SAME GREAT TOMTOM NAME BUT NO REASON TO UPGRADE

Here is the latest in TomTom technology. The TomTom 130. This latest development from TomTom will be perfect for first time GPS buyers who are looking for something simple compact and accurate. For previous owners of the TomTom One however this is no reason to upgrade.



The product itself is as close to perfection as I've seen in a basic GPS device hence the five star rating but then again so is the TomTom One 3rd edition that was released late last year. The TomTom 130 model is basically the TomTom One with a few minor upgrades. The most notable would be the new flip and fold mounting capability. Instead of the standard suction cup mount that TomTom owners are used to owning as a separate component (one that slides in and out of the back custom grooves of the TomTom itself) there is now an attached mount that folds into the unit for easy storage. This is convenient but in my opinion and like the other minor upgrades no reason to toss out your old TomTom One in exchange.



iPod has set the standard for a lot of electronic thresholds none being more noticeable than the size and depth of its products. To some it up...slim is in and the TomTom 130 is even slimmer than its big brother the TomTom One weighing in at a 6.1 ounces and only 1 inch in depth. Here are the some minor specs:



Unit Size: 3.8"H x 3.2"W x 1"D

Display Size: 3.5" (Diagonal)

Weight: 6.1 oz



Also worth noting is the TomTom 130 now boasts a 3 hour battery charge instead of the paltry 2 hour that left TomTom One owners completely dependent on the cigarette chargers in their cars. 3 hours isn't exactly a wealth of time but it is an improvement and a little more realistic.



Also included with the product is TomTom's exclusive Map Share feature that allows users to make their own map corrections and share them with other TomTom customers through their online connection using the TomTom Home software on their PC. This service is free of charge.



This has been the subject of some confusion among TomTom users and should be pointed out. Some customers mistakenly think the Map Share updates they receive are entire map upgrades. This is not so. Although TomTom does provide its customers with Map Share updates free of charge these only include minor map modifications such as dead end streets that weren't marked properly or points-of-interest that were marked out of place. These Map Share updates do not include the miles of new roads being built every year across America & Canada. In order to receive these major map updates customers will have to pay for them.



Of course the TomTom 130 will already come included with the latest Tele Atlas which is now version 720.1802 and although TomTom has major map upgrades throughout the year most customers (including myself) will be content with just paying for an upgrade once a year. This guarantees that you will always have the latest maps with the newest roads.



Like the TomTom One 3rd Edition the TomTom 130 comes with a "Help Me" button which when pressed opens features such as "Phone For Help" which displays emergency numbers for the current location (such as and typically 911) "Drive To Help" which show you the quickest way to the nearest police station or hospital and a "First Aid Guide" which is provided by the British Red Cross.



Also included in the safety features is an option to sound a custom alarm if any of the following occur:



1. When approaching a school or church

2. When driving faster than a set speed

3. When driving faster than allowed



The 130 still uses the same TomTom touch screen user-interface so prior TomTom users will already be familiar with the controls but with such a user friendly design even new customers will have the hang of it in no time. The screen is a bright 3.5 inch full TFT color LCD with 320 x 240 pixels that supports 64K colors.



For first time GPS buyers this unit is perfect because of its price portability latest maps outstanding user-interface and simplicity. For someone looking to upgrade to something a little more advanced try the TomTom 130S with text-to-speech capability (verbal pronunciation of street names).More detail ...

Not Ready For Prime Time Yet

The 465T is not quite there yet. It feels like a car gps with a couple truck features thrown in.



PROS:

Nice Display w/auto night/day.

Free Lifetime traffic.

Categorize your favorites.

Excellent signal reception.

Multiple vehicle profiles.

Bluetooth speakerphone.

Multistop routing.



CONS:

Favorites limited to 1000 entries.

Custom POI's are downright painful and can't be modified without a computer.

Can't route with a via only with stops.

Crashes alot if you aren't sticking to the route. (reboots quickly on its own though).

No way to filter out car only points of interest.

Can not rely on its route to be legal. (It has tried to route through truck restricted areas)

Missing many truckstops and weight stations and has no rest areas or designated parking locations.

Doesn't seem to use the weight limit settings.

And Many Many More....



SUMMARY:

If I'd known better I would have stuck with my TomTom One car GPS. It was more reliable and not nearly as expensive. If Garmin would fix the map truck data and add a couple of features like navigate via and turning off the car stuff it wouldn't be too bad. But as it stands now you should save your money and wait for something better. This is a very disappointing product. More detail ...

Roadmate 1700 - 7" display

I bought this because I was interested in the larger display. We use it in a motorhome and both of us like to be able to see the GPS. Not so easy with a typical 3.5" unit. We previously owned a Maggelan unit and were happy with it but wanted a larger display.

