TomTom ONE 3rd Edition 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator
by TomTom
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of TomTom ONE 3rd Edition 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator
Customer Review: great product
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my first car GPS and I don't know who would need more and why. This product does everything I need and the size is perfect - it fits in my jacket pockets easily.
Only one little drawback is that on long trips I can't tell it to use certain roads to use to get to a destination. Of course you still have options to choose a fastest route, shortest etc, but it doesn't solve the "problem". I solved it however by creating some checkpoints in places i needed to go through, so it directed me through these areas.
Also, I found it better when the GPS calls my turns and not the name of the street. The unit tells you to turn a certain distance from the turn and when the turn needs to be made. It is also very easy to see if you need to turn, because the GPS is so precise. It seems to me that the call outs of street names would be more challenging to the driver, but I've never used this option so I don't know how the name call outs work.
I bought it for $149, but i was ready to give $250 for it.
I really can't understand some of the bad reviews here, because some of them talk about things that are not related to this GPS system. Maybe they describe the 1st or 2nd Ed.?
I really recommend it if you're on a budget, and don't need another gadget that comes with mp3 player :)
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January, 2008 Update:
I just came back from a long trip to California and I can say that this GPS is one of the few gadgets that I don't have smallest regrets for buying. I can't say enough what a huge help this device was for me during this trip. Every time I thought about the money I gave for it, it made me smile, because I would give much more just for renting it for the trip '. Driving around San Francisco and LA was no problem with this unit. But of course there were some small issues that I suspect every GPS has. On one occasion I missed my turn since it was immediately after previous turn. This was my fault since it had told me before about two turns to the left. After I missed it, it asked me to turn left on the next intersection where left turns were not permitted. I consider it a small issue since the GPS is not supposed to relieve you from paying attention.
This GPS shows the addresses very precisely and not like one of the negative reviewers here said "it will not get you there, but it will get you close". It announced that I had reached my destination at the right time. However I had that issue once while driving in Manhattan, surrounded by tall buildings. It knew I was on the right street, but it didn't know exactly where - it happened once though and I suspect other GPS's would have the same problem in similar circumstances.
Text to speech feature is totally, totally useless. I haven't needed it even once. A quick look at the screen plus announcements was enough for me. I didn't even know on what street name I was for most of the time and it wasn't important to me anyway (it is shown on the screen though). I found all my destinations without problem.
While driving on highways the TT1 will often announce to keep left. I found that it doesn't really want you to drive on the left lane and it is just a warning not to end up on the exit lane on the right.
I was driving through highway 101 where there is a construction at one point, blocking the exit. The GPS wanted me to take this exit, however missing it was not a problem. I just drove by it and the GPS recalculated my route quickly, telling me to take the next exit. My girlfriend didn't even realize that the GPS changed my route.
It is kind of funny that some people complain that this GPS takes strange routes to get to the destination. Why would they use a GPS if they knew the route anyway? But it happens to me too. In my neighborhood it tells me to get to the main highway through a Jewish neighborhood that is often full of traffic. However, just a couple of clicks on the screen (avoid part of the route) puts me on the route I always take. But even that is not important. Just turn to the next street and the GPS will recalculate immediately (no clicking required). However, on Saturdays this is the best route though', since there no traffic at all.
Maybe on my trip I didn't always have the fastest route, but who cares. I always found my destination and reached it pretty quickly.
About points of Interests:
I found all I needed, however I didn't need many. It seems like it has all the gas stations though. On two occasions, while driving on a highway, away from the nearest town, we got craving for McDonald. It found a couple on the route. After about 20 minutes highway driving we were eating. So who cares if maybe we missed one that was somewhere closer and the GPS didn't know about it.
Many people here write negative reviews comparing TT1 to other more expansive units. Just keep in mind that GPS will not plan your life for you. I got a feeling that those people complaining about TT1 and its POI, would complain anyway about details. Maybe it should show every store in America and their open hours. What about restaurant's menus. I'm sure someone will catch this idea'.
