OK - Just thought I'd add to this with the results of our first major shakedown trip with some different bits of kit. We drove down from Le Havre to Portugal and back, going a little bit off the beaten path but not much. We took a little under 3 weeks for the trip and here are my recents regarding mapping:-

1.Map Reading

Rubbish. I didn't realise I could be so bad! The wife too. I am not sure if this is the result of Europe being covered in so many roads, all with multiple names, or shear ineptitude. We were only using 1:900 000 2007 Europe road atlas, but I would have expected better! We didn't try anything too tricky, but even understanding which motor way we were on was beyond us. To give us just a little bit of credit we did improve with time, but still .......

2.Axim X5 300 Mhz + TOMTOM 6

Not sure whether this was too much application for too little machine, but the processor seemed to have a heart attack on the way home. It totally lost sight ofthe GPS mouse connected via the serial port, and all other parts of the application started working in super slow mode. I haven't had a good chance to look at this, but I might try with an older version of TOMTOM.
Until then it had done a pretty good job, except in the Pyrenees. There it spent 30 mins telling us we were in the Atlantic. I really enjoyed playing withthe routing, and some of the places it took us in the mountains in Portugal were great fun. Anyone who argues that you don't get to go to unusal places using one of these is wrong. Completely the opposite in fact. I would say if you want to see off the beaten track use one!
Now our plans is to buy a good PDA that is up to te job of TOM TOM and Ozieplorer and figure out how to use the more complicated parts of GPS. Can't wait.

3. Garmin City Explorer and Mapsource with Garmin V.

Once TOM TOM died we turned to our old Garmin V. Man I was surprised. I couldn't really read the display and the fact that you couldn't load a days maps into the unit really surprised me. BUT once hooked up to the laptop this was the easiet thing to navigate with. I'm really glad we got a REAL chance to use it and find this out. I did also discover what a pain in the arse it was to have a laptop in the cap with us. I'm not sure I will ever be able to have kids now (phew!). But it worked and it worked really well. Didn't seem to loose the signal as badly in the Pyrenees either, but there were quite a few short moments when we did loose the signal.

So, in summary we will be buying a kick ass PDA, using TOM TOM and Ozi on that. As back up the lap top with the Garmin V. Sorted. Oh and some paper maps too. For the fish and chips

__________________
Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009