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: TomTom vs. Magellan
Summary: 4 Stars
I had my choices narrowed down to the TomTom ONE XL and the Magellan Maestro 4040. It was a tough call but I choose the TomTom. In a nutshell, the TomTom is more designed to get you where you need to go and the Magellan is designed to tell you where you are and what's around you.
The Magellan has more current maps and identifies the roads that appear on the screen. The TomTom has fairly current maps but only identifies the roads you are approaching and a few adjacent roads.
TomTom has auto-zoom where the faster you travel, the map zooms out. The Magellan has the zoom feature but nothing automatic. I like the auto-zoom because when your traveling interstates speeds, it's nice to see out ahead of you.
I think the TomTom has the better screen, by a slight edge. The colors/contrast seem to be more pleasant. On the TomTom you've got various map colorizations where the Magellan doesn't. There's one map scheme on TomTom where the roads are outlined in black. It helps distinguish them from the tan background.
Tap the screen on the Magellan and you can scroll around the map. Tap it on the TomTom, you go to the menus. What I'd like to see is a menu button and if you tap on the screen, it tells you where your tapping (i.e. road name).
Reception on TomTom and the Magellan was great and the screen refresh on the TomTom was slightly better than the Magellan. The Magellan seemed more choppy where the TomTom was smooth.
Magellan can double as a speakerphone and the TomTom has the PLUS services.
While I would like TomTom to allow you to show more road names, in the end, this didn't justify the price difference of the Magellan (about $100). I think if you combined these two devices, you'd come close to having a perfect GPS unit.
As they stand, I think the TomTom has a slight edge mainly due to it's screen clarity, redraw/refresh rate, and auto zoom (the various voices you can choose from is a nice touch too).
TomTom, if you're listening on the next map update, please allow us to see road names on any road that appears on the screen! A menu button would be nice too and as an alternative, allow us to tap/identify the roads.
Customer Review: TomTom 3rd Edition is better
Summary: 2 Stars
I have been using the TomTom 3rd edition for more than a year so I decided to buy another TomTom for a second vehicle. I got the XL just for the extra size. As experienced TomTom used noticing the differences is a very simple fact, here my experience.
Positives:
- The widescreen is nice; you can see a bit more on the sides while driving.
Negatives:
- It is very heavy, if you mostly drive pavement then you should be fine but some bumps will get the GPS right on the floor.
- The design is not optimum, is you closely see the picture, you will see that the actual screen is significantly smaller than the unit itself. There is a gray frame around the screen which is wasting precious space unnecessarily.
- The volume changes up spontaneously. This may be a problem to this unit perhaps? I have read some other reviews about volume problems but my unit is unable to keep the volume stable (in fact I returned this unit because of this reason). The volume will go up or down when you are not expecting it.
- The voices are not clear; my 3rd edition is significantly louder and clearer.
- The brightness of the unit is miserable; the 3rd edition is also significantly brighter, comparing both units side-by-side, the 3rd edition offers an image that is brighter, sharper and very clear. The XL looks like an old worn out LCD monitor. Driving during daylight and wearing sun glasses you will have significant problems to visually identify details on the XL. That is not a problem I ever had with the 3rd edition (read my TomTom 3rd edition review if you want additional details).
So as you can see, my XL was going back in no time. I'm willing to try the TomTom XL 330S for $100 bucks more but if I don't get convinced, I'll buy another 3rd edition, this last unit has a cost/performance that exceeds my expectations.
Finally and besides the screen size, both units are identical. They catch signal quickly, the menus are almost the same with little differences but still all the options are basically the same. I have to rate it low because of all the problems I have found on it, I don't consider it a good purchase.
Customer Review: Excellent, with minor quibbles....
Summary: 4 Stars
I got this as a present as I apparently have a reputation for getting lost. I call it creative navigation myself, but I digress....
I was able to get the TomTom up and running in about 5 minutes. The interface is very intuitive and well laid out. If I any complaints it's the lack of a mute button and no way to schedule an automatic switch to night colours but these are minor quibbles (3 clicks and they're done).
The TomTom I received has the very latest maps dating to Novemember, what really impressed me with the maps is they are even more accurate than the official state maps Florida puts out. I have yet to find a road that the TomTom has not heard about.
