mapping for Japan and best device
 

Good morning All.
I am about to replace my 6 year old sat-nav device for a newer unit. Looks like the choices are Tom Tom or Garmin....having looked at both manufacturers web sites I cannot see any Map options for Japan...so couple of questions please; 1) any thoughts on Garmin vs Tom Tom hardware / software (latest devices) but perhaps more importantly any knowledge from anyone on Japanese map availability for any device (other than smart-phone)....i'll be spending at least 6 weeks in Japan, prior to heading SE Asia - so good mapping will be really important to me for the duration of my stay there....thanks so much for any support in advance - Andy

I don't know about TomTom, but you can get OSM maps for Japan that can be loaded to Garmin.
Some popular ones, such as covered here, use something that coverts the Japanese characters into the phonetic reading for Chinese, though (some of the same characters are used in both languages, but the reading is completely different):
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...eet-maps-64135

This website [url=http://tmz.skr.jp/data/gmap.html]Garmin GPS

Did you use the search function? Lots of info.

But Garmin, use openstreemaps.