TomTom Navigator 5 Bluetooth Wireless GPS System for PDAs and Portable PCs
By: TomTom Average Rating: 3.0 Total Reviews: 48
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 On: 2007-09-01
I love this product. It allows me to us my PDA as a GPS. The only drawback is that it takes a lot of memory, but if you move it to your SD card you will not have a problem.
 On: 2007-08-07
Ive read some of the reviews and they mostly hit the mark. The software is easy to use. The maps are good (up to a point) and the receiver is good at getting a signal. Unfortunately, the company isnt. The maps are outdated when you buy them. You cant update the maps without buying everything over again. The software had to be downgraded to work on my Palm T|X - memory overrun issues.
I too never heard from Tomtom about my gps antenna issue - the battery swelled and stopped holding any charge.
I wont be using their product again.
On: 2007-05-09
Tomtom maps and application is not a reliable product that you can count on when you are traveling and do not have access to your PC and the disks. This is the second time that the application has stranded me and I am writing this review for others interested in purchasing this program not to get in a situation like I have, and Tomtom staff to read and fix the problem.
I purchased a Tomtom with an HP PDA to travel through Europe (mostly Italy). I installed the software and got an authentication code from the site they specified and started using the device. After about a month of use, and feeling confident that I did not need a paper map, we took a trip to Florence, following Tomtoms direction. After about 20 minutes, the program froze. It would not even respond to a soft reset. I had to take the battery out to get windows CE up and running. After the operating system restarted, I started Tomtom program. It asked me for an activation code. Have in mind that I am in the middle of Italian countryside and not sitting in Silicon Valley. I had to call my office and they went to my office and found the original CDs, went to the authentication site and got the activation code. I found this to be just unreasonably senseless. I appreciate copy right protection, but the people who thought of this scheme must not go out of the office much. I thought of writing a review but did not and latter forgot about it.
I recently bought a cell phone/PDA that has a built in GPS. To avoid having a phone and GPS I tried installing the European map on this phone (it already had the US maps on it). I went through the installation which took for ever and went to the website and got the activation code and tried entering it and it says that the activation code is not valid! So, I call Tomtom support in UK from Germany. The first customer service person was very nice and gave me some advice on how to get an update. I followed the advice and it still did not work. I called the support line again, this time a Mr. Rick answered. This person needs to be assigned to a different department. He basically spent 30 minutes lecturing me on software copy protection. He then asked me to do a hard reset. I told him I did not know how to do the hard reset. He spent another 10 minutes telling me that he is not an HP specialist and that I need to contact HP for support. At this point, I realized that this person was not able to help resolve the problem and asked for escalation to a supervisor. Rick (customer service rep) said that the supervisor would not take my call because I did not do what he was telling me to do (which was not exactly true, because I asked him to help me with the reset and he would not).
I got off the phone and went to the HP site and downloaded the users manual and did a hard reset. This caused everything to be erased (including my addresses), and Tomtom program to be deleted. And guess what, I call the customer service number again, and they did not know what to do. So, they asked for more time to research the problem and to call me. In about 4 hours not having heard from them, I called again, and this time they told me to download another program that would resolve the problem. I downloaded and it did not solve the problem. I got an email a couple of hours latter telling me to use the original SD card (which is back home) to resolve the problem.
So, to make a long story short, this is not a reliable device and for anyone who has traveled in unknown places, it is a nightmare.
 On: 2007-03-06
Well I just love my Tom Tom on my Treo 650. Works great. Only got me lost ONCE. I was headed to Sixe Flags Great Adventure (in NJ). Used the POI instead of entering the address. It took me to Cherry Hill NJ!!! But its always dead on when I enter the address. If they update the POI, then I would give it 5 stars. Also the GPS reciever should give battery level to the PDA so that you dont have to guess if you have enough juice for the trip.
On: 2007-03-05
Well I just love my Tom Tom on my Treo 650. Works great. Only got me lost ONCE. I was headed to Sixe Flags Great Adventure (in NJ). Used the POI instead of entering the address. It took me to Cherry Hill NJ!!! But its always dead on when I enter the address. If they update the POI, then I would give it 5 stars. Also the GPS reciever should give battery level to the PDA so that you dont have to guess if you have enough juice for the trip.
On: 2007-01-29
This system works great on my HP iPAQ rx3100. The display is clear and intuitive. I only have two complaints:
1) Sometimes the satellite signal is not recognized, even when Im driving the same route Ive navigated before, and even when the sky is clear.
2) The most recent map software from TomTom is Navigator 6, not 5. In order to use the most recent maps from TomTom, you have to be using Navigator 6, which isnt compatible with my iPAQ. So part of my recently renovated neighborhood (1-2 years ago) arent on the map. Im concerned about using it for a trip because recent road changes wont be reflected. TomToms website explains the issue as follows:
"Why is my device not compatible with NAVIGATOR 6, even though it was compatible with NAVIGATOR 5?
Answer
TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 includes a number of new features that greatly improve the product. Unfortunately, these features require more memory and processing power when compared to NAVIGATOR 5. In addition, TomTom now offers many new maps, which are larger and more detailed than the older maps. These maps also require more memory and processing power in the device."
As a result, I only recommend purchasing this product if you have a device that is compatible with Navigator 6, so you can upgrade and get the most recent maps.
On: 2007-01-14
Ive used TT in both western Europe and across the US. In Europe the model I used was built into my rental and it was exceptional. In the US I use it on my Palm LifeDrive, and after some difficulty (1/2 hour or so) with installation, it works like a charm.
Earlier this year I used Hertz Magellon in a rental in Ireland, and it truly was horrendous. In a country with probably only a total of 200 miles of interstate quality highways, it did not know half of them existed. Using the Magellan there was miserable. I would have used the TT there, too, but they had not released the Ireland maps for purchase. A week before i went they did so, but I decided to go with my rental rather than purchase it. BIG mistake.
I have to agree that their software installation was not easy. Indeed, I purchased a John Cleese voice pack for my unit and downloaded it. $10 wasted, as I could NEVER figure out how to get it installed.
But the maps are good, and they will offer you updated maps every 12 to 18 months. I just got my offer with about 400,000 new roads included on it for $50.
The only roads I havent found on it in the US are just screwed up streets. Recently it didnt have a street on it in a nearby town. I called my son and had him check Mapquest and Yahoo maps. Not there, either. The local phonebook? Not there. And not a new street, at least two years or three years old. All of them had half of the subdivision, but not the other half. I cant tell you if Garmin or Magellan had the street, but my guess would be they did not.
Use is easy. The touch screen on the Palm works great. It is a good way to calibrate your speedometer, as it will tell you exactly how fast you are traveling. And while you cant zoom ahead, as mentioned in another review, you can expand your map, which accomplishes much the same thing.
I especially love the info it gives you, such as how many miles until you will have to do something, such as bear right or exit, as well as which side of the highway you will want to be on at that point. You dont have to concentrate on that if it says 15.2 miles, for instance, and it will give you a couple of miles warning so you can get to the appropriate lane.
This is an incredibly good buy if you already have a LifeDrive or a Treo.
On: 2007-01-09
4 stars only because they can improve on the software side. I have to exit the application before switching off my PPC (HP 2210) or else next time when I start, it does not find the GPS signal. Now that I have made it a habit, I have no issues with it. Software is really easy to use and maps are pretty good. I live and use it in DC area.
