TomTom ONE XL-S 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator by TomTom
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Digital camera reviews of TomTom ONE XL-S 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
Digital camera Review: A Bad GPS from the Best GPS Maker
Summary: 3 Stars
TomTom is the best GPS manufacture. Their products are cheap, they work fast, take you from your grandmother's house to girlfriends' house in the best route. Top of that, they have quite nice community software and lot of updates. I have experience with Garmin, Dash, Harman Kardon and Navigan all were far more expensive than Tom Tom.
But this specific model, have quite number of issues not very TomTom like. The mount is weak and need regular adjustment while you are driving. Speakers are not as clear as in other TomTom - sound like John Cleese had a cold. Internal memory is almost full when arrival and no space for any new updates - even for new map updates. And top of that, the GPS I received form Amazon did not had a SD slot - even though Amazon description clearly say there is one. But there were a sticker top of where SD slot suppose to be, saying `US and Canada Maps are loaded. No SD Card required'.
I suggest spending extra 20$ and go for the next level TomTom instead.
Digital camera Review: A great piece of technology at a great price
Summary: 5 Stars
The Tom Tome One XL-S is the first GPS I've owned. What a useful, fun and easy to use piece of technology. Free map updates, a wide range of free sounds, voices, wallpapers and icons, an easy to use interface...what's not to like!
I've read some of the complaints here, and honestly don't be swayed away. Most of the complaints are experienced no matter which GPS you are buying. If your device isn't leaving you enuf time to change lanes, you're driving too fast! The computerized voice isn't perfect, it mispronounces "bridge" as "branch", but it is well above 90% accurate in pronouncing street names. The cool thing about it is, the voice actually changes expression. Personally, the "famous voices" and other human recorded voices like the mullet man, are hokey and using the computerized voice to pronounce the street names is the whole point of buying this unit. Otherwise, you might as well buy the Tom Tom One or Tom Tom One XL.
I did alot of research before buying. Everyone said.."Get the Garmin". Well, do the math and compare features and you'll come to same conclusion I did.
Digital camera Review: A successful product line continue
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this product for my wife. I've been sold on the Tom Tom line since the early models. As an owner of the Tom Tom 300 model, I didn't want to experiment with other manufacturers. The One XL-S is an extension of the 300 model with some added functionality like announcing the street name as part of the navigation. The models are great ...long battery life, maps are as accurate as can be considering road construction is perpetual, and the display is clear even in the sun. The most alluring feature is the menu system ...very easily navigated. The only negative is the window mount on the One. The 300 came with a suction cup and lever design. The One relies entirely on the suction cup. It works, you just have to push a little harder than I was accustomed to pushing. Be careful of which vendor you select. I order two units. They shipped one and invoiced for two. It took 3 days of escalating telephone calls to correct the error which should have been easily correct. The unit weight, shipping weight and number of packages was simple enough to calculate that there was a shipping mistake, but that didn't help in this situation.Digital camera Review: A very annoying piece of equipment with many many problems
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought the TomTom One XL-S for the larger screen and text to speech capabilities.
I first tested a Garmin 260 text to speech model, but the screen was too small to see at windshield level.
I was very surprised at the ease of use of the Garmin and the problems with the TomTom.
Both acquire satellites and plan routes with good speed.
However the TomTom One was full of undocumented software problems, omissions, inability to find correct routes and ordinary popular chain stores such as Walmart, Sunoco, and many others.
More than 50 percent of the time the text to speech is garbled, and you have to guess the street name. The TomTom unit cannot adequately pronounce simple words such as "freeway" or "north high street", etc.
"Verrazanno bridge" was totally unintelligible, as was about 30 percent of the streets and destinations.
The brightest screen setting washes out in daylight, and is difficult to see. That is a serious problem.
The night time screen does not always switch properly to the preprogrammed brightness level.
The TomTom One XLS seems to be programmed to recognize only a very limited list of popular businesses, particularly Starbucks, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, but it misses more than it finds.
You can forget about most of the small businesses. I found myself trying to think if an unrecognized location was near a Starbucks or Pizza hut, and used the nearest one to get to my real destination.
There might be an update for this, but this is how it comes out of the box.
When approaching a turn the unit verbally warns at 2 miles then 1 mile then half a mile then a quarter mile then 200 feet. However, at the turn it does not not use the text to speech to name the street. Annoying.
If the GPS satellite signal is lost, it will not tell you in speech, and will take you to the wrong destination if you do not look at the screen and see the pale little letters "lost satellites".
The point of interest menu is involved and difficult to use.
Canceling the present route requires many steps and is a ridiculous feature, nearly hidden.
There is a procedure for enabling text to speech.
This must be done manually, the unit does not come enabled.
The documentation does not tell you that if you select a preprogrammed voice first and then the computer voice second (which supposedly enables text to speech) the text to speech will never come on at all unless you reset the unit to default factory settings.
The unit sometimes defaults to a lower volume probably because the touch area of the volume control overlaps the other screen areas, so when tapping the screen the volume is accidentally reset. Again, very annoying.
Normal setting of the volume is simple; click on the lower left of the screen and the control comes up.
However it can take a minute or more after increasing the volume for the volume level to respond, and then it suddenly jumps up. If you are riding alone, the shock value can be high.
If you select a point of interest without selecting a particular city,
the documentation does not tell you must select a city in order for the unit to search more than 2 miles outward for similar POI's.
In tapping the screen, often the taps take you past the place you want to go, and usually there is no back button. You will have to do it all over again to go back.
The altitude feature just simply does not work, varying several hundred feet driving on level ground.
There is a lawyer/legal screen in which you need to agree to not use the unit during driving. Huh?
A language problem?
The TomTom company is located in the Netherlands (the Garmin unit is made in Taiwan), but the TomTom unit is made and assembled in China. I can only imagine the language iterations this unit has gone through in it's text to speech programming.
The suction cup windshield mount holds firmly to the windshield, but will not in any way hold to the dash without the permanent mounting disk.
The tongue and groove in the windshield mount holds the unit very tightly, but cannot be undone while it is mounted low on the windshield, necessitating removal of the whole suction cup, which is very, very difficult. I partially solved this problem by putting only one end of the unit into one grove, but this solution is very shaky. I considered putting velcro on the large base of the unit to mount it to the front of the dash, but the power cord enters at the base so this is not possible.
Pros?
Well, the Help Me! feature is nice, such as Drive to help, Walk to help,
Where am I? etc.
The Browse Map feature is good, and gives usable area maps.
The Bottom Line;
Anyone who has never used a GPS before might be impressed at their newfound capability with the TomTom GPS.
Anyone who has used another GPS will likely be sorely disappointed and annoyed at the needlessly complicated and often non functional features.
Digital camera Review: A very good unit for it's price
Summary: 5 Stars
Large, wide screen with great graphic. I love the computer interface and the ability to make corrects to POIs directly to the unit. There are a vast amount of POIs and voice options. I love the unit, the mapping, and the speed. The maps are accurate and dependable which is the most important factor in choosing a GPS. Using Google maps with the unit is a big "+".