The use of copied navigation disks has been with us for years now. Some people will tell you its fine to use a copied disk. We have had many many years of experience of using genuine disks and have seen many many customers come to us with copied disks bought from either a well known auction site or directly from internet sites offering 'backup' copies of disks. There are even one or two auction sites offering a genuine disk but when you enquire further you will be offered a copy instead!

Firstly, lets get one thing absolutely straight. The selling of copied disks is illegal and against the tems of the licence of the original disk. If a disk is for sale at a low price of say £25 - £40 then ask yourself 'Is it genuine and the latest version?' The answer will be no.

Now, lets look at what a copied disk can do to your comand system;

Copied disks do not have anything like the high reflectivity properties that genuine disks have. This causes the laser to have to perform many more re-reads of the data in order to get a successful read. This has two effects on your system. First off it will reduce the life of the laser dramatically. Secondly, it will cause your system to run much much slower and hotter. This in itself will reduce the life of the system not to mention invalidate any warranty you may have.

We have seen many customers complain they have a comand system which unreliably reads disks and runs hot. We put in a genuine disk and it reads quickly and easily without error. We have also recently had a major in-car navigation manufacturer decline a warranty claim because the units firmware had been corrupted by a copied disk.

So if you dont mind your comand system running slow, running too hot and possibly likely to fail prematurely then copied disks are cheap even if they are illegal. If the cost of a disk is too high for you then consider using a slightly older disk so long as its genuine.

The image below shows an easy way to detect a fake or copy. You can clearly see the lower reflectivity of the copied disk plus the edge where the recording stops. DVD's record from the inside out to the edge. Genuine disks have no line where the data stops.

For a genuine disk at a competitive price try these people;

 Comand Online