Tom Tom Go - First Impressions

Have the PDA ( iPaq) Version, £299 from PC World (other retailers are avaliable!)

Both very good, found it works well with no errors

Nigel has TomTom Go, Expect he will be about later, Maps for Go were updated last week, Had e mail notification even though have other system

Hello Derek, welcome back from wherever you've been.

I have a Tom Tom Go, as others have said, it is very good, and could probably be said to be the best of a bad bunch.

Its very easy to move between vehicles, very very easy to operate, the operating system has just been updated ( version 5, free upgrade ), and this has a lot more reatures, avaoid motorways, fastest ruote, walking route, cycling route, avaoid toll charges etc etc etc.

As it has an in built lithium battery you can set your destination without being sat in the car.

The 3D maps are very good, but as with all these systems there always seems to be errors, the maps are done by a kraut company  and occasionally you come across some strange errors, it knows about things done a couple of months ago, then occasionally wont know about a junction thats been there for 20 years.

The screen is a tad too reflective, would have been better with a matt finish.

Jane sounds gorgeous !

It has never gotten me lost yet, recovers very quickly either from its own error, or if you turn the wrong way, in fact that is probably the most impressive bit, just how quickly it re-calculates when you ignore it !

It now has postcode search, which is very good, apparently, from the blurb, only the UK and Netherlands use the postcode system, which I thought a little strange.

It doesnt cover Southern Ireland, it would seem nothing else does either, a few of the very expensive ones cover Dublin etc ( see my post in the Irish forum ).The whole of Western Europe ( if you purchase the relavent maps ), but not ROI ???????

It isn't cd driven, which I think is a boost.

You can download a free camera overlay for it, and soon you will be able to subscribe to traffic master and it will route you around jams automatically if you have it set to do so.

For the price, ROI excepted, I think it is fantastic value, bought mine in Febuary, its cheaper than the Road Angel camera detector.

Hi Derek

Nigel has pretty much covered all the plus points on the TomTom GO , there really aren't any major negative points on these units , I know the return rate for machines with faults is very low ( I test GO's everyday )

The new units are superb with the full postcode search and enhanced menu options , you can now deternine how you want the route planned ie quickest , shortest avoid motorways etc . With the introduction of TomTom traffic you can now also get up to date traffic reports sent to the unit . Although this is an extra service and you will need a bluetooth enabled phone and a GPRS connection

If you are planning on doing a lot of european driving then the TomTom Go 700 ( should be released in June) will have a 2.5 gig hard drive with full european maps pre installed .

Also the GO 500 and 700 are bluetooth enabled and have microphones and software built in which will allow complete hands free connection to your bluetooth phone if desired .

If you have any specific questions about the units please feel free to ask Derek as I actually work in the technical department for TomTom's main distributor

Cheers

Stuart

Nigel

To upgrade to the new software which will give you the full postcode search, iteniary planning and route selection (shortest quickest etc) and the new map of GB is 79 Euros

If you also have the full maps of Europe ( the 6 CD boxset ) you can upgrade this as well . The upgrade cost for this is 59 Euros .If you don't already own the european maps these can be bought either as country specific maps pre installed on SD's , or on a set of cd's which you would then install onto your own SD cards The set of CD;s retails at £99.99 , the country specific SD's retail at different prices depending on which contry you are buying  

None of these upgrades are avaliable to download i'm afraid , they both will have to be sent from TomTom in the Netherlands . Have you recieved an email from them with all the details of the upgrade on ? If not PM me your email address and i'll send you a copy

As far as i'm aware there aren't any plans for ROI maps currenltly , I believe this is due to the fact that the map detail currently avalaible for ROI is very limited .

The new GO speed camera overlay which is part of the TomTom plus package is avaliable to download from TomToms website for 69 Euros , to be totally honest I haven't seen this database yet but I would take a guess that it is pretty similar to the free ones you can download , however I think it will be updated far more frequently ....if you can update the system yourself by just adding the camera as a POI , thats what I do if I come across one that isn't in the database I have

Hope this all makes sense and gives you the answers you wanted  , if you have any more questions feel free to ask i'm happy to help

Sorry I didn't make myself clear ...yes you can download the version 5 software for free but that doesn't upgrade the maps as you know and I think that the postcode function can't be used fully with the old maps ....correct me if i'm wrong here though as that hasn't been confirmed to me by TomTom

With regards to the upgrade I can totally see your point and the last time TomTom did an upgrade they offered a special lower price for people who had bought the product within 2 months ( i think ) have you only emailed tomtom ?? I will PM you a uk customer service phone number I have

Installing european maps .....firstly do you want just the major roads of europe or do you want the full coverage ? ( the price of £99.99 is for full maps on 6 cd's  ..the major roads only are included on the cd you get in the box with the GO ) If you buy the full maps  you won't be able to get these all on one memory card as they are too big , for example the whole of france is 256mb ....what I would reccomend to do is to keep your GB map  on the card you got with it then get a 512mb or 1gb sd card and install the maps on there as you need them .

If you only want to install the major roads that came on the cd in the box then a 256mb card should be enough for all the data

Yours will read a 1gb card fine

Does what I have said about the maps make sense ( sometimes i even confuse myself )

Stuart

Sorry mate, your not going to like this bit.

That number you gave me is the same one I got from the website.

Last Tuesday I must have rung that 15 times, and I'm not joking, its answered by a machine which tells you all the operators are busy, and then tells you to ring back later.

Its just done it to me again.

Does anyone actually work there ?

Nigel ...PM'd ya