Now I just can't imagine how I drove a year ago in Arizona with my girlfriend with a bindle of printed out maps'.
If you used printed maps until now, just go ahead and order this unit. Just don't order the one with white screen issue.
Customer Review: A basic GPS navigator for most of us
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the second unit I've bought and the fourth I've played with.
There are at least 4 versions of TomTom One: version 1, 2, 2 "new edition" and 3. They are very similar electronically but quality control and software issues plague versions 1 & 2. Some Version 3 models malfunction within days of purchase, stuck on its infamous 'white screen' that persists until machines are reset, but reoccurs. Its likely a production batch with serial numbers containing 46,47,48; e.g. Y12448Cxx. Tomtom Home v1.x has caused some machines to completely lose data, but no reports of issues once users upgrade to Home V2.x.
"New Edition" US version is noted as having the US/Canada maps preloaded, few to no bug reports and ready to run, out of box. The recent model in this series is Version 3; it has no SD card slot but has built in capability to make some corrections to its maps. The US/Canada version ships in a hard plastic 'skin pack' that is difficult to open and can cut your fingers from sharp plastic. Beware. Prior versions shipped in a cardboard box, with an easy to open, plastic shrink wrap.
I strongly suggest users leave their units on for 2-3 days connected to computer USB port to 'burn in' their units, and allow for premature failure, while under warranty.
Not documented by TomTom, the One series will charge via any computer USB port.
Navigation Test
I did a "Turing Test" by comparing my favorite known driving routes against the TT1 recommendations.
My often used routes are optimal for time and distance. In planning mode, TT1 gave many identical recommendations, from 0.5 - 500mi away.
On test trips, I purposely pulled over to a side road that I knew reconnected to the planned route some distance ahead. After the 'turn around if possible' warning it automatically re-routed my trip to take me back on track. On other tests, it simply rerouted me directly back to my plan, without other warnings.
I hit the 'road block' option that suggests I'm stuck in traffic for 'X' miles. TT1 would tell me get off the next exit, turn around, make a turn here or there and follow a new route to bypass this X miles jam. I did this numerous times to check how it would reroute me in local driving & highway driving. Expectedly, it gave 'reroute not possible' when my destination was within the minimum distance required to reroute, about 0.5 mi.
After preliminary testing in local roads, the TT1 went on a road trip of over 2500 mi.
I entered GPS coordinates for addresses I had not been to but expect to visit. If faulty coordinates were given that terminated without roads, the TT1 quickly reported a route could not be plotted to that destination: you can navigate to the nearest turn off road if the coordinates are known. I arrived at all the plotted destinations flawlessly, following TT1 directions instead of what I would be told.
In a notorious area in Washington DC, traffic jams that cause over 1 hour trip delays were very common ... TT1 routed me around DC easily, so my arrival time changed by under 5 minutes. In prior trips, I had no choice but to stick it out on the traffic jam. On the return trip, part of the bypass route also had traffic, I hit the 'road block' feature and again, TT1 navigated me around the block through local roads and to the highway with ne'er a change in the arrival time. Anyone who has driven through the confusing DC inner roads will know how difficult such navigation is without detailed knowledge or maps of downtown Washington. The TT1 easily saved me 1 hour wasted in DC traffic that I had done many times for years prior.
As I sped down south, I simulated jams on the highway, and the TT1 would quickly route off the next exit into local roads, some of which I saw easily paralleled the main highway. Some bypass routes were complicated. I did this off and on, through 2000 mi of highway travel, passing through 8 states.
At my rural destination a few roads were non-existent, often dead ends or into housing development. You could plot a GPS location to a main road before a turn off. The locals had preferred routes, but the TT1 would route me through existing known roads, dirt or otherwise, that still got me to my destination regardless of what other route a local recommended. Rarely, the road names on the TT1 was different than that posted on the road signs. I spent about 500 mi traveling through these country roads.
