convenience
Well, Rosie is always there, so scores highly with convenience. No need to plug anything in, or stick to the screen. On the other hand, New Kate is convenient in that you can plan before you get in the car.
Miscellaneous
Rosie has a nice feature where on a motorway, she’ll list all the upcoming junctions and service stations. New Kate doesn’t do that.
New Kate knows where the nearest cheapest fuel can be had and can do Google lookups. Rosie cannot. Although I’m not sure it’s that useful in practice. The latter is also an expensive service which I may not want to pay for.
New Kate can show the map whilst Rosie shows info on the music I’m listening too. Rosie can’t do both at the same time… well she can a bit – the info cluster in front of you still shows next turn info.
New Kate can read road names, whereas Rosie can only read road numbers and major town and city names.
Summary
A tricky one. I think for most things, I’d use Rosie for navigation but if going on a longer trip, especially somewhere in Europe, I’d probably use New Kate. If nothing else New Kate would be a backup.
I’d really like to be able to say Rosie is perfect and New Kate is going on eBay, but I can’t. Even if I get the 2010 map updates, I’d still be torn between the two.
I think a revisit is required in six months.
6 Responses to “Rosie vs. New Kate”
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So once again your flash car has let you down. You’re now in a quandary and not sure which satnav to use. For me the choice is easy:
Background: Po is a 2005 Citroen C2 1.1L with no SatNav, iPhone is a 3G iPhone with TomTom satnav software and the screen mount with external GPS.
Viewing Experience: The iPhone is on the windscreen so provides a good view, however, Pos manual navigation is out of the windscreen making for a better view. Where the iPhone wins, though, is that it displays constant route information rather than the intermittent signs.
Route accuracy: The iPhones map is a little out of date now and sometimes it doesn’t realise that a turn is actually a continuation of a road (and by a similar token that a straight on might actually be a new road) but a quick check on the display clarifies everything. Pos manual system provides bang up to date route information but only to villages, towns, major roads and popular attractions. In addition Pos navigation system only works when in close proximity to the destination.
Ease of programming: Po wins hands down here since you just jump in and go. That said the iPhone allows a much wider range of destinations and further range with a quick input of the place name or postcode via the onscreen keyboard.
Ease of use when driving: While Po uses large, easy to read signs mounted on the road side I prefer the iPhones moving map and arrow indicators. Even though they are smaller and lower resolution you can see them at any time and there are voice prompts when turnings are coming up plus a countdown for the distance to go before the next instruction.
Sexiness of voice: Po does make cute beeps but these are not to do with navigation so the iPhone wins be default.
Convenience: The get in and go feature of Pos manual navigation is less of a hassle than getting out the holder, plugging it in, launching the TomTom app and entering in the destination.
Miscellaneous: Po does have a backup paper map which can be used when lost but this does involve stopping, finding the map, finding where you are, finding your destination and manually plotting a route. Complex routes are hard to remember and may take many stops. The iPhone picks routes based on average route times so may take you a different way during rush hour which can be a bit confusing.
Summary: For short journeys I don’t bother using the iPhone, but for everything else it’s a God send and has pride of place on the windscreen.
So pretty much the same then, except no sexy voice and needing to stop and use a map as a backup.
And hoping nobody calls you on the phone at a tricky navigation moment (as happened to me once when I was trialling the iPhone as a navigation device).
Not sure how it handles incoming calls. Apparently the dock is a bluetooth hands free kit too but without voice answer it’ll probably require some faffing.
I have a TomTom 540 Live in the Mini (which also has Satnav – with 2002 maps!).
For me, the traffic is the cat’s doodahs – but that’s cause I’m on the M25 every day.
I have the TomTom remote control fitted at the front of the door pocket and I find this makes working the satnav quite straightforward and safe. The only problem being that some of the functions don’t work with it (e.g. you can’t drive the phone book), but otherwise it’s been well worth it for me, I use it nearly every day to replan routes on the fly (Also allows easy rejection of hands-free calls when people call just at the wrong point of your trip).
I’ve also used the Petrol station finder – which was brilliant when my usual place was inexplicably closed.
That’s interesting about the remote – I’ll have to look into that.
The LIVE stuff really is very handy, and the one thing that would keep my from dumping the TomTom.
What I’m doing now though is having New Kate on the screen doing the navigating and Rosie’s satnav acting as a birdseye north-up roving map. They work quite well together.
I’ve also discovered that you can, er, download the latest updates from the interwebnetz so Rosie will at least have a post 2006 view of the road.
Now what I *really* want is a satnav feature that warns of fucking huge potholes (including ones that look like puddles) that will shag your wheels.
Perhaps the new night vision systems with pedestrian ‘painting’ could be adapted for this?
I have now updated Rosie’s RNS-E system to 2010 maps and a software update that knows that in the UK, TMC data is now free (not that TomTom will be lowering its prices).
This means that Rosie is more or less as good as New Kate for routing around accidents and slow traffic.
Jury’s still out on which of the two makes the best device though.