TomTom ONE XL 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
by TomTom
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List Price: Our Price: $59.99 You Save: $239.96 (80%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of TomTom ONE XL 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Mixed feelings on TomTom one xl vs. garmin nuvi 250w
Summary: 3 Stars
Well, I've had a tomtom one xl and a garmin nuvi 250w for two weeks now and have tested both out in Canada and the US, both on streets I am very familiar with and in areas I've never been before. They both cost exactly the same when I bought them so that isn't a consideration in my evaluations. My feelings on both devices are mixed. A quick rundown of winning points for each is given and then I will go into more detail below. I still haven't decided which one I'm going to keep (I still have 10 days to return the one I don't want).
Garmin Wins: Battery Life, Mapping System, Screen clarity in sunlight, Windshield Mount
Tomtom Wins:
Features, Voices, Satellite Acquisition
Details on some of the above:
Itinerary planning - Garmin only lets you program one waypoint, but Tomtom lets you save iteneraries. It's not a true route planning system where you can program several stops and it will tell you the best route taking them all into account, however it will let you program multiple stops so that after you reach one it will direct you to the next. With Garmin the only way to accomplish something similar would be to go to your first destination and then go into favourites and then click the next place you want to go. I like though how if I have some regular stops on a regular route, I can save that itenerary with a name and it will be saved until I delete it. Garmin has no option close to it. Even if you use the faves option I listed above, it won't save that route for future use so it would all have to be redone and you'd not only have to try to remember every stop, but you'd have to punch each in individually again, whereas tomtom will have it saved to go back to with a couple clicks. Plus you can add to a tomtom itenerary later so if you find a new fave stop you can add it in or delete parts of an itenerary you don't want in there anymore.
Voices - Garmin gives you a choice of different languages, but I have yet to find a way to get different voices on the Nuvi 250W. It gives me an American English voice and that is it. I have looked on their website and even hooked up my nuvi to the WebUpdater tool they have and it has no other voices avail. that I can find. The tomtom one xl has quite a few voices to choose from to begin with, plus you can download for free a bunch of fun voices off the internet. I currently have Yoda and Darth Vader taking turns giving my husband and I directions.
Battery Life - Garmin easily wins in this regard with approx. 4-5 hr. batt. life, Tomtom only lasts a couple of hours.
Garmin's screen is easier to see in bright sunlight and the windshield mount is more reliable.
Size - both are small, but garmin is slimmer which is good if you want to put it in your pocket. Tomtom has a bit of a bulge in the back (not huge by any means but still not flat like the garmin. The bulge is handy if you want to stand it up in front of you though.
Satellite acquisition - Garmin satellites can locate me inside my house, garmin I have to go outside to get a signal. Kind of a pain when you want to program a route and have to go out in the freezing cold on your porch or to sit in your car to wait for it to acquire a signal. I like the convenience with the tt one xl of being able to sit inside my house and put in a location and see the directions while still warm and cozy sitting on my couch. Then I can turn it off and when I go to my car the info is all set to go and I already have perused the directions to get an idea of the steps in my route. Also sometimes even outside the garmin takes a few minutes to acquire a satellite, whereas the tomtom always acquires a satellite within seconds.
Detours - tomtom comes out on top again. Garmin lets you hit a detour button and gives you a new path to follow, but tomtom lets you choose how far you want to avoid something. So for example, if road "W" is the best one to follow to get to your destination, but there is construction for a couple blocks, you can choose to avoid that route for just that period where there is construction, and then get back on it. The garmin gives you a whole new route that may or may not get you back on the original road.
Other misc. pros and cons - tomtom comes with a usb cable, garmin does not and considering how cheap they are and that it is necessary for charging if you want to charge from your computer, I think Garmin really cheaped out on that one -- tomtom lets you use a qwerty keyboard format, garmin does not -- tomtom lets you search by zipcode, the garmin makes you enter street name and number
Navigation - both units get you from point a to point b in my experience thus far, though the majority of the time the garmin seems to take the most direct and logical route, whereas tomtom seems to lead you a bit astray to get to your destination. However there have been a couple times when the tt brought me to the doorstep of the place I was going when the garmin was a bit off. Overall though I do feel safer taking the garmin's directions. Tomtom apparently does have some kind of map downloading/sharing feature but I haven't checked it out yet. That may be a great feature and help if you can download maps from others who know the backroads better than a computer system ever could.