The supplied TT1 POI database is practically useless. Except in exceptional cases of carelessness, gas or rest stops marked were far from a preferred road stop: I knew some of those stops had poor food, rest room or gas prices, while the better stops were like a mini WalMart with gas prices often lower by as much as 25c/gal. TT1 allows the user to make their own POI database, and this I did. On the return trip, TT1 tools easily allowed me to optimize my stops. In the end, I reduced my travel time by 2 hours, each way!
After over 2500mi driving the TT1 recommendations, I can say the TT1 has been accurate and invaluable. Lastly, the TT1 is actually a Linux PDA type computer, and it can be 'hacked' to add or repair it in ways it was not designed to be! More info can be found on the 'net.
Customer Review: Superb Device for the Money (and a case tip)
Summary: 4 Stars
a tech friend of mine once said, "a car without a GPS is like a cell phone without an address book." he's a pretty smart guy, so when i bought a new car i thought i'd just order in a factory GPS -- then i saw that would be another $750. so after a little research, i bought the tomtom one 3rd edition here on amazon during their black friday sale in 2007.
here are the up-sides:
* it's frightfully easy to use.
* it's tiny enough for travel.
* it's tough.
* it's REALLY fast at picking up satellite signals -- even when i've had it off for a long time or have travelled a long way without the device on.
* it comes with several choices of what you use for day and night colors.
* the menu items can be re-positioned from the horizontal bottom to the vertical side.
* the default turn-off screen (which can be disabled) reminds you to take it off your dash so it won't get ripped off.
* by default (though adjustable), the voice gets louder as you travel at higher speed.
* you can turn the animation of the screen off above a screen you determine.
* software upgrades (free) and maps of foreign countries (charge) are available online.
here are the down-sides:
* the software is very obviously european in design, so a few nuances are missing. for example, there are two hierarchical menu items in their main menu, but you don't know that until you tap them (which means you sometimes forget what item you want to change is in what specific place); and you have only one direction of navigation through the menus (meaning if you want to go back to something on the last screen, you have to keep tapping to the right until you see it again).
* there are some tiny bugs in their "shortest path" algorithm. it looks like extremely sharp right turns are somehow either ignored or wrongly compensated for so you can find yourself driving around a block to get to a destination (or possibly turning right and then doing a u-turn) rather than going a few extra feet and turning a sharp right.
* there's a "walking map" mode, but no good way to hold the device without touching the screen. since the screen doesn't have a "ignore touches" mode, it can't really be used this way.
* the outlet for the power cord on the bottom isn't recessed -- this would make the plug easier to push in in the dark (which is the way your car is half the time).
* it doesn't automatically switch night/day mode, nor does it automatically adjust for time zone. both of these are very possible since it knows where you are withing 3' on the planet. i'm guessing this is something available on higher level models.
* the built-in points of interest aren't always accurate (it's directed me to out-of-business gas stations and headquarters of restaurants that weren't actually restaurants, but business facilities).
i've had several other friends look at it and we've compared units side-to-side on long drives. the tomtom is definitely the easiest to use out-of-the-box of all major brands.
text-to-speech (TTS) is certainly nice to have, but not necessary. i actually prefer not having TTS and glancing at a map when i drive if i'm not sure -- only because (for me, at least) spaghetti interchanges are easier to understand as you look at them than to be talked through robotically.
the size of this device is fine. i think that if you're going to use the device only in one vehicle, and never move it, you want the biggest screen you can get (bigger than this one) -- you can install it permanently (or semi-permanently) in a place that doesn't obscure any portion of the windshield. certainly your fingers will appreciate it as you type. if you're going to take it with you as you travel, you want a smaller screen both for travel size and the overall real estate it covers on various car windshields.
i've used it for trips to CO and FL and in both cases it lets me navigate like a local, which is really great. of all the devices i've compared this against (a couple of garmins and a magellan), it's easily the biggest bang for a buck.
