TomTom GO 740 Live 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable Live Internet Connected GPS Navigator by TomTom
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Digital camera reviews of TomTom GO 740 Live 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable Live Internet Connected GPS Navigator
Digital camera Review: Buyer Beware
Summary: 1 Stars
The TomTom Go 730 was great while it lasted. My unit is pristine, never been dropped, not a scratch on it. I purchased it 14 months ago for $450...now it freezes and acts like somebody is using the touchscreen to navigate(what they call looping). Even though it's a short time after the warranty is up TomTom refuses to do anything but give me $75 on a new device. Lets see...pay ~$400 per year for navigation? I don't think so, do yourself a favor and but a different brand.Digital camera Review: Closer Than When We Started
Summary: 4 Stars
GPS's owned: Garmin StreetPilot III, Garmin 760, Dash Express, Navigon 7200T, TomTom GO 730, TomTom GO 740.
Summary first: Now if I could only cross-breed my Navigon 7200T with the TomTom GO 740.
My early and as yet incomplete impression is the TomTom GO 740 connected services are about on par with the original connected GPS, the Dash Express, which came out a year ago and withered on the vine 8-months later. TomTom does not offer the ability to integrate 3rd-party applications, which was a fantastic selling point for the Dash. The 3rd-party apps were better than the embedded ones. Anyway, enough about Dash, but I'm not going to be able to get away from the Navigon 7200T.
TomTom's connected search uses Google, and comes out of the box with all the standard TomTom GO series features. I like the way they've implemented the gas price display as it doesn't force you to look through an entire list, but just shows the cheapest along your route. You can still get a list if you want it. It's one of those, "less-is-more" things. It is a tad slow when downloading the data, so if you're in a hurried situation, it might be frustrating.
TomTom's autozoom (it was this way in my TomTom GO 730, too), bugs me to no end. Even at 70mph, it zooms too close to be useful, displaying only about a minute's worth of the road ahead, and little detail (e.g. upcoming roads) while in a route. Disabling autozoom and zooming out just a little completed eliminates all detail: It is blank, except for the road you're traveling. The Navigon displays up to 3 minutes of road ahead at that speed, and provides a reasonable amount of detail without being cluttered.
As of this early writing, I've yet to test the traffic services as I do not live near a major city, even though heavy traffic is not limited to those areas!
Unless you must have a connected GPS, go with the Navigon 7200T. Besides being $150 cheaper at this writing, it has free traffic for life and the autozoom is better. TT's IQ Routing is better than Navigon's routing, but not by much. Lane-assist is better on the Navigon, offering lane advice in complex interstate interchanges even if you're staying on the same interstate; the TomTom offers lane assist only if you're changing interstates.
There were no issues with brightness of the GO 740's display, from cloudless day to moonless night, and the adjustment range should be enough for any driving condition.
I really wish I could just build my own GPS, or that Navigon would come out with a connected GPS built on the 7200T.
Lastly, if you think this word picture doesn't match a 4-star rating, realize that I am leaving out much of what made TomTom a threat to Garmin. TomTom has a lot of things right and I'd only be regurgitating all the positive things you could read on the GO730 and GO720 reviews.
Digital camera Review: Device reboots randomly
Summary: 1 Stars
I have this for just a bit over six months. it was fine for the first 5 or so and then it started booting up slower. Then it would tell me no route found for saved favorites that had no problems before. Now it would randomly reboot during driving, up to several times per trip. After the first reboot, it would come back up with the current planned route deleted. I have uninstaleld and reinstalled the application as per tomTom Support but the same persists. They are asking that I clear the flash memory for atleast 3 times so I will try that tonight.
The Live traffic was more accurate at first. now it tells me to go on a road that is traffic ridden but is not shown on the GPS. I drive from Long island, NY to NJ for work and I go through Queens. It always tells me to go through the Cross Bronx Expressway which is ludicrous.