So right now I am having a tough time deciding which one to keep because they both have their pros and cons. Both get you where you need to go for the most part, but I do feel the garmin navigates better, which is why you buy a gps right? However the tomtom picks up satellites quicker and more reliably thus far and that is important too when getting somewhere. The tomtom seems to come out leaps and bounds ahead of the garmin in options and features though and that is what is hanging me up on the decision. If my garmin had the features my tomtom has or my tomtom had the navigation system my garmin had the decision would be a no-brainer. Luckily I still have 10 days to decide which one to keep, but it's going to be a tough decision. I think either one would be a good choice though in the end, just different pros and cons to each.
Customer Review: Can't live without it. A good no nonsense GPS system
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first portable navigation device so I don't have any experience to compare this product with, but I have to say that I love it! We've been testing this for about a week now and it has always got us to our destination without any problems.
The Tomtom One XL came charged right out of the box. The first thing I did was to take a quick look at the manual. I have to say that the manual could be much improved. It really only tells you the basics and does not go into much details. It took me the best part of 2 to 3 hours figuring out how to get the most of my Tomtom by basically playing around with it myself. Tomtom home (The user interface website) could be a little more user friendly too.
Anyway, backing up the device was the first thing I did, then I set up my PIN to prevent others form using it.
Now for the real test. I installed it in our car. The ball and joint on the windshield holder is stiff, but I am guessing that it was necessary to do this because of the weight of the One XL, to prevent it from drooping when the car is in motion. The Screen does not shake when the car was in motion. It was easy to install and you knwo when it's on correctly because you will hear a little pop sound. The suction pad stayed firm it has not fallen off once. It was easy to take off too.
The screen size is perfect. We have a minivan and there is quite a bit of distance between driver and screen. The big screen came in real handy for when we needed to view it. It was also great for when we need to use the touch screen. No fat fingering problems. The screen was bright with many different color schemes to choose from, the information was informative, no clutter. Even the speed of the car on the screen was accurate to the mile. The User interface is also great. I have read from other comments that there are too many screens for the user to go through, but that didn't bother me. There is an option to view all options or minimize the options menu. Problem solved. You can choose from the type of keyboard QWERTY or alphabetical, to different voices (Anything from British to Chinese), auto volume based on drivers speed, auto zoom in/out map, night/day mode, you could flip the screen upside down and it has the ability to filter out/edit POI's.
Now to the main reason for buying a GPS. How did it perform in getting us to our destination?
It was never confused, it got us to our destination everytime. (We live in MA). There were times it would give us a different route to what we normally would take but I think this was because it was calculating the shortest route, not necessarily the most practical. In other words it may tell us to take a right turn into a side road to get to a "Road A" instead of us continuing on until the next block, then taking a right turn to get to "Road A". (Which was the easier route). We also noticed that one of the road names on the screen was incorrect even though the actual route highlighted on the screen was correct. And I'm pretty sure that stretch of road had not had it's name changed for years. Maybe in this instance, the lack of text to speech was a positive thing, as the voice direction with incorrect street name would have confused a driver.
One feature I did like was when there were going to be quick turns in succession, the Tomtom would give the driver a heads up. "Take the right exit then keep left and turn left".
The recalculation of an alternate route was fast, under 5 seconds for a 13 mile trip, and with me deliberatley taking the wrong route and going on roads I've never driven on before, it was quick to recalculate a new route. I found the accuracy of our location to be VERY accurate. It knew exactly where we were. I read about the problems that some users were having with the Tele Atlas maps, but those issues were with the previous Tomtom One models. The One XL comes with the latest 2007 maps already installed within the GPS. (No SD memory card required). And you can check your map version via Tomtom Home. I think the latest map version for the US is 675.
Overall, this is a great GPS and would recommend it to anyone. I give it 4 stars and not 5 only because of the lack of text to speech. But, in the end it became a non factor because the voice directions were good enough and the street names and route are clearly labelled on the screen if you ever need it.
9/10/07 Update: I've read some reviews referring to the amount of time it takes to acquire a signal. I had a similar problem. After some research I found that TomTom recommend that you open TomTom home and run the Quick GPS Fix. They recommend you do this once a week. In the beginning it was slow acquiring a signal, and to turn on the TomTom indoors it would never be able to get any signal. But as soon as I started running the Quick GPS fix from TomTom home it finds signals really quick after turning it on and also it has a pretty good signal strength when I am indoors too.
Finally, after a couple of months use the GPS has made 1 mistake in terms of not getting us to the destination at first attempt. It took us to a dead end where the road stopped due to rail road tracks. The map thought that we should have been able to cross the tracks but in actuality we could not. We had to take a left then a right to cross the tracks. I sent the update to Teleatlas (The map provider to TomTom), for update and they said that they will notify me when the update is made in their database, which may take a few months.