On: 2007-01-07
Awesome
awesome
awesome
I travel a lot and never need to rent a Hertz Neverlost system ( at 20 bucks a day ) because I have this.. very portable
On: 2007-01-06
Awesome
awesome
awesome
I travel a lot and never need to rent a Hertz Neverlost system ( at 20 bucks a day ) because I have this.. very portable
On: 2007-01-04
It is a cool thing. The product was delivered in timely fashion. There was some initial trouble loading the software, but that may have been a function of our particular PDA. The only complaint was that the instruction manual was not very helpful.
Once loaded, the device works like a charm.
On: 2007-01-03
It is a cool thing. The product was delivered in timely fashion. There was some initial trouble loading the software, but that may have been a function of our particular PDA. The only complaint was that the instruction manual was not very helpful.
Once loaded, the device works like a charm.
On: 2006-11-23
This software should be labeled a beta software until the company works out all its problems, it should be never compared to Garmin or Magellan, I owned both and it does not even come close.
I will start with the pros since it will take the least time to mention.
Pros: Convenience of having a GPS loaded on your phone, the GPS receiver can be left in the vehicle except when you are hiking for example.
Cons:
Inaccurate Maps (we are talking miles not feet!), Difficult of use, cumbersome menus, lack of POIs, Wrong POI locations, crashes often and the list goes on....
Maps:
The inaccuracy of the Maps are incredible and can lead you to a wrong place or miss a free way exit.
Maps are out dated, it did not show streets that have been updated on all map search engines 18 month prior.
You can not click and pan the maps to see the route ahead.
Crashes often, about once every 2~3 days.
POI (Points of Interest):
Again incomplete, inaccurate and difficult to use. For example if you are looking for a certain store and the search returns 6 and let us say the first 3 are approximately 3mi from where you are, you will not be able to select each one to further know more info - all you can do is pick one to get the directions to.
Customer Service:
Not very helpful, not knowledgeable about their products or offers and take long time to answer questions or concerns.
I am disappointed at the product which could have been an incredible for the convenience, I hope that the people involved in making decisions for the company go out and buy some different GPS units and see how they can improve their product, until then it should be, and I say it again, labeled a BETA software.
Thanks for your time reading my review!
On: 2006-11-22
This software should be labeled a beta software until the company works out all its problems, it should be never compared to Garmin or Magellan, I owned both and it does not even come close.
I will start with the pros since it will take the least time to mention.
Pros: Convenience of having a GPS loaded on your phone, the GPS receiver can be left in the vehicle except when you are hiking for example.
Cons:
Inaccurate Maps (we are talking miles not feet!), Difficult of use, cumbersome menus, lack of POIs, Wrong POI locations, crashes often and the list goes on....
Maps:
The inaccuracy of the Maps are incredible and can lead you to a wrong place or miss a free way exit.
Maps are out dated, it did not show streets that have been updated on all map search engines 18 month prior.
You can not click and pan the maps to see the route ahead.
Crashes often, about once every 2~3 days.
POI (Points of Interest):
Again incomplete, inaccurate and difficult to use. For example if you are looking for a certain store and the search returns 6 and let us say the first 3 are approximately 3mi from where you are, you will not be able to select each one to further know more info - all you can do is pick one to get the directions to.
Customer Service:
Not very helpful, not knowledgeable about their products or offers and take long time to answer questions or concerns.
I am disappointed at the product which could have been an incredible for the convenience, I hope that the people involved in making decisions for the company go out and buy some different GPS units and see how they can improve their product, until then it should be, and I say it again, labeled a BETA software.
Thanks for your time reading my review!
On: 2006-11-04
Equipment I use with TomTom Navigator 5:
Treo 700p (Palm OS)
Garmin GPS 10 (Bluetooth GPS Receiver)
Contrary to previous review(s) about the incompatibility between Navigator 5 and my Treo, other than installation.
Installation is not as intuitive with Navigator 5 as it is with other Palm software. It is absolutely critical you follow the included installation instructions--or you will have to start all over again once you figure out that the install didnt take. The other key point is that the SD card (any size will do, but I recommend 128Mb+) is inserted prior to performing the HotSync that will install the software onto the Palm. The program defaults to installation on the SD card--and I dont know of a way to change that. Once the card is in, you may opt to format the SD card (using the "Card Info" icon on the Palm device). I didnt, and the install did not take--once I did format, the install was clean.
After the installation, Ive used it frequently, and have had no complaints. Living in Honolulu, there are many one-way streets to navigate in Waikiki, and Navigator 5 led me through Waikiki with no problems.
About the software GUI: its intuitive and well thought-out. Click one place for a overview of the whole route, click another to access multiple display, route finding, and alternative route options. One thing that I think is particularly cool. If you use the overhead view of the route, the view zooms in for more detail as you approach a turn, based on speed.
This has been the most expensive accessory for my Palm Treo 700p...but its been a great purchase.
On: 2006-10-29
I have had nothing but problems with the Tom Tom Support. They have no US phone numbers and their website is not very helpful. If you want a Palm treo GPS navigator I sugest you go with someone else.
On: 2006-10-28
I have had nothing but problems with the Tom Tom Support. They have no US phone numbers and their website is not very helpful. If you want a Palm treo GPS navigator I sugest you go with someone else.
On: 2006-08-10
This is a great product - ordering it on Amazon was simple and fast. Everyone should have a TomTom Navigator 5 for their PDA !!
On: 2006-08-01
Ive been really trying to like this package, using it now for close to five months. In that time Ive logged well north of 8,000 road miles.
Im running it on a T-Mobile MDA with a BT338 Bluetooth GPS.
Installation originally was a royal PITA - the installer on the first CD did not work at all. I finally managed to work around this using their "patch" on their web page, and got both the application and maps (along with a voice) loaded on my SD card.
Pairing the BT GPS was not obvious either in terms of setup, but once I had that figured out, it worked.
The good:
1. It routes nicely most of the time and the instructions work. Itd be nice to have the program actually use voice generation if its available (e.g. Microsoft Voice Command is loaded) so that it speaks the actual names of streets and such, but I can live with "Turn left" - most of the time. Where does it screw you? When you come to a complex intersection and theres more than one "left!" Now you have to look at the screen - not too cool when youre driving.
2. The "touch anywhere to get the manu" is good.
3. MOST of the time, you can hit the END key on the phone and get the main top screen back, while leaving the application running. This is useful - when it works. Inexplicably, sometimes TT has "Taken over" and theres no way out except to quit the application. Ive been unable to figure out WHAT makes it do that.....
4. IF a call comes in, TT mutes and you can take it, but it remains running. I like this - a lot. It then unmutes when your call is over, and back you go.
5. You can operate it without using the stylus, touching the screen, just like it should be. Excellent.
Ok, so whats not to like? Unfortunately, the maps.
The maps in this product are SEVERELY out of date. For instance, theres a section of US-31 in South Alabama that I travel from time to time. TT insists that IT IS NOT THERE AT ALL. This is not a new road - it hasnt been changed in the 5 years Ive lived in this area. The application simply freaks out and tries to route you down all sorts of little streets in this area, which is not cool. If you were coming into this area without knowing this, youd get SEVERELY lost listening to the device - when the right thing to do is just keep driving...
Likewise, there are multiple pieces of roads in SC, north of Dothan AL and elsewhere that I also know havent been added in the last couple of years, yet they too are simply "not there" or are WAY off. And these are not small secondary streets either - were talking MAJOR throughways.
There are also significant errors in some parts of the US that havent been updated in TWENTY YEARS. For instance, Northern Michigan near Traverse City. I attempted (foolishly) to run a route to a hotel there thats been there since I was attending school up there in 1981 - TT insisted that the destination address was more than TWENTY MILES from where I knew it was. The bad news is that this corrupted its idea of "best route" into the general area; good thing I knew better than to follow it or I would have been HOPELESSLY lost. Again - this is not a "new" address - its a hotel I stayed at in 1980! Good thing I knew where I was going.....
