Tom Tom One: How could I ever drive anywhere without one any more?

The Tom Tom One is my first GPS receiver. I have been admiring these things for years, wanting one for the car,and yet saw that they were about $500 a copy, and said I might get one when the price dropped. Well, I found one at Targette for far less than that when on a trip to Santa Fe, and my friend Bobbette had been extolling its virtues, so I decided to spring for one. I probably wouldn't have bought it if the name had not been Tom Tom, but I had heard they make quality stuff, so that swayed me.

The first thing I noticed about the product as is was a big negative. The stupid plastic packaging bubble it comes in is almost impenetrable, and when you get through the first layer you have to go through another plastic layer on the inside. You would be well served with a muscular workman with a chain-saw trying to get into these plastic bubbles. As it was I spent the better part of fifteen minutes at the customer service counter trying to use some metal scissors to break through the impenetrable wall of plastic. When I finally extracted the actual product I was glad I had not damaged it. Note to manufacturer: Do you really need that much overkill in the packaging?

However, once you get the product out, everything is 5-star wonderful.

The most miraculous thing about these new GPS units is that you simply plug them in, turn them on, give it a few minimal bits of information about where you live, etc., and then THE THING SETS UP EVERYTHING ELSE! I seriously thought I would have to program my location by latitude and longitude, etc., or something, but NO WAY. The GPS unit begins talking to the satellites and they take care of you from there. It is about 95% easier on set-up than I had imagined.

As I said, we were in Santa Fe, and if you know Santa Fe you know that its street system looks like it was laid out by an inebriated urban planner with a blindfold on following the sounds of a snake on steroids. In other words, the streets go everywhere at all sorts of curly angles and such. The Santa Fe-ans think of this as a part of their city's "charm", and I suppose it is, but it is also a nightmare if you are trying to find anything...or any place.

As it was, we were trying to find a wonderful Mexican restaurant named Tomasita's, which is muy bueno when is comes to cuisine Mexicano. Well, we had the GPS unit up and running. We found out the address of the restaurant (on Guadalupe Street), simply typed it into the Tom Tom's screen, and it immediately began guiding us right through the maze of streets to Tomasita's. The rest is green-chili-euphoria history.

The screen shows you the street ahead in a semi-horizontal view or in a vertical, map-like view. Once you type in a place you want to go, the onscreen information is pretty amazing. It gives you the current time, the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival), your current speed, and a few other things. When you need to make a turn, a voice alerts you, and it also alerts you when you have missed a turn. All in all it is a relatively cheap unit which gives absolutely amazing results.

This is a bottom-of-the-line unit, and a couple of things bear witness to that. The screen is not always bright in full sunlight as it rests on the dash of your car, and the speaker's sound is not very loud. But, though marginal, these limitations are still acceptable given the advantages.

Another nice thing I liked about the Tom Tom One is that when it gets night-time the screen darkens so as not to distract you or degrade your night vision. During daylight the screen lights up.

I expect that more expensive GPS units have a lot more bells and whistles on them. But for a simple little tool that does 95% of what all the others do, I give you my strongest recommendation on this one. If you want to find your way to the happy (but terrestial) hunting ground, Bisbee, Montana, or even a great Mexican restaurant, this Tom Tom One is a keeper!

Now if they would just do something about that really weird plastic packaging...

Four Stars/ ****