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addendum 3/24
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oops, i forgot to mention ... i wasn't happy with the tomtom choices of carrying cases because i wanted to take the stand, the power cord and the USB cable with me as i travel ... so after crawling my local electronics store for two hours i bought a case logic "compact camcorder case." (you can't buy here, but the sku is DCB-36 if you want to take a look.) it's just a tiny bit big (the extra space does add protection in your luggage, though), but the great thing about it the moveable central divider -- you can snug the unit right on down against the inside of the case. the suction cup will fit over the top of the power cord in the main pouch. the USB secures in the side pocket. it comes with a very useable carrying strap and a 25 year guarantee. i've been as happy with the bag as i have the tomtom itself.
thanks for reading.
Customer Review: Very good navigation with some caveats
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been using this one for only 2 days, but having used previous GPS (Garmin Nuvi 350, Mio C310x and Magellan 4050), I can say my navigation experience has been very good so far.
I agree with other reviewers that even without text-to-speech, the voice directions in combination with looking at the map will work just fine. My first trip today went smoothly with the following caveats:
1-When you make a wrong turn (which I did intentionally to test the device) , it tries very quickly (within 5 seconds) to re-direct you in the correct direction. However, unlike the other devices I have tried, it does not notify you that it is "re-calculating" . I personally don't believe it is a big deal as long as it does a good job at putting you back on track.
UPDATE 11/27/07: Even though you do not get a "re-calculating" voice
indication, it does put a message on the screen (2 seconds long) to that
effect. I personally think this is fine since I used to hate having
to hear the "re-calculating" over and over again on some of the other devices I have tried.
2-When driving through side streets, the unit does not display the name of the next street to turn to on the top right corner. It will display the names of major highways and routes only. For example, if I am supposed to turn right to Memorial road in 100 yards, it will not display that street name, but just verbally tell you to tun right. I find this to be a major nuisance, since, in the absence of text-to-speech, I want to READ which street i am supposed to turn to next. I have not seen any other reviewer complain about this. So I hope this is not just my own device. I have been having some technical issue with the TomTom Home 2 software when attempting to download the latest maps, which I will explain below, but I believe this to be unrelated to the side street names issue. I am planning on calling customer service to inquire about this. Having said that, even with the missing side street names, I am still able to follow the screen (the trajectory is clearly marked) as well as the voice guidance without missing a turn.
UPDATE 11/27/07: I called customer service and they confirmed that the device does not show the next street to turn to if it is not a major highway. I just could not believe this device would not show you the next street: any other GPS in the market does so. So I decided to play some more with the features, and discovered that this option DOES exist. All you have to do is go to navigation options under preferences and select the option to display the next street to turn to . It worked. I can't believe it was that easy, yet customer service did not even know this was possible?!
TomTom Home 2 issues:
When I try to use the TomTom Home 2 software to download the latest maps, I consistently get an "internal server error" which prevents me from moving forward with the download. I will call customer service to inquire about this, so I am hoping that there is a quick fix for this. I don't have any issues when downloading other items like POI, voices, and safety cameras....
UPDATE 11/27/07: This is a TomTom web server issue due to high download demand after black Friday. I was able to download the maps successfuly after talking to customer service.
Map Share :
Map share is a great idea, I have tried it , and it is very useful. But Tomtom literature that came with the device indicates that free Map sharing with/from others is only good for one year. So Map Share is not free after all?! Is this an indirect way of getting you to buy updated maps?
UPDATE 11/27/07. Customer service mentioned that there is no one year limit to using Map Share. So I hope they are not bluffing....
Final thoughts:
My 4 star rating is based on the assumption that the couple of issues mentioned above will get fixed . Even with those issues, the device itself is a very solid GPS navigator. It does not give you the frills of a Nuvi 350, but the price difference between those two is in favor of the TomTom. It is so far a keeper.