Navigation is quite accurate, I do like how it'll remind me when there's a fork on the highway to stay in the correct lane and thus avoid having to quickly merge over in traffic. If I have one complaint, I wish it would notify me a little sooner about when my exit is approaching - 1 mile = less than 60 seconds at highway speeds.
The complaints I have involve one major gripe and several minor quibbles: The control your TomTom on the desktop app. actually locked up my TomTom completely, it would not even turn on until I hit the reset button. Fortunately, none of my configuration was lost (and I had already made a backup). The minor gripes: leaving the GPS off for a couple of days means a 2-3 minute delay whilst it finds the satellites again, other GPSes I've played with don't seem to have this issue; $50-80 for a new map? are you kidding me??; the documentation on the SD card slot is non-existent; finally, I wish the company offered a decent external antenna for when I'm using the unit indoors - I was able to build one myself from spare parts that works great but it would be nice if the unit came with one.
I do not have a cell phone so didn't try out any of the "Plus" features.
Final verdict: A great unit at a great price that justs fall short of perfection.
Customer Review: Just what I was looking for!
Summary: 5 Stars
Having owned a Magellan 700 for a few years I knew exactly what I wanted from a GPS unit and what I didn't like about them. I did a lot of shopping before I bought the TomTom One XL, and to tell you the truth I almost missed out on it because I didn't even know it was out there. I was going to buy the Nuvi 680 just because it seemed to be the best on the market, but the price tag being $999 was hard to swallow. Then I found out about the One XL and it seemed like TomTom's answer to the Nuvi 680. The One XL has a really nice screen and the operation of it is amazing. It's a great mixture of sophistication and ease of use, what a great combo. The ONLY thing I know that it doesn't have compared to the Nuvi 680 is the Text to Speech feature. Meaning the One XL won't tell you over the speakers the spoken name of the street to turn on. But it still shows on the screen what the name is as well as speaking how far the turn is in distance units. The feature that I know the One XL has that the Nuvi 680 doesn't have is that the One XL will let you put in multiple destinations and it will give you a route to get to them all. So it was one or the other, but with the One XL being all that the Nuvi 680 is and only costing $399 I would say it was a pretty easy decision for me. I am really happy with this product and glad I went with it instead. I can take that extra $600 I saved in buying this GPS unit instead of the Nuvi 680 and buy me a nice carrying case (in response with last review.) Lastly something I found really neat about the TomTom products in general is that you can download (for a cost) different voices to speak to you. The ones I know of for sure are Mr. T's voice and John Clease. Before buying the One XL I called TomTom twice to get help on some of the features, I was super pleased with their customer support. It made me feel like they would be there to help if any problems arose. Overall it's a great product and I will be doing business with TomTom in the future.Customer Review: Nice Features, but Horrible Accuracy
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased this product a couple of weeks ago and I am returning it.
THE GOOD: Excellent features, great UI and very user-friendly.
THE BAD: The map database is horrible.
I live in Silicon Valley. I live in a small town in the suburbs but the population is close to 90,000. I work in San Jose in the middle of a very busy but not too dense area full of big name businesses. TomTom doesn't know how to get to my house or my office. It instructs me to get off the freeway 2 exits too early to get to work. When I ignore that recommendation and take the exit that is very close to my office, it has me taking an extremely difficult route. It also thinks that my office is 250 yards east of where it actually is. Coming home, it has me getting off the right exit but has me making a right off the freeway instead of a left. This sends me a mile in the wrong direction and adds about 2 miles to my drive home. Luckily I know how to get to my home and office. :)
I'm finding a lot of directions to be really bad so far.
What's really bad is that it doesn't learn. I can take a faster route a hundred times and it won't make adjustments. It is possible to make changes to the map but you can only really add things like blocks in the road or let it know that you can only make a right on a street and not a left.
I downloaded an update and there has been no changes. Even San Francisco has a ton of errors and holes in its database.
In truth, I could stick with this device and eventually it will have better data. I remember the early days of Mapquest and Yahoo maps to be extremely inaccurate and now they are dead on 99% of the time. But TomTom has been around for a long time and their data should be a LOT more accurate than it is. If I want to make a customer appointment on time, it would be wise for me to look it up on Google maps first just in case TomTom is again wrong.