Essentially anything built in the last 5 years is asking for TT to claim that the address itself does not exist and default to a "range". Thats ok in urban areas and will usually get you reasonably close. In rural areas the "range" might be 5 - or more - miles away. A horse ranch in Seiverville TN that I tried to route to - established in the 1980s - was one of these; TT had absolutely no clue where it was in terms of address and tried to take me down what was DEFINITELY the wrong road, but when driving there magically the streets were all on the map! Huh?
As for the POC database, thats at least as bad, if one looks at completeness. How about this? Select SouthEast, then try to route a route to the POC called "Walt Disney World" under "Amusement Parks." Do ya think TT ought to know how to get THERE? Does it get any bigger than that? Guess what - it doesnt have it in the list! Nor does it have MGM Studios listed. But "Walt Disney Animal Kingdom" is, and so is Epcot. Tell me how that makes sense - please? Local stuff is even worse - of the larger restaurants around here that I know have been here since at least 2001 (when I moved here) at least half are missing. How does TT decide what to include and what not? Who knows.
There appears to be NO way to get updates to the maps. At all. TomToms web site is completely silent about updates to software or map databases, and their "online" service offers city-by-city add-on maps, but are they more current? No way to know - and Im not about to buy one-at-a-time to find out either - never mind the expense. How about accurate maps in the first place?
Other complaints:
The software doesnt know how to read contacts off the PDA/phone. This is such a simple thing that youd think theyd have it in there - but its not. Dumb.
Theres no good way to route ON a certain street. You can set ONE (and only one) "waypoint", but you cant tell the software "Use Route 90". This sucks if you know what road youd like to be used for a specific part of your route, but want the software to handle the rest. Attempting to approximate this using the waypoint feature usually leads to really BIZARRE routings.....
"Shortest" is a waste of time. Itll be "shortest" all right - right down every residential street between where you are and where you want to go. "Fastest" is the only reasonable route option to use, unless you want one of the specialty ones (bicycling?! Ok, I guess that makes sense)
Time to destination is stupidly off on many non-freeways. Basically, it appears that the software thinks of everything off-freeway as being 25mph or somesuch! Ive had it claim that a 50 mile drive on surface highways, all of which is a 55 or 65mph zone with the exception of a few small "one light" towns where you have to slow down for a couple of miles, is a 2+ hour trip. Balderdash. It appears that the "speed class" on any road that has a slow zone in it is set - for the entire duration - as that slower speed. This is a major botch and makes time prediction for anything other than freeway driving rediculously wrong. Freeway speed zoning appears to be wrong too, but less badly - it sure isnt 70mph through all the 70mph states.....
No automatic day/night palette switching. This one is so easy Im shocked, to be honest. Oh well; a few clicks does it.
The software is a total CPU pig, to the point that it blows up VoiceCommand if called while its running. This means you cant initiate a voice call while TT is operating on the PPC, as there arent enough cycles left on the CPU. Granted, this may be just "reality" on the MDA, as its not a terribly powerful machine - but it still is a bummer.
The software allows you to load as many "regional" maps as youd like. The stupidity of this, however, is that you cant route inter-region. Dumber! So you have to switch to "Major Roads of America", and then switch to your destination region and recompute when you enter it. That I can live with, but I wont tell you I like it - to be honest, I think it kinda sucks. 2GB MiniSD cards are available, and as such you can load the whole map store on ONE card - why not allow seamless navigation as an option?
Beware their copy protection system. Their "code" requires an online connection to register the software, and there are only TWO codes available - ever - which must be acquired six months apart from each other. God help you if your device breaks outside of that range - youve got a box full of worthless CDs.
A support request when I was attempting to get the software to load was ignored. I figured it out on my own - several days later - without a response. Dont expect help from the company, because you wont get it.
I didnt attempt to use the "PLUS" services because, quite honestly, if you cant provide accurate maps - why would I buy add-on services that are likely no more accurate?
I bought this because TT is thought of as the "leader" in the marketplace.
The user interface is nice, the product works, but the map inaccuracies, protection scheme and complete lack of customer support leave me recommending against it and giving it only ONE star.
Nice try TomTom.
 On: 2006-07-18
I finally got this working with my Holux GpsSlim236, but it was a major pain in the ... While I was waiting I downloaded Mapopolis and some demo maps. I think I like Mapopolis better .. here is why.
- the obvious pain in the ... getting TomTom working with my GPS .
- Electronic registration process. you have to be online to start using this product.
- Mapopolis worked perfectly the first time
- pricing model .. mapopolis you pay for maps only .. as you need them.
- they use different map database. TomTom does not have wala drive, Oceanside, ca, or the CA-56 going all the way through, so it is at least three years old for the Southern California area. Plus in online reviews the map database the TomTom uses does not have a good reputation.
- Mapopolis uses a computer voice and reads the names of the streets to you .. "take a slight right turn onto the I-5", while TomTom only has canned phrases like "turn right onto the highway". So you have to watch the screen on TomTom to make sure you are turning on the right street. Plus the voice instructions are just way better on Mapopolis for the finer points like "merging" and "slight right".
- TomTom does have the 3-d view, but in retrospect its not that big of deal. With Mapopoliss better voice you dont look at the map anyway. Top-down shows POIs better.
- Tom-Tom does have better finger-click navigation .. I will give them that. Mapopolis you really need a stylus. Tom-Tom may also have better advanced features .. but I am not sure because I have not used them yet.
 On: 2006-07-15
I really wanted to like the TomTom Navigator 5.
The GPS itself is tiny, well-designed, and very sensitive. It worked fine from down in a underdash cupholder or in the glove compartment.
The interface is attractive and easy to navigate. The voice prompts are clear and loud.
The installation on a Mac was problematic. Search on TomTom OSX for details, but suffice it to say that the installer included on the CDs simply doesnt work and a new one must be downloaded. Once past that, it ran fine on my Treo 700p.
Unfortunately there is one fatal flaw - the map database. In using the Navigator in both California and North Carolina, the maps regularly had misnamed streets, exits referred to by numbers where there were none, and directions that lacked critical information like heading (i.e. take the 101 instead of take 101N when approaching a complex interchange).
Worse, the company seems to be actively hostile to updating these maps. If you go to the TomTom site, you can purchase maps on a city-by-city basis. Are they newer than the ones that came with your unit? Who knows? TomTom lists no version info and seems to expect you to buy and cross your fingers.
There were just too many errors that I saw while traveling in areas that Im familiar with to trust the TomTom maps for any unfamiliar territory. Everything else is great, but the whole point of a GPS is accurate navigation. And sadly, thats where the TomTom Navigator fails.
On: 2006-07-10
The TomTom unit GPS has a custom adaptor plug which I have not been able to find. I do not like having to have an adaptor for the cell and the GPS unit and wish it took a normal USB type. Maps seems fine, voices are great. I am not sure if the Delorme version would have been a better deal though and it would have been less.
On: 2006-07-04
This is a great idea, with pretty good software, delivered by a truly awful company.
If you should, like me, happen to switch smart phones twice while you own it, your Navigator 5 really does become a paperweight. You cant activate the software on that third device.
You can write the company about this using the form at their web site, but they dont respond. You can call them (if you can find the phone number), but nobody answers the phone. There isnt even a way to leave a vmail message - the autoattendant gives you a choice between dead silence (if you select customer support) or ringing forever (if you dont). When these methods dont work, the company invites you, via their web site, to send a written letter of complaint - to Amsterdam.