This unit is almost idea the display is very clear it is easy to set up prior to a trip and it has no fluff that we have no need for like bluetooth MP3 player etc. It's a GPS not a multi-purpose unit. Which is what I want. I really like the lane change feature that's almost enough to make the new unit worthwhile by itself. So far it has worked flawlessly. The only downside is that it will not run very long without being plugged into 12V (30 min). I suspect because of the large display. But that's not really a issue since we have it plugged in all the time anyway. One feature I like is the small suction cup it takes much less dashboard/window real estate that our previous unit. We us a non-skid "pillow" most of the time but use the suction cup in the car and it's much easier to mount.



Just wanted to make a update - We now have a lot more miles on the clock using this unit. We had no issue with it being slow or not giving us enough time to react like another reviewer found. And I often need lots of time due to the length of our MH and car together. We didn't have any routing issues either. Guess that's why there are many different models and companies producing these things.



I have to give Amazon a plug as well. I looked at Best Buy and one other store they didn't even know this model existed. Amazon shipped it and I received it in less that 18 hours. We were on a one day stop while traveling. That's really good service.More detail ...

better than expected!

I had been skeptical in ordering a new gps. After having difficulty with the tomtom one i had bought a few years ago. tomtom xl 340s exceeded my expectations further than i could imagine. with updated maps and virtually no blackouts i would definitely recommend this product to anyone interested in a gps. More detail ...

Portable but not quite a best buy

After a couple of long trips out into the country and a lot of in-city driving here are my conclusions (comparisons are to the Magellan 1440 and the Nuvi 660).



::::::::::::::::::::

What works well:

::::::::::::::::::::

1. In standard suburban driving I never once lost a signal. It takes about 25-50 seconds to find a signal on a cold start which is par for the course with other GPS units I've used.



2. The routing was pretty decent and got me to where I was trying to go. It was able to recover fairly quickly when I went off course and then re-plot a revised route fairly quickly.



3. The unit is tiny and literally fits in my front shirt pocket. I can see this as being a great walkabout unit.



4. You can charge the device from a computer or from a USB charger - a wonderful option when not using it in an automobile.



5. One touch volume change. Simply click and drag ... no need to click a separate OK button.



6. The coolest new feature with this device is its Demo mode. You simply input your target destination and then have it simulate a drive to that location. This worked great when I had to show a friend how to get to a location.



7. A speed limit warning beeps at you when you go over either a set driving speed or when you go over the speed limit for a highway. Unfortunately I could only get it to warn me on the freeway (where the speed limits are mostly well known.) However my Nuvi 660 works well even on most neighborhood streets.



8. There are a ton of safety features that can be turned on - such as audible warnings when you get near a school or place of worship. I'm not yet sure how useful this will turn out to be but its definitely a fun feature.



9. It provides lots of color schemes for both day and night displays. I just went with the defaults which were more than adequate. In particular the night time view is very clear and easy to read.



10. POIs are editable. In fact a lot about this device is user editable (incl. speed limits on streets street names etc.) This works for the occasional edit or error correction.





::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

What doesn't work well:

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



1. The screen real estate is just way too cramped. Once you factor in all the "avionics" the map display ends up being cramped. I much prefer the roomier 1440. Of course I cannot slip the 1440 into a shirt pocket.



2. In my usage I regularly rely on good voice prompts. The 140-S lets you pick from either a "human" or a "computer" voice. This choice is a problem for me since one voice can speak street names while the other cannot. It's hard to imagine why the engineers felt that this choice was relevant especially since the text to speech feature loses it's value (at least to me) when street names cannot be spoken. Also depending on the voice I chose the units changed from feet (which I liked) to yards (which I had to mentally convert).



3. The speech is on par with my Nuvi 660 and not quite close to what the 1440 can do. The words often lose a syllable and sound clipped. This is slightly better than the 660.



4. The unit does not Power On the vehicle is turned on or Power Off when the vehicle is turned off. This is a biggie.



5. The Magellan 1440's Lane Assist is much more informative. On my commute there are at least 3 interchanges off of 494 to other highways. At each such major interchange it warns me about staying on the correct lane. The 140-S seems to do so only when it thinks there is potential for confusion. I'd much prefer the extra help esp. when in an unfamiliar city.



6. The screen is difficult to see in direct sunlight but its still slightly better than the Magellan 1440.



7. The mount folds neatly into the device and is very low profile. However when removing a GPS unit I almost always just unhook the device itself rather than taking along the whole mount I've yet to see why this may be a design advantage. In addition the low profile actually makes it harder to position in my Bracketron mount.



8. The USB connector seats in snug and then is really really hard to unplug. I thought I was going to damage the connector before it finally came off.



9. The POI database is very incomplete. It couldn't find either the Best Buy Walmart or Sam's Club in Woodbury MN. Even worse it placed the Oakdale Best Buy right in the middle of I-94.



10. Strange terminology - a "roundabout" becomes a "rotary".



11. The keyboard does not default to QWERTY - and I found that a bit hard to get used to until I discovered a preference that sets this mode.



:::::::::::::::

Conclusion:

:::::::::::::::

The screen size is fairly minuscule when compared to the 4.5" 1440. A key deciding factor is which you value higher portability or readability/usability. This wins on portability but I'd recommend a larger screen otherwise.



