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“The RAC 215E sat nav - having a look on the web for a...”

written by on 28/05/2008

Good Points
It's Cheap, it has European Mapping, it works.

Bad Points
There are much more polished offerings out there. Yes, they cost more - you need to decide if they are worth the outlay.

General Comments
The RAC 215E sat nav - having a look on the web for a review is a pretty fruitless task for this unit - the only place I found anyone talking about this particular GPS was on the RAC Forums! That said, the reviews about the RAC-branded GPS units are mixed, they get some praise but they do get their fair share of complaints as well.
I decided to take a chance and buy one, so I did last week, it was on Aria Super Special and the price was the cheapest I could find for a European GPS and the cheapest by far ANYWHERE for this unit. It arrived the next day, and I had enough time to give it a simple test before taking it to Belgium and back for the bank holiday weekend. The initial test was ok, and got me home from my office without a glitch - even chose a decent route! Using it over the weekend was just fine - the search function for destinations is very good, and as long as it's initially given times to find some satellites it knows where it (and you) is going. Good choice of fastest route as well. Maps are reasonably up-to-date, although I need to look at the points of interest for the speed camera/speed restrictions entries as it was screaming some rather daft and irrelevant warnings at me on the M25 the other day.
The interface isn't as polished as the offerings from TomTom, but then it doesn't cost as much either. Not too happy with the sensitivity of the touch screen, and loading times from cold startup are a bit long, as is the initial search for satellites. Once it € s up and running though, it € s fine.
The software it's running is Route 66 Version 7, for WinCE.
It's ok. The software is on the supplied 2GB SD Card, and on a DVD supplied. There is no USB cable supplied, which is a little annoying. This can be used to charge the unit ilo the car charger - however I've not been able to make the unit visible to Windows XP yet. Even the forums recommend popping the card out and using a card reader (not supplied) to update points of interest or maps/software.
The casing has a rather nice soft-touch rubberized texture to it, it feels like it'll take a bump, not that I've dropped it yet. The cradle is a bit of a clumsy affair initially, but it € s solid and strong once it € s been setup into the ideal position, if a bit on the bulky side. The car charger feels cheap, but is functional.
There is a TMC ports on the underside, some places advertise traffic updates as a subscription, but as far as I know this is not currently provided/supported. Also, the 'Free Speed Camera Updates' aren't up-to-date, apparently. Maybe this will change over time.
All in all, I paid about £70 for this - and I'm happy with it. It's not perfect, but for the money it does a good job.