This all sounds so unbelievably bad that I ignored similar comments posted elsewhere on the net, figuring that no company could really be that bad and still be in business. I was wrong.
Dont buy the TomTom. For a similar experience, take three hundred-dollar bills, stand in your yard, and light them on fire.
One more point for those who are willing to take a chance on the thing anyway. Consider that there is absolutely no vehicle by which TomTom will EVER update its maps. What you get in the box is already outdated, and there well never be an update.
On: 2006-06-27
IF YOU DONT HAVE A GPS ALREADY IN YOUR PALM PILOT THIS SOFTWARE WONT DO ANYTHING BUT GIVE YOU A HEADACHE. HOWEVER IF YOU HAVE A GPS I THINK IT WOULD BE OK. I ENDED UP SENDING IT BACK AND GOT THE ACTUAL TOM TOM NAVIGATOR. IT IS AWESOME! I WOULD RECOMMEND THE ACTUAL NAVIGATOR EQUIPMENT
On: 2006-03-28
I received the Nav 5 and attempted to activate it via TomToms ttcode.com. After entering the product code, I was informed that my package had already been activated, meaning that Amazon had sold me a "used" package. Since TT has a policy about not allowing a device change for 6 months after the original activation, I knew I was going to have to return it to Amazon for a new box. At Amazons direction however, I called TT at their US number. With all the nightmares I had heard about dealing with TT, I was ready for the worse. However, they were VERY accomodating, and had me up and running in no time. Thanks to TomTom for the excellent customer service!
Now, on to the Nav 5 capabilities: I had used Nextels navigation system for 2 or three years, and found it very useful, and mostly accurate. While I havent used TT long enough to gauge total accuracy, it has been dead on to this point. I can say that it has been all that I had hoped for, and I would highly recommend it.
On: 2006-03-27
I received the Nav 5 and attempted to activate it via TomToms ttcode.com. After entering the product code, I was informed that my package had already been activated, meaning that Amazon had sold me a "used" package. Since TT has a policy about not allowing a device change for 6 months after the original activation, I knew I was going to have to return it to Amazon for a new box. At Amazons direction however, I called TT at their US number. With all the nightmares I had heard about dealing with TT, I was ready for the worse. However, they were VERY accomodating, and had me up and running in no time. Thanks to TomTom for the excellent customer service!
Now, on to the Nav 5 capabilities: I had used Nextels navigation system for 2 or three years, and found it very useful, and mostly accurate. While I havent used TT long enough to gauge total accuracy, it has been dead on to this point. I can say that it has been all that I had hoped for, and I would highly recommend it.
On: 2006-03-12
Ive used TomTom for about a year now. Installation was fine on my Axim X50. Yes, its a little confusing to install at first, but after the codes are applied, adding additional maps is easy.
When it has the address, the GPS signal and directions have been solid 99% of the time, and it quickly recovers and re-routes. I love the map interface. It does have the problem of being a several hundred yards off, but knowing this, you adjust, and Im not sure if this problem is unique only to TomTom.
My biggest complaint is that as a business traveler, there are too many addresses missing of places that are populated and have been there for years. Because of this, Im going to start looking at other GPS devices. If they would have more addresses, I would stick with them for sure. Ive rented Avis Assist and it has always had the addresses, so this makes me believe TomTom can do better. Ill give TomTom one more chance when the 2006 maps come out. Hopefully theyre listening.
On: 2006-03-11
I recently purchased a Treo 650 on Amazon for my wife and was looking for a good navigation system for Palm OS. I already have a Dell x50v (Microsoft Pocket PC) based Bluetooth GPS with Navteq maps, which is so good that it performs exactly the same as the $2500 in-car GPS system. So I see a TomTom package in local Frys store and I have heard good things about TomTom. Guess what? Huge disappointments and a big waste of my time!
(1) Can someone in TomTom write some better installation notes?
By better notes, I means something more than just "put the installtion CD in your CD drive and install it". On one page of the manual it says I have to install the software on the SD card. But guess what? The installation process does not give you option to install it on the SD card! It just went to the internal memory. When I click on the application, the screen said "armcode not allocated". Goggle this phrase and you will see a lot of people are having this problem and nobody has any solution! I guess they all gave up and return the package.
I am so surprised that the package I bought is specifically for Palm (Palm E2 + Bluetooth GPS + TomTom SW) and yet the software does not even install!
(2) What a confusing uninstall process!
So I said I gave up and let me uninstall this. Gues what? I can not figure out what to remove on my Treo 650! The application installed is called Navigator yet there is no such thing on the remove list? After look around for 30 min plus, I finally figure out I should uninstall something called "contact navigation". This is TomToms program for navigating the contacts on Palm and deleting it would remove all TomTom software on Palm. Come on, can someone just spend 5 minutes and put a "Uninstalling TomTom" section in their manual?
If you think my nightmare just ended, think again. TomTom refuse to remove itself! After removing the application on Treo 650, sync to PC would bright the software right back! The only way to stop it is to disable the "TomTom map install" conduit on the custom menu of the sync program!
(3) Ignore TomTom support notes and the patch works!
After a few hours, I am totally running out of solutions. I either need to hard reset the Treo 650 or get the uninstall to work. I know there are some SW patch on TomToms website, but the support note says it can be only applied for registered version. I have not even get to the activation screen yet. So I thought it can not be worse, right? The next step is to figure out which software I have. The CDs I have just say TomTom Navigator and does not say what version it is. After going through the website, I decided I probably have the latest SW, Navigator 5. So I installed it. And guess what? It works! Not only it installs the application on SD card, the application actually runs!
(4) But guess what? It is too late!!!
After almost four hours, I finally got TomTom to work on my Treo 650. All these nightmare can be easily resolved with better installation notes, such as "check our website for latest update before installation", and "Palm Treo 650 user needs to install Navigator 5.21 patch".
I am going to return this package and will not try any TomTom stuff. If TomTom does not even know how to give the first impression (the installation process), how can I trust rest of the SW? Sure enough, a simple google will reveal the TomToms support is among the worst.
I am also transferring the activation headache to next guy who buys my returned package. He will not be able to activate the software as I have already it so! So there will be one more guy who hates TomTom after he figures out how to install the SW.
(5) My recommendation on PDA GPS
If you want good PDA based GPS, go for Microsoft platform instead of Palm! I have a Ambicom GPS with Navteq maps and it is so good that it performs exactly the same as those $2500 in-car GPS! BTW, Navteq is the map vendor for Yahoo Maps. Including bluetooth GPS, I paid $179 for the Ambicom package.
On: 2006-03-10
I recently purchased a Treo 650 on Amazon for my wife and was looking for a good navigation system for Palm OS. I already have a Dell x50v (Microsoft Pocket PC) based Bluetooth GPS with Navteq maps, which is so good that it performs exactly the same as the $2500 in-car GPS system. So I see a TomTom package in local Frys store and I have heard good things about TomTom. Guess what? Huge disappointments and a big waste of my time!
(1) Can someone in TomTom write some better installation notes?
By better notes, I means something more than just "put the installtion CD in your CD drive and install it". On one page of the manual it says I have to install the software on the SD card. But guess what? The installation process does not give you option to install it on the SD card! It just went to the internal memory. When I click on the application, the screen said "armcode not allocated". Goggle this phrase and you will see a lot of people are having this problem and nobody has any solution! I guess they all gave up and return the package.