For the most part when we are travelling to a unfamilar area we have been comparing the route to GOOGLE maps. I have found that in many cases the directions differ a little but the time and distance is pretty much similar. Most of the differences seem to be which Exit to take on the highway. If we find that Google has a significantly better route because it is easier with less turns, we just overide the planned route that TomTom has and take the exit that Google has and let TomTom take us to the destination from there.
Customer Review: Failed us every time we really needed it.
Summary: 1 Stars
My wife bought me the Tom Tom XL One for my birthday last year. I was exited at first, but it has been nothing but frustration since. First off, we realized the maps did not include the I-355 extension that was just completed near our house. Map updates are available, so I was willing to overlook that - despite the fact that the road had been open for nearly a year before we bought the unit.
When we can get it to work, it works fairly well. However, it is often so frustrating to use that it's not worth the trouble. As an example, on two consecutive days recently, we could not get it to recognize our destination. One was Carthage College in Kenosha WI, and the other was an address on North Avenue in Elmhurst, IL. The unit did not have a "POI" entry for Carthage College, and would not recognize North Avenue as a street in Elmhurst. I can perhaps excuse not knowing about Carthage College, even though it's been around FOR A HUNDRED YEARS ON THE SHORES OF LAKE MICHIGAN, but North Avenue is a major arterial street that runs right through the middle of Elmhurst. When you enter an address, you have to do it backwards; city, then street, then number. I suppose this make sense, but it's extremely frustrating when you enter a city name, and the unit refuses to recognize the name of the street that you know runs through the city.
But the all time worst was when we went on our trip to Ireland last year. This was not too long after we had bought the unit, so we were optimistic about getting it to work. I purchased and downloaded the map of UK and Ireland, and downloaded it to my laptop. Long story short, I was never able to get the unit to recognize the map.
Now for the long story. I purchased a 4GB Secure Digital memory card, but found later that anything above 2GB is "HD", and the unit won't recognize it. It will simply hang as it tries to boot up. No mention of this anywhere in any Tom Tom documentation, mind you; I found it on some internet message board somewhere. I then purchased a 2GB card and was able to get it to boot up, but did not have a chance to try to install the maps before we left for our trip because I had spent so much time trying to resolve the SD card problem.
We got to Ireland, and rented our car. We scoffed at the offer of a car with GPS - we have our own, thank you - and managed to find our way to our first destination without aid of GPS. I then started trying to get the unit to recognize the map. I installed it on the card, placed the card in the unit, and... it didn't work. The "choose a map" screen would not show me the map I had just installed, much like it ignores the existence of Carthage College and North Avenue in Elmhurst. For two days, I tried everything I could think of. I had three cards (two 2GB cards and a 1GB), and tried each one of them with the same result. I put the US maps on the cards and those worked, so I figured that it could not be the cards. Just to eliminate the cards as a cause, though, I backed up the original hard drive data and tried reinstalling only the UK/Ireland map onto the unit. It booted up fine but then gave me the message "no maps found!" - with an exclamation point, as if IT was frustrated with ME.
Remember, I am doing all this while on vacation. I finally stopped wasting time on it and put the unit away for the rest of the trip.
A working GPS unit would have been invaluable on our trip - we did a lot of driving during the trip, and made a number of wrong turns. Unfortunately, the Tom Tom let us down.
That's been my experience with this unit - the less I know about the route, and the more I need to rely on the unit, the more likely it is that it won't work.
