Rosie (built-in RNS-E) wins, New Kate (TomTom 950 Live) loses.

Really, New Kate’s only real purpose for the last trip was showing speed (in KM), speed limits, and highlight locations of ‘safety’ cameras. She was fine for the former (except in tunnels), OK-ish for limits, and utterly useless for the cameras. She didn’t spot one.

On planning, New Kate is hopeless for avoiding toll roads in countries where practically all roads are toll roads (thanks for Mark for helping to point this out).

The final straw was when I tried to use her to navigate through the Austrian lake district. She seemed to have this slightly brain dead view that all roads with 100km/h limit are equal so dragged us through some very rural, single track roads.  Rosie, on the return trip, seemed to know this and took us along some sensible roads.

New Kate is going on eBay (or similar).

I do still need something that’ll tell me how fast I’m going in km/h, but I think I have an free iPhone app for that.

At that time, and since, I’ve generally settled for Rosie over Kate, but thought that perhaps, on a longer trip around Europe, I’d go with Kate.

Well, I’m mid way through our second Euro road trip, and thought I post a few new findings. Both Rosie and Kate have maps current as of Spring 2010.

First of all, I decided from the outset to use Rosie for all navigation needs yet still have Kate on the windscreen to show a 2D overview map and to list current speed and limit in km/h (Rosie doesn’t show speed limits).

As a test (and a backup) I’d plan my routes in Kate first, then keep her passive whilst in the car.

Amazingly, though, Kate didn’t know the first three addresses we wanted to go to – Reims, Aix-les-Bains (France) and Stresa (Italy). Not only did Rosie understand the addresses, but she also knew the hotels.

Rosie also wins when planning a more interesting route.

With Kate, you tell her to use a particular waypoint – a small town, intersection or to avoid something… all a bit fiddly.

With Rosie, I tried this initially, but gave up and just said: take me to xxx. But pleasingly, Kate will offer a few variations on the route that, so far, has including the interesting things I wanted to do.

So Kate is very techie, very algo-oriented and Rosie just seems to know the best way to get places.

An aside to this is the way Kate deals with toll roads. You either have them or not. With Rosie, she shows a selection of routes with the amount of time on toll roads shown for each (they’re much harder to avoid in mainland Europe, and in Switzerland, all motorways are toll roads).

Well, we’re only half way though this trip so plenty of time for navigation disasters, but so far for France, Italy and Switzerland, Rosie definitely wins.

This time, I wanted to return to the area, drive over the Llanberis Pass (a few times), but maybe see something different.

We picked Bodysgallen Hall for the place to stay, a little way outside of Llandudno, but close enough to the mountains for a blast.

We never made it into Llandudno itself, but did have a tour around Anglesey, a rather splendid place, especially the north side where we had a wander around Bull Bay.

The area in general reminds me a lot of the Alps, strangely enough. Llanberis Pass is as good as the San Bernadino and the A55 from Conwy down to Bangor is very much like the tunnel sections to the west of Geneva. You really don’t have to go that far to get good roads. Rosie loves them.

The area is also well stocked with Shell garages, essential for feeding a thirsty girl as they all sell V-Power

Well, that’s it for another bank holiday. The next one in August will probably see us on another Euro road trip; a different route this time, but I’m sure the Alps will feature again…

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Satnav Note: Kate didn’t see any use this trip. I’ve completely switched over to Rosie’s built-in satnav. There may be plusses and minuses, but Rosie wins out over all.

Tech Note: Usually, I take the MacBook with me on trips, for keeping in touch, planning routes, checking out local tourist things, etc. On this trip, the iPad made its debut (with the MacBook as backup). The iPad completely met my needs, however, and the MacBook stayed in its case. In fact, it hasn’t come out since we returned.

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.

1. Kate now stutters

2. Kate now tells me she can’t find a faster route (IQ maps or something)

3. Lane assist

This last one is extraordinary.

It puts up a diagram of the lanes ahead with green arrows on the one you should be in.

Great, but if you didn’t already know which lane to be in, it’s generally far to late to move, so would seem to be pointless.

Perhaps TomTom secretly informs the DVLA of people who generally get it wrong so that their licenses can be revoked.