I am so surprised that the package I bought is specifically for Palm (Palm E2 + Bluetooth GPS + TomTom SW) and yet the software does not even install!
(2) What a confusing uninstall process!
So I said I gave up and let me uninstall this. Gues what? I can not figure out what to remove on my Treo 650! The application installed is called Navigator yet there is no such thing on the remove list? After look around for 30 min plus, I finally figure out I should uninstall something called "contact navigation". This is TomToms program for navigating the contacts on Palm and deleting it would remove all TomTom software on Palm. Come on, can someone just spend 5 minutes and put a "Uninstalling TomTom" section in their manual?
If you think my nightmare just ended, think again. TomTom refuse to remove itself! After removing the application on Treo 650, sync to PC would bright the software right back! The only way to stop it is to disable the "TomTom map install" conduit on the custom menu of the sync program!
(3) Ignore TomTom support notes and the patch works!
After a few hours, I am totally running out of solutions. I either need to hard reset the Treo 650 or get the uninstall to work. I know there are some SW patch on TomToms website, but the support note says it can be only applied for registered version. I have not even get to the activation screen yet. So I thought it can not be worse, right? The next step is to figure out which software I have. The CDs I have just say TomTom Navigator and does not say what version it is. After going through the website, I decided I probably have the latest SW, Navigator 5. So I installed it. And guess what? It works! Not only it installs the application on SD card, the application actually runs!
(4) But guess what? It is too late!!!
After almost four hours, I finally got TomTom to work on my Treo 650. All these nightmare can be easily resolved with better installation notes, such as "check our website for latest update before installation", and "Palm Treo 650 user needs to install Navigator 5.21 patch".
I am going to return this package and will not try any TomTom stuff. If TomTom does not even know how to give the first impression (the installation process), how can I trust rest of the SW? Sure enough, a simple google will reveal the TomToms support is among the worst.
I am also transferring the activation headache to next guy who buys my returned package. He will not be able to activate the software as I have already it so! So there will be one more guy who hates TomTom after he figures out how to install the SW.
(5) My recommendation on PDA GPS
If you want good PDA based GPS, go for Microsoft platform instead of Palm! I have a Ambicom GPS with Navteq maps and it is so good that it performs exactly the same as those $2500 in-car GPS! BTW, Navteq is the map vendor for Yahoo Maps. Including bluetooth GPS, I paid $179 for the Ambicom package.
On: 2006-03-03
I purchased the Tom Tom Navigator while I was traveling within the US. Setting it up was fairly simple, but it exceeded all my expectations in term of ease of use, and Point of Interests (POI) included. Lost was no longer in my dictionary. The added bonus with Tom Tom is that they have maps available for Canada, and most of Europe as well. This is money well spent. I highly recommend this product based on my experience. At startup sometimes it failed to connect to the bluetooth GPS receiver. Usually closing the application and restarting it worked. This is a little annoying, but compared to the benifts, its a minor quirk.
On: 2006-03-02
I purchased the Tom Tom Navigator while I was traveling within the US. Setting it up was fairly simple, but it exceeded all my expectations in term of ease of use, and Point of Interests (POI) included. Lost was no longer in my dictionary. The added bonus with Tom Tom is that they have maps available for Canada, and most of Europe as well. This is money well spent. I highly recommend this product based on my experience. At startup sometimes it failed to connect to the bluetooth GPS receiver. Usually closing the application and restarting it worked. This is a little annoying, but compared to the benifts, its a minor quirk.
On: 2006-02-25
When I shelled out $400 for a new treo 650 phone the Tom Tom was too much for my budget. When I found the navigator 5 searching the web I was skeptical. I bought one on Amazon expecting to return it. What I found was anything but. After loading the software and maps on my memory card, (45 minutes or so, excruciatingly slow) I was up and running in 5 minutes.
The unit is very easy to use. Simply pick a geographical location and load that map, pick a voice and load it and you are gold. This thing is loaded with unexpected features. The directions are much better then yahoo maps or map quest. If you decide not to turn where it tells you to it simply plots a new course in a matter of seconds. The best part of all is I actually spent less money buying the treo and the navigator combination then I was going to spend on the tom tom by itself. The only feature I dont like is the fact the unit turns itself off if it is not connected to the phone via Bluetooth for a few moments. This is somewhat annoying as the navigator stays plugged in so there is no reason for it to shut itself off. It may be possible to fix this problem but it hasnt annoyed me enough to dig out the manual.
The long and the short of it is this product is amazing and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a treo phone.
On: 2006-02-23
The device went so well with my i-mate JAM PPC WM 2003 2nd Ed, both have bluetooth version 1.2 with no problem whatsoever. The software is truly all what you want. Want to navigate to an address without knowing what the postal/zip code??? TomTom does it for you. In fact, it only needs the city, street, and here you either enter the number or another intersecting street. TomTom will show only the possible streets. As soon as you start to enter one, two or max three letters of the name of the street, it will for sure appear calling you to select. Countless points of interest, with real phone numbers. Amazing ability to customize your rout, by choosing travel via, avoid, etc...In other words build your own filter/route if you want. If you just want to double check the root with no real GPS connection, simply enter your start and end address and choose demo. The screen will start navigate in Demo mode. You can have a good idea of how the route is going to be.
During the whole navigation, current and arrival time and distance will show on your PDA. Ability to add favorites, points of interest and make sophisticated route plans that include more than one destination. Rotate the screen in any 4 directions to accommodate vertical and horizontal view for both left and right handed people. Choice of 3 types of keyboards with 2 sizes. The 5 way navigation pad of your PDA along with the large icons and keyboard letters and numbers makes navigating the software a pleasure without the need of your stylus.
416MHz processor on your PDA with a 64MB of SD RAM is more than enough. No glitches at all. No need to buy built in GPS systems in your cars. This is better because it will work with you even on your vacation trips to most N. American and Europe cites. Who can take his GPS car to Europe???
Dont forget to buy the Arkon BT010 Bluetooth window mount and a universal PDA holder. My recommendation will be HP Bulken because the thickness of the holder is thin which means it doesnt block a lot of the drivers viewing space.
Worth mentioning...despite buying from Amazon and buying this TomTom, the kit comes with a Car charger only. In my case, the car charger was not working at all. Simply dead! I used my iPAQ 3970 car charger instead while waiting for TomTom people to send me a charger replacement. So far they havent. But dont let that stop you from buying it. It is truly a great software with no crashes at all. It even navigates collectors and express highways so that it puts you on the right lane of the highway before it tells you to exit. Simply PERFECT!
On: 2006-02-23
I rent cars from Hertz that have their Nav system, Never Lost. The problem with them is when you miss a turn it takes about 40 seconds or more to recalculate your route. The Tom Tom Nav 5 doesnt have this issue. If you miss a turn the TT instantly reclculates for you. The directions it gives are flawless. I travel around the US and so far no issues with directions. A neat feature is you can mark your location and return to that location at a later date.
On: 2006-02-22
The device went so well with my i-mate JAM PPC WM 2003 2nd Ed, both have bluetooth version 1.2 with no problem whatsoever. The software is truly all what you want. Want to navigate to an address without knowing what the postal/zip code??? TomTom does it for you. In fact, it only needs the city, street, and here you either enter the number or another intersecting street. TomTom will show only the possible streets. As soon as you start to enter one, two or max three letters of the name of the street, it will for sure appear calling you to select. Countless points of interest, with real phone numbers. Amazing ability to customize your rout, by choosing travel via, avoid, etc...In other words build your own filter/route if you want. If you just want to double check the root with no real GPS connection, simply enter your start and end address and choose demo. The screen will start navigate in Demo mode. You can have a good idea of how the route is going to be.
