TomTom GO 930T 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic Receiver by TomTom
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Digital camera reviews of TomTom GO 930T 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic Receiver
Digital camera Review: ONLY ONE THING....REALLY
Summary: 3 Stars
THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS GPS IS ITS ABLITY TO RE-ROUTE QICKLY. FAR FASTER THAN A GARMAN. YOU NEED AN AFTER MARKET POD FOR THE WINDOW SUPPORT OR YOUR TOM TOM BECOMES A BASKET BALL ON THE DASH. HALF OF THE BELLS AND WISSLES DONT WORK WELL AND FOR ME THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY. THE PERFECT GPS IS BETWEEN GRAMAN AND TOM TOM. OF THE TWO TOM TOM FOR THE ABOVE REASON IS BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM FOR GETTING WHERE YOU WANT TO GO.Digital camera Review: One of the best GPS on the market
Summary: 5 Stars
I researched GPS very extensively: Navigon, Magellan, Garmin, Tomtom.
tomtom 930T was my last hope, as every one I have tried had some serious flaws either in reliability or routing. I was ready to give up, but 930T had exceeded all of my expectations. Unfortunately, tomtom and others rushed to the market "Line Assist" and "Junction View", but it took almost a year to mature. So the damage was already done. tomtom, navigon and garmin delivered on this promise, others did not. But all of them set wrong expectation and paying some price now.
Anyway, top of the line tomtom 930T is priced currently almost as an entry level GPS. Europe + North America maps, Enhanced Positioning Technology, Bluetooth remote (not a gimmick), free lifetime RDS-TMC traffic receiver(actually works very well, the whole traffic implementation make the most sense), 1-year subscription to tomtom traffic(cell data), Light Sensor are the "icing on the cake". Current prices are a steal.
Everything, the packaging, unit and accessories quality are top notch. With one big exception - windshield mount. It is just embarrassing, but Arkon TTGO115 solves the issue for $16. Touch screen is the most responsive in the class. Interface is a bit different, but it will grow on you. Navigon has the worst one. Voice Address entry is working even with my heavy accent.
GPS Sensor is extremely sensitive, sometimes it manages to pick up GPS signal on the middle of the commercial buildings. Locks on satellites almost instantly. If it is not, make sure you installed a free tomtom QuickGPSfix. If you do not use wireless data on the cell, you will need to connect it the computer (tomtom home) once a week to load a next week of satellite positions update.
930T has tons of options, so if you feel adventurous it will keep you busy for a while: GUI customizations, Custom POI, Map corrections, tomtom buddies, tomtom HOME.
For some reason I only received Europe map update guarantee, for North America I have to phone in tomtom support. After a proof of purchase verification they released map update to me. All maps updates fit on the built-in internal 4GB memory with plenty of the free space to spare.
There is a lot of discussion about routing, but I agree with tomtom 90%, Magellan 80%, Garmin 75%, Navigon 70%. When you disagree with tomtom, it gives up without much of a fight and usually choose the new route I wanted. Try to pull this off with Garmin...
Internal speaker sound quality and volume is the best in the class. Text-To-Speech voice quality is also very good and quite natural.
Bluetooth is very stable and works as Swiss watch. Some folks may not find their phone as officially supported, but it work with way more phones than on the list. You just need to experiment with different models/provider option. For example AT&T folks may find that "Cingular media net..." is the right option, not "AT&T wireless". My LG Shine is not supported, but working just fine as phone and data modem.
POI database quality is not as thorough as Garmin or Magellan, but way better then Navigon (although Navigon may have over 9 mil of POI with latest map update).
930T is about a year on the market, so tomtom managed to polish it up pretty well by now.
930T runs on Linux and Linux rocks!!! So far, units running on Windows CE seems to be most unreliable ones (freezing, locking up, reboots).
I would recommend it with Arkon windshield mount.
Good Luck...
Digital camera Review: Over great
Summary: 5 Stars
I have used three different Tomtoms (due to theft) and this is by far the best of the best. I have used all of the competions GPS and this is my favorite (young adult - may be hard to use for older people) I wouldn't recommend any other GPS unit.Digital camera Review: Pretty good, not disappointed, but still room for some improvement.
Summary: 2 Stars
Like it overall, but it takes some getting used to to really understand it and a few features aren't as good as one hopes. It's a decent value for the money; I thought comparable units from Garmin were far pricier.
It dost most things well, but has a few oddities and things to be aware of.
The voice recognition for spoken addresses is generally very good. The only time it let us down was one time where I was looking for "W. California" street. I spoke "West California Street" and it didn't even come close; the suggested list was all sorts of things that didn't resemble it at all. So then I just said "California Street" and it did find that, but "California Street" is an entirely different area 2 miles away from where I needed to me on "West California Street". I only knew it was wrong because I had Google-mapped it beforehand as well.
The lane instructions so far are confusing. We haven't used it to navigate a complicated intersection like it claims it's good at doing, but when we just drive down the freeway and our route has us driving for many miles on the same freeway, the unit keeps telling us repeatedly "Ahead, keep left". What I believe it really means is "stay out of the right lane which is exiting shortly". But it's very annoying, especially when you can see in the corner of the screen that you have like 10 miles to go before changing roads, so the constant and repetitive "keep left" is very irritating.
