Bargain Basement and It Shows

My impression of the TomTom 3rd Edition (US) after living with it for a total of 4 months and approx. 10k miles driving in 5 states is shall we say "unimpressed".

This is due in part to the limited storage and no SD card slot. I have also found the text-to-speech option only marginally useful as it causes the unit to slow down dramatically (With long street names, I would invariably miss the turn by the time TomTom say it...)

The battery life of the TomTom is horrible compare to the older MIO GPS unit the TomTom replaced. I get over 3 hours with the MIO, while the TomTom is just over 1 hour(In fairness, I live in Georgia and frequently travel into MS, AL and LA often and need to have the screen at its brightest setting) Also, I find that even if I don't use it (turned off), the battery will continue to drain, an inconvenience when you have not used the unit for a week or so and have to reset the time and date!

The one plus was that the TomTom locked on the Sat signal faster than the Mio and the TomTom had more accurate maps.

While there are many many more interesting options and features in the TomTom, the map/navigation is simply not very good. I travel a lot, and found the Mio to be excellent (if you can find the address in the database). Also, many local cities with 2 words are not search able on my TomTom. Example: I can't seem to find Orchard Hill, Ga. in the list of Georgia cities, but was eventually able to find my destination using a more general search. The user friendliness and simplicity of the Mio is much better...