During the whole navigation, current and arrival time and distance will show on your PDA. Ability to add favorites, points of interest and make sophisticated route plans that include more than one destination. Rotate the screen in any 4 directions to accommodate vertical and horizontal view for both left and right handed people. Choice of 3 types of keyboards with 2 sizes. The 5 way navigation pad of your PDA along with the large icons and keyboard letters and numbers makes navigating the software a pleasure without the need of your stylus.
416MHz processor on your PDA with a 64MB of SD RAM is more than enough. No glitches at all. No need to buy built in GPS systems in your cars. This is better because it will work with you even on your vacation trips to most N. American and Europe cites. Who can take his GPS car to Europe???
Dont forget to buy the Arkon BT010 Bluetooth window mount and a universal PDA holder. My recommendation will be HP Bulken because the thickness of the holder is thin which means it doesnt block a lot of the drivers viewing space.
Worth mentioning...despite buying from Amazon and buying this TomTom, the kit comes with a Car charger only. In my case, the car charger was not working at all. Simply dead! I used my iPAQ 3970 car charger instead while waiting for TomTom people to send me a charger replacement. So far they havent. But dont let that stop you from buying it. It is truly a great software with no crashes at all. It even navigates collectors and express highways so that it puts you on the right lane of the highway before it tells you to exit. Simply PERFECT!
On: 2006-02-21
This is a very good product, has reception even in tunnels, convienient so you can place the receiver in your pocket or glove compartment in car, software is very simple and easy to use, easily able to travel with excellent view of surrounding areas, so far have tested and worked out greatly is the bluetooth gps with software and compactflash got better reception than with its natural software, pharos
On: 2006-02-16
I installed the TomTom software without difficulty on a Dell Axim X30. When I tried to charge the GPS unit, the charging light would not come on although the charger was working. I contacted TomTom and was told I would hear back from a representative within 24 hours. When I called back a week later the service rep could not explain why no one had called. I returned the hardware to TomTom and received a new unit about 10 days later. I again encountered problems with the GPS unit not charging. With this second occurence I contacted Tiger Direct (the Amazon contractor who sent the unit originally) and they took the unit back without any questions and refunded my money. I have no idea how good this package is because it wouldnt function for me!
On: 2006-02-11
I purchased the TomTom Navigator end November 05 to use with my Treo650. It worked great for three weeks and I really liked it... However, a couple of times the TomTom program asked me to reenter the software key. This by itself is a nuisance because one needs to stop driving to be able to enter the many digits number. The last time this happenned Dec 15, the software would reject the key even though it was correct and despite following the TomTom web site instructions and using the correct hardware ID. I called TomTom support and instead of letting me talk to a technical support peron, they said I will get a call back within 24 hours... Two days went by nobody called. I went to the support on the site and after being sent from one page to another wrote down a description of the situation. I received an immediate email confirmation and a new "somebody will get back to you in the next 24 hours". I repeated the phone calls and the email several times and never had anybody call me until today!. End January (40 days after the email complaint), I received an email that I needed to sent by mail a whole series of about 10 items to prove purchase of the Navigagtor, including original box, CDs,invoice, card receipts...etc. I complained ... but still have not received any reply. Since I had purchased the Navigator through Palm, I had finally somebody to talk to there, and they accepted that I return the GPS and get reimbursed. In summary, I would, with no hesitation, say that anybody would have to really work hard to have a worse customner service and worse product support than TomTom. If you never have any hitches with your PDA you are OK but the day your PDA needs to be reset.... you are in deep trouble!
On: 2006-02-10
I purchased the TomTom Navigator end November 05 to use with my Treo650. It worked great for three weeks and I really liked it... However, a couple of times the TomTom program asked me to reenter the software key. This by itself is a nuisance because one needs to stop driving to be able to enter the many digits number. The last time this happenned Dec 15, the software would reject the key even though it was correct and despite following the TomTom web site instructions and using the correct hardware ID. I called TomTom support and instead of letting me talk to a technical support peron, they said I will get a call back within 24 hours... Two days went by nobody called. I went to the support on the site and after being sent from one page to another wrote down a description of the situation. I received an immediate email confirmation and a new "somebody will get back to you in the next 24 hours". I repeated the phone calls and the email several times and never had anybody call me until today!. End January (40 days after the email complaint), I received an email that I needed to sent by mail a whole series of about 10 items to prove purchase of the Navigagtor, including original box, CDs,invoice, card receipts...etc. I complained ... but still have not received any reply. Since I had purchased the Navigator through Palm, I had finally somebody to talk to there, and they accepted that I return the GPS and get reimbursed. In summary, I would, with no hesitation, say that anybody would have to really work hard to have a worse customner service and worse product support than TomTom. If you never have any hitches with your PDA you are OK but the day your PDA needs to be reset.... you are in deep trouble!
On: 2006-02-03
Product installed & works good on my Dell Axium X50. Biggest problem is the maps. They are terrible. This thing thinks that the highway between San Antonio, Texas & Corpus Christi, Texas Is IH 10. It is really IH 37!! Any map shows that highway correctly. Some street addresses are off by as much as 4 blocks. I would not buy this product again!!
On: 2006-02-02
Product installed & works good on my Dell Axium X50. Biggest problem is the maps. They are terrible. This thing thinks that the highway between San Antonio, Texas & Corpus Christi, Texas Is IH 10. It is really IH 37!! Any map shows that highway correctly. Some street addresses are off by as much as 4 blocks. I would not buy this product again!!
On: 2006-02-01
A fine product in use, but with an Achilles heel that should make any heavy, business, user avoid it like the plague.
Treos break and get replaced, and if youre a heavy business traveler, this will happen probably once or twice a year. TomTom apparently doesnt realize this, since Navigator 5 allows you to activate it exactly twice (on your original, and one replacement Treo), before it refuses to activate again. Youd think theyd be bright enough to cross-reference w/ the Treo devices phone number, or something along those lines, to realize that you are the very same person who paid good money for, and activated, the software previously. Instead, it just refuses to work.
If you then follow the instructions from their Web site to resolve activation problems, you are eventually led to a screen which, while labeled Step 1 (of 3), is a broken Web page from which you can accomplish nothing.
Shameful.
On: 2006-01-28
This thing is fabulous. I had some problems with the install but after I figured it all out and installed my maps it has been working fine. I took a trip to South Florida the day after I received it and boy did it help. We found our hotel, navigated to Malls, Restaurants, you name it. It worked flawlessly with my Treo 650. I am a gadget person and other than my 650, this is my favorite gadget of all time.
At one point my wife and friends were in Coconut Grove and somebody asked if there was an ice cream place nearby. I opened Tom Tom, clicked on Points of Interest, and voila, a place was 70 yards away!!! OUTSTANDING.
I gave it 4 Stars b/c of the install troubles, which were my fault. I needed to upgrade my Palm Desktop to the latest version and once that was done, everything installed smoothly. I would recommend a 1 gb SD card for the maps, and maybe a car mount for your PDA, other than that, this thing is phenomonal. I highly recommend!!!
On: 2006-01-27
This thing is fabulous. I had some problems with the install but after I figured it all out and installed my maps it has been working fine. I took a trip to South Florida the day after I received it and boy did it help. We found our hotel, navigated to Malls, Restaurants, you name it. It worked flawlessly with my Treo 650. I am a gadget person and other than my 650, this is my favorite gadget of all time.
