For drivers who regularly travel to unfamiliar areas, a GPS navigation system has become a critical tool to greatly simplify one's life. For others like my husband and me (who only occasionally travel to unfamiliar places), it's a much appreciated luxury.
We weren't willing to spend the $2,000-$3,000 necessary to get the built-in navigation system on our most recent car purchase 5 years ago, especially since it often requires a special "luxury" package that includes additional features we didn't care for like leather seats, wood trim, and alloy wheels. Instead, my husband did his research and purchased the
TomTom One about 2 years ago for his Honda Pilot because he regularly takes trips to various lakes within 3-4 hours of our home to go bass fishing.
Last year, his grandparents gave us their
2006 Nissan Altima, which has a built-in navigation system because they needed it and thought that would be easier to use than the portable units available at the time. I much prefer the TomTom over the Nissan's built-in unit for a number of reasons, which I'll outline as I discuss the TomTom.
About the Product We can't recall exactly how much we paid but it was under $200. The TomTom was more reasonably priced than the Garmin or Magellan models we also considered at the time and far cheaper than a built-in system.
The unit is small and fairly lightweight, measuring 3.8" wide x 1" thick and weighing about 6.5 oz. It has a bright full-color touchscreen display that is 3.5" wide. It has a 266 MHz CPU and 32 MB RAM. The TomTom is powered by a lithium ion battery which should last about 2 hours on one charge. We leave ours plugged into the car charger so we haven't confirmed that before. The included power cable is a car charger with a USB input head.
With only 32 MB RAM, we're already near capacity with just the standard map. If you choose to use this internationally (as TomTom has maps of Europe for purchase), you'll need another SD card to accommodate the additional maps.
The standard woman's voice is very clear and easy to understand, as well as sufficiently loud to hear over normal conversation/radio levels, but not obnoxiously loud. I believe you can pay to "upgrade" to other voices but we're happy with the standard voice. In my Nissan, the built-in nav system can completely override the radio/CD player, but I find that isn't necessary since I rarely blast the sound above normal levels.
The touchscreen menu is incredibly easy to use and major improvement over the "joystick" control button of the Nissan nav system. Using the touchscreen keypad to enter street names is much faster than using the joystick to move the cursor over to each individual letter. What takes minutes in the Nissan nav system takes seconds in the TomTom.
The various menus are all easy to navigate through, including choosing a city center, a specific address, or a point of interest. One of my favorite features of the TomTom that my Nissan's nav system doesn't have is a list of the last few cities you've visited (and entered on the TomTom) so I don't have to re-enter the name again. For instance, we frequently travel to San Francisco and the city name is always there to choose, as opposed to having to punch in the name each time like in my Nissan.
Moreover, TomTom will also bring up a list of suggested street names/cities when you start inputting letters. I love this time-saving feature!
When you planning your itinerary, you can choose to avoid freeways, avoid toll roads, find the fastest route or the shortest route, or choose the pedestrian or bicycle path options. After it calculates the route to your destination, you'll see the screen that estimates the time and shows the overall map from Point A to Point B. You touch the DONE button and it will bring you to a more detailed map of your current location.
You can then see the street names as you drive by them, as well as the street name of your next turn at the bottom center of the screen. Your route is also highlighted red, so you can glance at the street name right before your turn in anticipation of how close you are. One thing I've never liked about my Nissan navigation system is that it gives measurements like "Turn right in 200 yards" when I don't know how to calculate that in terms of blocks. The TomTom is better about saying "Turn right ahead" as you approach the intersection, so I know it's the next intersection.
Note that it also has the capacity to use Bluetooth to access real-time traffic reports and weather through your cell phone, but those are extra paid services so we have never used it. In addition, we also don't connect this to our PC so there are other features/capabilities we may be missing out on and thus I cannot comment on them.
Our ExperienceAs I said earlier, neither of us use the TomTom in our daily commutes. Instead, it's primarily used on weekends when we take day trips to unfamiliar areas. Thus, I would not categorize us as power users as we don't use certain functions (like the multiple destination trip feature that lets you include waypoints as you run multiple errands).
Upon powering on, the unit takes only a few seconds to bring you to the main screen where you can begin to input data like a specific address or point of interest. I have found it very intuitive and most users probably don't even need to read the manual to figure it out.
Yet there is sometimes a delay of up to a minute or more to actually receive a GPS signal and identify where you are currently located. At times, we have resorted to powering off the unit and popping out its SD card to "reset" the unit when it takes over a minute. It doesn't happen enough times to really annoy us, but it's enough to drop the rating from 5 stars to 4 for inconsistent start-up. I'm hoping the newer units are better at quickly securing the GPS signal.
Occasionally, if I'm not paying attention, I might miss a turn but the unit re-calculates your route after such mistakes in seconds. Usually, it's quick enough to tell you "Turn around when possible" or to just "Turn right" at the next intersection.
Once you've plugged in your destination, you can also choose different ways to view the route: turn-by-turn in text form (so you can quickly glance to see which freeway it wants you to take if you know you have multiple options), turn-by-turn
I love the feature that identifies local areas of interest, like restaurants, shopping centers, and parks within 5 miles of where you're currently located. On more than one occasion, I've found myself at a restaurant isn't open for lunch and had to find a last-minute alternative. Another time, I had an hour to kill between appointments in an unfamiliar area but managed to locate a shopping center on the TomTom to occupy myself.
We also bring it with us when we travel, so we never have to rent a GPS in an unfamiliar city.
In terms of disadvantages, the TomTom certainly has several. In addition to the GPS delay (which might just be endemic to all GPS nav systems), the TomTom has a frustrating mounting system. It's basically a large suction cup. We opt to just let it rest on the little shelf in front of the tachometer (which probably isn't wise for everyone, but since we have automatic transmission, we don't really look at it anyway).
The other occasional complaint is that our TomTom sometimes will announce, "You have arrived at your destination" even though it's still another block up. Precision is not its strong suit. Thus, you do need to still use your common sense when using the unit.
I also find that unlike my Nissan's system, it doesn't automatically adjust for nighttime, so the bright glare of the GPS nav system can be very distracting. There is a clock on the unit, so one would think it could be programmed to switch to a darker "night" mode after 6 pm or something.
Final ThoughtsFor the price, you really can't beat the TomTom compared to a built-in navigation system. I think having the optional weather and traffic upgrades may be more helpful for those drivers who use the TomTom daily or live in high congestion areas, but we mostly limit our use to weekend trips.