Customer Review: Great Unit With Minor Flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
All I have to say is thi is a good product with minor flaws which I'm sure a few software updates can fix. I'm a cable tech. I tried the whole mapbook route of getting from place to place but it was a time consuming process and I found myself constantly turning around and having to pull over to read the mapbook again and flip pages etc. So i decided to get a navigation system. I wasn't sure which one to get (tomtom, garmin, etc.) but I knew I just wanted a basic one (since I'm only using it for work) I decided on tomtom b/c it seemed to get good reviews from people, including ease of use etc. I ordered the unit, it arrived and believe it or not I literally used it out of the box for a couple of days before I finally hooked it up to my computer for updates. It worked flawlessly. Very easy to use and put in addresses. I definitely love the iterinary feature. This is a feature that other gps systems are missing (according to other reviews.) and thats crucial for me b/c I can type in my whole route before i start for the day. The display is very easy to read and the directions are clearly spoken. It even adjusts the volume according to how fast you're going. It even has a "leeway" feature which allows you to specify a time you need to reach a destination. It'll let you know if you're ahead of schedule or behind schedule at a glance. Very good to know especially if you get stuck in traffic and you have an appt. somewhere. The unit acquires the satellite usually within 30 seconds. Even the very first time I turned it on it found the satellite within a minute. It even has a passcode feature which allows you to lock the unit when you turn it off which means no one can use it if they don't know the code. The only gripes I have are these. It does a great job of getting me exactly to my destination most of the time but sometimes the addresses are off. Sometimes they'll be off by a couple of houses and sometimes I'll have to drive another quarter mile or so. Not a big gripe for me b/c it does a way better job than I could with a mapbook but I expected it to me a little more accurate. Also I downloaded the updates but yet there are still a couple of outdated things in the unit. I know the unit has tried to send me down a dead end street twice. the street name and everything will be right but then I'll hit a dead end even though the unit shows the street continuing. Once again not a big gripe b/c its only happened twice (i've been using the unit for about 4 weeks now) but I've heard (once again through reviews) that garmin uses more updated maps. don't know if thats true though. Tomtom does offer a 2008 map download but I'm hesitant to buy it b/c it costs $80....so that $80 added to the cost of $299 i paid for the unit and I haven't even had the unit for a year. I think tomtom should offer one free map update with their units. mapshare is good but it can't catch everything...especially if users in your area don't turn in corrections or if they haven't even noticed those things to turn in. Plus after I spend the $80 there's no guarantee that it'll solve those two issues with the addresses and the dead ends. Other than those two gripes I love this unit. Its great for an entry level unit. I may eventually upgrade to the 920t for the traffic feature and the fm modulator/mp3 feature. (this unit offers the traffic accessory separately. I think its $99 or $199) But all in all this is a great easy to use unit. I would definitely recommend it to anyone (as long as they're not picky about the addresses. I'm satisfied with the unit at least putting me in the right area, lol) I hope this review helps anyone debating over a gps unit.Customer Review: True Cost Not Reflected in Price
Summary: 1 Stars
This review has two pieces - The device itself, and the true cost of the device.
The device: I received this TomTom XL as a gift 3 years ago, since I travel a bunch for work. It works good in general (it will get you where you need to go), but it's kinda slow sometimes to register changes in direction. If you are in unfamiliar territory, you may get the 'turn left' voice prompt with little notice in an urban setting. For folks that might think to use this in downtown Chicago - good luck! It is hit or miss downtown (sometimes it works ok, sometimes it doesn't), and if you are not familiar with Chicago (which is why you would use the TomTom), it may not help you navigate downtown because the signals apparently bounce off the skyscrapers. Bring back-up directions just in case. I was sitting downtown waiting on my son (not even moving), and TomTom kept spitting out different instructions 'turn left' 'go straight', 'at the next light...' It was pretty funny to me, but probably wouldn't be for someone trying to get somewhere. I have not had any similar issues in other larger cities, and I regularly go to Springfield, IL Indianapolis,IN, Lansing,MI, Columbus,OH & Madison,WI. Highway prompts are usually pretty good, UNLESS YOU HAVE NOT UPDATED YOUR MAPS (I will get to that next). If you do not update your maps, you may be prompted to 'turn left' into a barracade, or 'exit right' via an exit ramp that is no more. You cannot re-direct the route, once TomTom picks it, but if you decide to ignore TomTom's instructions and do not to drive through the concrete barrier, TomTom will automatically realize you have been disobedient and are off-course and will automatically re-calculate the route and prompt you on what to do next to get back on track, so don't freak out if you miss your non-existent exit or decide (correctly) not to drive through the barricade.
Onto the Maps and the true cost of this device: This is truly the device that keeps on giving (actually it keeps on taking). The maps are expensive, and if you do not buy them regularly, they increase the price as time goes on. In other words - TomTom keeps track of the last time you bought your map, and increases the price according to how long it's been since you bought a map. So my point is this: They want their money. If you don't upate your maps regularly, you are still charged for maps you never benefited from. It's pay me now or pay me later, but you WILL pay me. So in looking at the price of this device, don't forget to factor in an extra $45 per year for the maps. After three years, I am starting to wonder whether they really update the maps. I am starting to suspect that they are charging for updated maps that include only limited updates, and then they use the updates provided by users and pass that off as their 'map updates'. The reason I say this is that the non-existent exits I am referring to have been non-existent for over 2 years. A two way street that became a one-way street in my neighborhood over 5 years ago is still a two way street according to their maps. I have intentionally not sent that correction in, so that I can see how it takes them to update it (if ever).
Note: I don't like TomTom's map extortion, so I am getting rid of this thing. However, all navigation devices charge for their maps, as far as I have found, but I will be looking for one that doesn't adjust the price, based on when you last updated your map.
Update (12/4/10): I just bought a Magellan Roadmate 3030LM, which has free map updates for the life of the device. So far, it is working great!