The default computer voice is terrible. The optional voices that you can download are much better. The default voice tried to pronounce the street name "Margarita Road" and completely butchered it into something not sounding anything like "Margarita". It did the same thing with the city name of "Escondido"; whatever it repeated back to me in directions was completely whacked.
There is also a strange glitch or trap that is easy to fall into with browsing the route. If I put in a route and then I try to browse the route, it seems that if I touch the screen a certain way or zoom in, it somehow resets my destination point. Twice now I have been led completely off course to a wayward destination because of this. Basically, if you browse the route, don't do anything other than browse the screen shots or it'll do something you don't want it to do.
It misleadingly announces "you have reached your destination" when you are blocks away. What it seems to do is when you have made your last turn on your route, it doesn't matter if your address is right where you are or if it's six blocks ahead - either way it says "you have reached your destination". You always have to look back at the screen to see that while you have no more turns to make, you still may have to go several more blocks before truly arriving at your destination. It seems that you *always* need to mitigate what it verbally tells you with what the screen says because if you go on what it literally tells you, it'll be misleading.
The maps generally are OK except one time it had me turn down an unnamed alley that was bisected by a small canyon/ravine and didn't go through but it believed it was a through alleyway. I submitted a map correcton for that. Another time it told me to make a left at an intersection where a left turn was not permitted (and it was not a recent prohibition either; the sign had been there for years). I submitted a correction for that as well.
The last thing it fails rather miserably at is big shopping centers and apartment complexes. In a big apartment complex it sent me essentially to the building where the leasing office was instead of my friend's apartment even though the street number was her exact building. Another time at a 4-way intersection where there was a huge shopping mall on each corner, I was at the northwest corner and it said "you have reached your destination" when the destination was really a restaurant at the southwest corner and a good 1000 feet further down the road. Probably has something to do with the USPS numbers for the street vs. the actual physical location.
Oh it also doesn't do a good job at guessing what direction you are facing when starting out a route. Sounds trivial but if it tells you to "turn right ahead" when you're really starting off in the opposite direction, that's a problem. Again, it seems that you always have to take the verbal instruction and mitigate it with what the map shows on the screen so that only then you really know what it's trying to tell you to do.
But all of that happens in the minority of times (except for the nagging "keep left" instruction on freeways which is nearly all the time).
The user interface is pretty intuitive, the general features for the money is good, and it does seem to get us there more often than not. The other day the integrated bluetooth in our car failed and so we used the bluetooth on the tomtom and while we used it for only one call, I was pleased that it paired up easily, transferred the phone book, and the user interface with nice big touch-screen buttons for dialing and answering were good.
I would advise that anyone who gets a nav unit, tomtom or otherwise, play with it a LOT before you first really need it. Never make the first time you use a nav device the time that you are in an unfamiliar place. Take it with you to the grocery store, the gas station, on your commute, etc. and try it out on your familiar routes first. You can only know what it does right/wrong/well/not-so-well if you compare what it tells you to what you know is right/wrong from your usual route(s). That way when you are in an unfamiliar place for the first time with it, any oddities in its communication you know how to interpret properly.
EDIT: 11/2010
Growing increasingly disappointed with this model. As time goes on, it seems to have a hard time finding a satellite signal, sometimes taking up 5-10 minutes to do so. The battery life is now abysmal and it's virtually useless without plugging it into the car charger.
It also let me down a bit this past weekend. I had to go to Bonelli Park in San Dimas, CA. This park is HUGE. It led me to some back-entrance to a parking lot and not the park's main entrance. In addition, it told me to use this back entrance which was an exit-only with those "do not enter severe tire damage" spike things. Should have taken me to the main entrance (which was a good 2-3 miles away). I ended calling my friends on the cell phone and having them help me get there. Then on the way home to San Diego (I know my way from there but wanted to get the estimated travel time), I put in the route. Got my ETA and turned it off. Around Irvine I turned it on again to get an updated ETA. Even though I was on the route suggested, it decided to recalcuate the route. It got stuck in 'analyzing roads...' for a good 5 minutes before I gave up. Turned it on again, cleared the route, and re-entered the route and it was fine.
Between the poor battery life, inability to deal with locations that have a large footprint (e.g.: the park), and freezing up and trouble finding a satellite signal, it's become a very frustrating device to use.
I'm also annoyed that TomTom has cheaper models now with lifetime traffic. With the 930T the subscription is $60/year which is very expensive IMO. I feel like I've been shafted. This was an expensive higher-end model and they want $60/year on top of that to continue traffic service? If the new ones have lifetime, that should be extended to these expensive older models too. Shouldn't be a technology problem either; it's a business model problem.
Digital camera Review: Product is good. Support? What Support?
Summary: 3 Stars
TomTom makes a great GPS product, but there's a little secret that the company doesn't tell you about.
The internal battery will last maybe two years. And when it fails, (according to their telephone support), even the car charger won't recharge it. OK, batteries fail. But there's more.
1) The battery is in a sealed unit.
2) TomTom (this is the unbelievable bit) won't replace the battery if the unit is out of warranty, according to their telephone support.
I argued with the support person, pointed out that this policy is stupid, he said that's the policy, and that's all he can offer.
Which means they are selling a product which they know will require a replacement battery, the product is sealed, and they won't install one for you. So you have to figure it out for yourself, buy another, or switch to Garmin.
It's like they're selling you an expensive lamp, and when the bulb goes, that's the end of the lamp.
Not acceptable. GPS's are not throw-away items. Get with it, Tomtom.