I would not buy a TomTom again. The best GPS deevices, in my opinion, are the factory installed ones.
Digital camera Review: Disappointing first impression
Summary: 2 Stars
TomTom GO 740 4.3-Inch Live Connected GPS Navigator
GPS Experience:
- Smartphone: TomTom Navigator 6 (in-use), Garmin XT, Copilot Live 6, Telenav (in-use)
- Dedicated: Garmin Nuvi 885T (in-use)
I had resisted buying dedicated GPS units while the phone apps (while buggy) generally had better traffic and online search capability for what I wanted to use. So I was quite excited when the TomTom Live units were announced.
Unfortunately the first impression is not that great. After having used TomTom Navigator6 with the traffic subscription for the last year or so, I've found their traffic data to be generally reliable (Telenav and Navigator6 seem to agree quite often on the amount of congestion and how to avoid). Not so the 740 Live. For example, in the San Jose CA area where I live there's a stretch of Hwy85 that *always* backs up one way in the morning and the other way in the afternoon for several miles. You can quite clearly see this on MSN, Google, Sigalert, Navigator6, Telenav, ... but as far as the 740Live is concerned there's no traffic. While there are some traffic incidents in the area reported, I'd say I'm generally missing around 1/2 of the incidents on the surrounding freeways. I've taken simultaneous pictures of my phone and the 740Live and sent these to TomTom for comment.
I completed a 4hr drive and ran both the 740Live and Navigator6 on auto-avoidance. Luckily I was driving in the car pool lane, so I didn't have to take the detours offered, however Navigator6 seemed to have the more reasonable suggestions for when to leave the freeway and take surface streets. Again, this seems to be related to the Navigator6 software generally reporting more traffic from what I could tell.
Also while driving tonight (first trip of more than 15mins), the machine all of a sudden rebooted itself. While potentially somewhat of an annoyance, this was downright dangerous the way it happened as it was dark outside and I was in night driving mode - during reboot the device flashed to full brightness for at least 15secs pretty much blinding me.
Anyway, I still find the TomTom UI the best thought out and the 740Live doesn't disappoint here. I'm sure the problems I'm having are teething issues - however, if you want a rock solid experience and want to rely on the traffic service ... I'd wait.
Digital camera Review: Dissatisfied Customer
Summary: 3 Stars
This is our first navigation system, so we're new to car navigation devices. However, we're savy at other technology, so this should of been a no brainer. Back in August 09 when we started the research, Tom Tom seemed to be our choice. We liked the reviews, features, etc. and even today, still like the Live Services Tom Tom offers.
However, this is the down side of the GO 740 Live:
The voice command software has a flaw in the module. If you choose to use voice commands, which we do, when you ask the device to Navigate To A Favorite and the device asks you which favorite and you make your selection, automatically the device plots a course to the next favorite on the list. There also have been other voice command short comings when you instruct the unit to turn Sound Off. It will turn the sound off, but when you instruct it to turn Sound On, it doesn't work.
Our other biggest frustration is that this device does not tell you which side of the road your destination is located on. It doesn't say anything, except you've reached your destination. If you're in a strange place and it's a huge four way intersection with stores on all four corners, you miss your destination. This sounds like a Tom Tom design shortcoming, not a tech issue.
In late August/Sept we worked directly with tech support at Tom Tom, were issued a ticket and a support person contacted us to help walk them through our issue. It turned out the voice command module did the exact same thing to the technician's that we described above. A few weeks later we received a cordial email with the instructions to sync every 4-6 weeks with Tom Tom Home, but we don't know when it will be fixed. It's 5 months later and it still doesn't work properly.
After reporting our dissatisfaction with Customer Support this morning, it was time to write this posting.
After spending around $300 for this unit, it's not worth it. We're considering returning the device, possibly looking at the XL340S Live (It has the same features, but without the Voice Commands and it's $100 cheaper.)
Don't spend the extra money on the Go 740 Live, it's not worth the extra money.
Good luck!