At one point my wife and friends were in Coconut Grove and somebody asked if there was an ice cream place nearby. I opened Tom Tom, clicked on Points of Interest, and voila, a place was 70 yards away!!! OUTSTANDING.
I gave it 4 Stars b/c of the install troubles, which were my fault. I needed to upgrade my Palm Desktop to the latest version and once that was done, everything installed smoothly. I would recommend a 1 gb SD card for the maps, and maybe a car mount for your PDA, other than that, this thing is phenomonal. I highly recommend!!!
On: 2006-01-22
I agree that the product is not bad overall, except for several glaring problems - routing frequently is not the fastest, with surface streets favored over nearby highways, estimated times of arrival are far off, and several times the software has tried to get me to turn the wrong way down one way streets.
Its the customer service thats a problem, however. Im not sure if TomTom is trying to amass a telephone database since calls to their technical support only yield a promise that someone will call you back within 24 hours. Of course, as all too many others have found out, this is a fallacy - they dont call back at all.
So take the product for what its worth - a cheaper than Garmin solution if you already own a PDA, and without any appreciable customer support. If dont already own a PDA, Id go with something else.
On: 2006-01-21
I agree that the product is not bad overall, except for several glaring problems - routing frequently is not the fastest, with surface streets favored over nearby highways, estimated times of arrival are far off, and several times the software has tried to get me to turn the wrong way down one way streets.
Its the customer service thats a problem, however. Im not sure if TomTom is trying to amass a telephone database since calls to their technical support only yield a promise that someone will call you back within 24 hours. Of course, as all too many others have found out, this is a fallacy - they dont call back at all.
So take the product for what its worth - a cheaper than Garmin solution if you already own a PDA, and without any appreciable customer support. If dont already own a PDA, Id go with something else.
On: 2006-01-15
No major problems installing software. Just tested out the GPS receiver and the maps - no surprises and all worked well. The receiver size is wonderful - can toss it in a purse. If I would read all directions, Im sure it has more features than I have tried. Its being used on a Palm T3. I suppose if you wanted to use it on more than two devices and had to contact customer support, then you might get frustrated (based upon other comments - not my experience). It does what it says it will, and with some style. This way I dont need to carry around another large device when Im already carrying a Palm. I will update if I run into problems. Im using it very extensively in several areas of the country next week.
On: 2006-01-14
No major problems installing software. Just tested out the GPS receiver and the maps - no surprises and all worked well. The receiver size is wonderful - can toss it in a purse. If I would read all directions, Im sure it has more features than I have tried. Its being used on a Palm T3. I suppose if you wanted to use it on more than two devices and had to contact customer support, then you might get frustrated (based upon other comments - not my experience). It does what it says it will, and with some style. This way I dont need to carry around another large device when Im already carrying a Palm. I will update if I run into problems. Im using it very extensively in several areas of the country next week.
On: 2006-01-13
If you have more than one pda, palm, pocket pc or smartphone and travelplans limits the number of items you want to bring along, forget the idea that you can just use your bought tomtom software on any of those pdas at random. Nope, TomTom only allows you to use the software on the pda you activate it on. Customer support insinuated that otherwise the customer would only start to give illegal copies to all their friends and family. "thats not how we can do business", the only alternative is/was to buy separate software packages for each pda you use or plan to use. Smart thinking for a company who seems to like to insult the intellect of their buying public. Avoid this product until they figure out how to support buyers who pay legally for their software license.
On: 2006-01-12
My wife got it new from Amazon in early December 2005. It worked okay for about two weeks (after quite unpleasant installation process) with Palm T3. The GPS unit then stopped working. It could not be turned on even its fully charged.
I filed the report on tomtom website three times and got no responses other than automatically generated ones. I was able to find the "support" phone number on its website on Jan 05, 2005, but that is a non-working phone number. I cannot find the phone number this time.
I can understand that some products are defects but I expect the manufacturers to stand behind their products and provide replacement or repairments free of charge promptly. Therefore Im not recommending this product.
On: 2006-01-12
If you have more than one pda, palm, pocket pc or smartphone and travelplans limits the number of items you want to bring along, forget the idea that you can just use your bought tomtom software on any of those pdas at random. Nope, TomTom only allows you to use the software on the pda you activate it on. Customer support insinuated that otherwise the customer would only start to give illegal copies to all their friends and family. "thats not how we can do business", the only alternative is/was to buy separate software packages for each pda you use or plan to use. Smart thinking for a company who seems to like to insult the intellect of their buying public. Avoid this product until they figure out how to support buyers who pay legally for their software license.
On: 2006-01-11
My wife got it new from Amazon in early December 2005. It worked okay for about two weeks (after quite unpleasant installation process) with Palm T3. The GPS unit then stopped working. It could not be turned on even its fully charged.
I filed the report on tomtom website three times and got no responses other than automatically generated ones. I was able to find the "support" phone number on its website on Jan 05, 2005, but that is a non-working phone number. I cannot find the phone number this time.
I can understand that some products are defects but I expect the manufacturers to stand behind their products and provide replacement or repairments free of charge promptly. Therefore Im not recommending this product.
On: 2006-01-10
1/4/06 The USA support team is completely clueless and rude. I was sold an open box bundle at Frys Electronics in US. When I activated navigator for the first time I could see someone had already used software and activated. Not to worry there was another key to be used. My problem is that whilst on holiday, my treo (and myself actually), crashed while snowboarding and had to be replaced by my provider (sprint). I was told by Technical Support via phone here, that i shouldnt have a problem moving software over to the new handset. I found out later that the operator I was speaking too had very low level training and should not have given that advice. I am also told that the proper technical support people would be calling me in the near future,...not! I have been waiting for 9 days for a call back and when I speak to the support (1-978-287-9555) office they say they will call when they can!!?? What does that mean? Im amazed at what is happening
Update 1/9/06
Still no contact with TomTom. I have to wonder why a company with so many tech support issues can afford to take a weekend off.
Truly amazed.
On: 2006-01-06
The TomTom Navigator is a nice enough device, until you get to the Maps activation. The Maps activation? Why should I have to activate my maps if I have paid for the product? Good question, well, I activated these maps on one PDA, and within 2 weeks my PDA died and I had to obtain warranty service. Well, I decided that I would upgrade to a new device and then sell my old device when I got it back from the manufacturers (I tend to switch my PDA every 3-4 months anyway).
So I installed the maps on the new device and it asked me to activate. OK, I figure...no problem, I will be able to activate it 1...2...3 because after all, only I have the activation card/code. No such luck, TomTom wants PROOF that I have brought a new device? what kind of nonsense is that? What if I lost my PDA in 2-3 months? What if Im a nut who likes to change PDAs every 3-4 months? What, you mean I have to show you proof that I switched? Isnt the fact that I have the activation card proof enough? I dont know too many people who pay $269 for a product and let other people use the activation codes.
Avoid them at all costs. You will regret your purchase if you change devices frequently.
One other problem with this product...out of the box it is not 100% compatible with Windows Mobile 5 devices (most of the new Axims are WM5. You really have to break your back to install on these devices.
Avoid.
On: 2006-01-05
The TomTom Navigator is a nice enough device, until you get to the Maps activation. The Maps activation? Why should I have to activate my maps if I have paid for the product? Good question, well, I activated these maps on one PDA, and within 2 weeks my PDA died and I had to obtain warranty service. Well, I decided that I would upgrade to a new device and then sell my old device when I got it back from the manufacturers (I tend to switch my PDA every 3-4 months anyway).