The 1440 is my gold standard for data entry voice prompts and lane assist; and the 140-S doesn't compare as well on those counts.



(Note that while other reviewers have complained about issues when updating this device - I haven't yet connected it to my computer.)



Updated July 29:

I have noticed that I cannot "click and drag" to scroll the map. Each click takes me to the routing screen. This is a major downside for my specific usage behavior. The 1440 by contrast scrolls like a dream.



Happy Driving!

-DamodarMore detail ...

Nice GPS

As soon as I bought it we went from MD to NJ so had no time to connect it to a PC and update it but out of the box it did everything it was supposed to and was fairly easy to use (this is my first GPS device that I have used).



The instructions that came with it were nothing special and I have since discovered more detailed ones online. I liked that the GPS had the speed we were going and the speed limit of the road you are on in a box at the bottom of the screen which turns red when you are going around 4.5 miles over the limit. One time it stated the limit as 55 when it was really 65 on the NJ turnpike but this was before doing a map update and in any case you can correct it on the device itself and the next time you connect to tomtom online it uploads that information to the general community as you have the option of accepting other people's corrections (you can limit it to when many people submit the same correction instead of trusting a single person's report and by default it will only accept Tomtom's officially confirmed corrections). We also loved the lane assist feature - it comes up nice and clear which lanes you should be in. 2 miles before a turn it already announces what you will be doing and it re-announces it when you get closer and closer. Adjusting the sound level is a 2 touch operation. You press the bottom left part of the screen (can't remember what the image is now) and it brings you straight to the volume level which also has a box checked that allows it to increase the volume with the speed your vehicle is going at which is nice.



The only glitch we had with the unit was that during the first start up we were setting the different options and when it got to where you choose the voice we began testing out each voice and then went back to the voice we wanted and when I hit the "test" button again I didn't hear anything but ignored that and selected the voice. After a while though it became apparent that we were not getting any voice despite the volume being on and up etc. I went in to the preferences and found the voice selection (the manual in the box was not detailed enough to tell how to do it but it was easy enough to find) and chose another voice which tested okay then reselected the one we wanted which also tested okay and selected it again and all was well.



When I got home I installed the Tomtom Home software from their website (it did not auto install after plugging it in to my PC which was good because it was better to use the latest version anyway - it can be updated after installing so don't worry about that). Whilst doing the maps update I did a little searching around and discovered that some people had a big problem doing the 1st update where there was not enough room on the device for it and it could potentially cause problems on the GPS. Thankfully it seems to be a problem that was fixed and the map update went well. But in line with some advise online I went into the device through windows explorer and did a copy and paste of the entire drive which represented the device pasted to my harddrive as a backup (the Tomtom home software can also do this for you except mine was updating so I couldn't use it yet). My only surprise was that it took over 5 hours to download the update! After that it gave me a screen full of other updates including the software on the GPS itself. I initially deselected the install of the "Dave" voice update that it wanted to download and install and all the rest went okay. After that though I decided to update the "Dave" voice too and after downloading it gave me an error that the GPS was too full to install it. I went to the Tomtom site and found the answer to installing it. You load the Tomtom Home software and you can click on "Manage my Device" on page 2 (click the arrow to go to next page of options) from there you can click on on the device and see what is on it and click what you don't want so space is freed up and you can back the files up and then remove them all from there (I removed all the foreign language voices for around an extra 80MB of free space ). After that installing the latest "Dave" voice went without a hitch. Since I don't use that voice I didn't really have to update it. Apparently the voices marked "computer" (generated) on the device will pronounce all the street names while the natural voices will not. It seems to have a lot of flexibility in being able to add your own list of POI's voices and many other things. You can also get through the Tomtom Home software many other POI's and stuff other people have provided for free.



So far I am pleased with the purchase and would recommend it to others though probably not at the recommended retail price (at that price you can get a deal on the Garmin 765T - which has many nice features including free traffic reports - not sure how that compares to Tomtom's IQ routes though. We bought ours on Black Friday for a significant price reduction).More detail ...

For $150 it's well worth the money

Pros:

4.3 screen slim design good build quality nice screen nice graphics text-to-speech works well acquire signal fast uses Navteq map and routing works the way you would expect if you didn't have a GPS and had to map the route yoursself no round-around routing has 4 routing options fastest shortest maximum freeway minimum freeway a compass is built-in and shown in the upper left corner plenty of POIs 6 million of them good quality windshield mount



This model locks in signal EXTREMELY FAST and it works indoors too







The first time you use you may notice some screen sluggishness but after that it's very responsive my take is that it might have to do with some kind of first-time initialization



Cons:

No home AC adapter only car adapter windshield mount arm is a little short a bit heavier than most other GPS but probably due to the case but this should not be viewed as a negative





I picked this up at Costco with a $50 off coupon and at $150 this is one of the few GPS on the market that offer text-to-speech Navteq map and 6 mil POIs. This model uses the Centrality Atlas III GPS chipset which is considered to be even better than the SIRF III chipsetMore detail ...