UPDATE 11/27/07. Based on my 11/27/07 updates, I am happy I made the purchase! I am also growing fonder of the device as I learn about its features (zip code search, intersection search, longitute/latitude search, powerful POI search options, ....). Plus, the TOMTOM Home 2 software allows you to get the latest maps for free (first 30 days). That in itself is extremely helpful. One of my friends bought the Magellan 4050 with Voice recognition only to return it because his own house was not on the map (plus Magellan does not advertise free map updates). The Map Share feature is also very valuable as it is equivalent to a freeware map update software.
Customer Review: TOMTOM ONE 3RD EDITION - AMAZING!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had my TomTom One 3rd Edition (TT1/3)since November. I LOVE IT. And to think I almost bought a Garmin!
I am from Ontario Canada and since early March I have been doing deliveries in rural areas of the Great Lakes states. My wife made me a large "bean-bag". I glued a plexi-glass disk onto the top and some rubber mesh onto the bottom. I filled it with about 2.5 pounds of aquarium pebbles. The windshield mount sticks onto the disk. I now have a custom mount that stays put on the dash even on rough rural roads. When I leave the truck, my TT1/3 comes with me, often in my shirt pocket. Try that with your STREET-PILOT! I have driven thousands of miles and still am impressed with the performance of my device. I have compared its features with the Garmin 250 and yes the 250 has some features not found on my TT1/3, but the TT1/3 has so many more USABLE features that it seems impossible that it sells for sometimes $100 less than the 250. TomTom devices are designed to be USED and do not have many of the "toy" features that today's SUV crowd seems to expect.
I have had to contact the support folks a couple of times and was impressed with how quickly my emails or phone-calls were handled.
If I had a case of these devices, I could have sold them all by now. Anybody who rides with me is really impressed with the performance and price.
In some areas, especially in Ontario, the rural roads do not have the correct current name. This is a TeleAtlas mapping error, not a device error. Such as this is, it is still better than what I found with Garmin. If I encounter a mistake, I can correct it on my device then upload this correction to TomTom. When they verify it, it is downloaded to all other users. TomTom is continually upgrading their mapping and then downloading these corrections to all users. Since November, I have had over 20,000 changes made to my on-board maps. As the maps are always kept up-to-date with these downloads, I will never have to buy another map update. You will note that OTHER GPS companies basically charge you up to the price of of a new TT1/3 for their annual map upgrades.
The TT1/3 at first seems rather generous in its ETA calculation, but it is surprising how often this extra time seems to get used up before you arrive. Other brands essentially use the speed limit and distance for each segment to calculate the total time needed for the trip. This works out well under ideal traffic conditions. Each time a TomTom user connects the device to his/her internet enabled computer, our driving history is up-loaded to TomTom. They now know how long it took me to travel a certain route segment at a certain time of a certain day of the week. Their ETA calculations are modified to reflect the actual average performance of thousands of drivers. Yes this does open the door for certain "Big-Brother" concerns, but I have nothing to hide.
The one problem with the TeleAtlas mapping (NOT a device weakness!) is the assignment of street numbers in both urban and rural areas. They assign a house number (usually NOT the correct one) at one end of a street and blocks or miles away they assign another number (again often incorrect)for the house at the other end of that street/road. This range of numbers is then divided up over the distance covered. The device will always get you onto the correct street as long as you selected the correct one. This is the best you can do following a map. In certain Ontario communities I am usually about 1/2 block away from the actual location and have been as far as 3 blocks away. Again this is better than trying to drive while reading a map and is a mapping error, not a flaw in the device. In many communities, it does get right to the driveway. As the maps are upgraded this type of error will disappear.
Any GPS user will tell you how much more relaxing it is to drive in an unfamiliar area following a GPS. All you have to do is focus on driving safely even through the most complex city freeway systems. I shudder to think there are drivers out there steering great big 18 wheelers or tour buses along unfamiliar highways or streets while fumbling with a map or directions written on the back of a cigarette pack. Any good GPS device will eliminate this danger to the motoring public.
HAPPY MOTORING!