When you think of Sat Nav, Tom Tom must be one of the most famous names. I was after a budget Sat Nav of Europe and this model seemed to be the most compact, easiest to use and the best value.

It's supplied with a windscreen mount, which works well, however the suction release tag is on the bottom edge, which can be quite a reach on some cars, I end up scrabbling across the dashboard to do this. A cigar lighter charger is also supplied for the car, again the socket on the Tom Tom is on the bottom, so its hard to plug in once its stuck to the windscreen.

The touch screen is easy to use, its easy to find and plan a route. The navigation is excellent, well timed clearly spoken instructions, and only a few times have the maps been wrong. You can report map errors to Tom Tom for future updates which is useful.

There is a USB cable for connection to your home PC, and you use the Tom Tom Home software to manage your Sat Nav and download software updates when necessary. Make sure you have a broadband internet connecion, or else your updates will take forever to download.

One important issue is to make sure you perform regular backups of the data on the SD memory card. If your card is lost or the data becomes corrupted, if you dont have a backup, you will have to buy your maps again!

I experienced this, and asked Tom Tom for help, they referred me to several website help articles explaining how to recover the data, but none worked and they refused to send me a CD of the map data. Fortunately after a lot of attempts I managed to reformat my memory card, manually copy the map data back on to the card and get it to work again.

Also be aware that to switch the unit on, you need to hold the power button down for 5 seconds. If the battery charge is low it can take several attempts to switch on. My unit now has to be charged for 5 minutes before it will switch on at all...