So I installed the maps on the new device and it asked me to activate. OK, I figure...no problem, I will be able to activate it 1...2...3 because after all, only I have the activation card/code. No such luck, TomTom wants PROOF that I have brought a new device? what kind of nonsense is that? What if I lost my PDA in 2-3 months? What if Im a nut who likes to change PDAs every 3-4 months? What, you mean I have to show you proof that I switched? Isnt the fact that I have the activation card proof enough? I dont know too many people who pay $269 for a product and let other people use the activation codes.
Avoid them at all costs. You will regret your purchase if you change devices frequently.
One other problem with this product...out of the box it is not 100% compatible with Windows Mobile 5 devices (most of the new Axims are WM5. You really have to break your back to install on these devices.
Avoid.
On: 2006-01-04
I use Tomtom Navigator 5 with my Dell Axim 5 and it works perfectly, despite using a bluetooth adapter for my pda. The software is wonderful. It is very easy to use and comes with different voice command and more can be bought from Tomtom. It also has a plus service that one can subscribe to for weather, traffic etc. This is my second navigation system and i can confidently say its by far the best so far having used it for almost a month. The point of interest needs more improvement. The GPS receiver fits easily in my pocket or anywhere in my car. It locks to a satellite in less than 30 secs.
Great product.
On: 2006-01-03
I use Tomtom Navigator 5 with my Dell Axim 5 and it works perfectly, despite using a bluetooth adapter for my pda. The software is wonderful. It is very easy to use and comes with different voice command and more can be bought from Tomtom. It also has a plus service that one can subscribe to for weather, traffic etc. This is my second navigation system and i can confidently say its by far the best so far having used it for almost a month. The point of interest needs more improvement. The GPS receiver fits easily in my pocket or anywhere in my car. It locks to a satellite in less than 30 secs.
Great product.
On: 2005-12-26
I had installation problems with this system. Poor instructions, poor website, and poor service on the phone. Im still waiting for a call back from their customer "service."
On: 2005-12-25
I had installation problems with this system. Poor instructions, poor website, and poor service on the phone. Im still waiting for a call back from their customer "service."
On: 2005-12-17
I am using Tom Tom with my Treo 650. The program installed easily, and I have all the maps I need on a 128mb SD card. I had trouble getting a bluetooth connection between the satellite receiver (a little bigger than a pocket cigarette lighter - fits easily in a shirt pocket), but that was more an issue with my Treo. Once that was solved (the work of 10 minutes or so), they link up now in a snap. Sometimes the receiver takes a couple of minutes to find the GPS satellites, but most of the time its within a minute, sometimes within 15-20 seconds.
The software works very intuitively, and surprisingly, doesnt drain the battery down on my Treo. I do a lot of driving in the Washington D.C. area for work, and this wonderful unit has saved my skin many times. It has found new routes for me that I never would have discovered. If I miss a turn or need to find an alternate route because of traffic congestion, an accident, or construction, the software reroutes the trip quickly and accurately. I dont leave home without this little baby now! I was very hesitant because of the price, but it is worth every penny. Highly recommended!
On: 2005-11-25
[edited 4/09/06 for some final thoughts]
This review is based on over six months of daily use and two road trips through much of the western USA and Canada.
First, this software with the Holux GPSlim 236 is what I should have bought. The Tomtom GPS receiver is pretty, but the necessity of switching it on each time you use it (rather than it coming on with external power) has made it a pain to own and Im going to toss it in a drawer or donate it to a GPSless friend.
I use a Dell Axim X51v, so performance is not an issue, even on thousand mile routes the initial route calculation only takes a few seconds.
Installation. The installation was simple and trouble free. I had heard that getting the product registered might be an issue but as soon as I connected my PDA to the internet and entered the key I got authorized. I guess the individual state maps are on the rest of the CDs, I only needed the installation and the first two map CDs. For myself Id rather this had been on a DVD. By comparison iGuidance Europe, which is on a DVD, took two trips to the Internet to search for help and quite a bit of messing with the Bluetooth connection before it could see the receiver.
Connecting. If the application is started whilst Bluetooth is disabled on the PDA it simply enables it and connects. Other than waiting a few seconds there has never been an issue with the Bluetooth initerface. If you need to pair it the code is 0000. If you need to use a different GPS then tap the screen, hit "change preferences" then three right arrows and then "show GPS status". Hit the "Configure", use the arrows to select the right hardware and hit Select. Easy. In iGuidance I had to add the receiver as an outgoing serial connection and then tell it which com port had been assigned.
The hardware works reasonably well, the Bluetooth receiver has mostly locked on fast and stayed locked everywhere except inside tunnels and a ferry, and even there it managed to receive a couple of satellites (how?). Twice the lock on has taken more than ten minutes, I have no clue why, the satellite display showed around eight good signals but it just didnt lock on. A selling point of the hardware is that it shuts off if the Bluetooth link is down for more than a few minutes. That is sensible, no point running the battery down. But theres a down side, if you want to put the receiver somewhere where it can get a good signal, like on the rear parcel shelf and plugged into a power socket in the trunk, then youd rather not have to climb in the back each time you get in the car to switch on the receiver. In the long run this may be a killer for me, units like the Holux GPSlim236 can be plugged in and forgotten, they can also take an external antenna which the Tomtom cant... though to be fair it shows no sign of needing it either, in the middle of the first floor of a 300 wide multi floor parking structure it still locked onto six satellites.
The 3D and normal map displays are both useful, however the zoom controls only last a few seconds and then the map returns to showing only a small section of road ahead. The zoom seems to be controlled partially by proximity to your next turn and partly by local road details, so in urban areas you get about a quarter of a mile. Perhaps they did this for safety, but in that case they shouldnt have provided the controls. In cities this is ok but when you are driving around rural areas it doesnt let you see the area around you, so you cant see if your route is sensible. I have taken to using the browse map view and then moving it as I drive in rural areas. I should be able to zoom the display until it shows a level of detail that is useful to me and it should stay there. When zoomed out the map display does continue to show useful detail, iGuidance drops too many map features and if you are on small remote roads can leave you looking at a blank screen.
There are many choices for map colors and its easy to get day and night color schemes that give good contrast and visibility. You can also choose from several clear male and female voice options, in English these include US, English and Australian accents. Terminology tracks accent, so if you choose English English you get motorways instead of freeways; amusing but not a problem.
The text at the bottom of the screen can show the next turn, speed, distance to go, current time, time to go and eta. The choices are configurable, but nothing like the twenty or thirty that Garmin allowed you to choose from six years ago. The text is very small, I have good eyes and I really have to look hard to see the figures. If Im 400 miles from my next turn I need to know that a lot more than I need to know Im going to be turning left when I get there. For this sort of price it should be possible to have more control of the information displayed. iGuidance shows even less information and gives you less control. But this is another case where Garmin had a better solution six years ago.
Touching the lower right corner brings up the overview of the route, this should have pan/zoom controls and be in the day/night color scheme. For a trip of several hundred miles its hardly possile to make out the route on the full VGA display of the X51v.
The options for finding a destination are easy to use, the ones I have needed were address, city center, POI and point on map. The routing is also non-volatile, so you can stop for the night and resume in the morning. One strange thing is that the previous destinations are stored per map, so if you route to a city on the major roads map and then switch to a more detailed map the destination isnt on the list of recent destinations. The unit exhibits a common problem to north american products, you cant route between countries, you cant ask for a route from Calgary Alberta to Salt Lake City Utah because there isnt a map that has both cities. If you want to route from Bute Montana to Idaho Falls Idaho you have to use the major roads map because the states are on different major maps, west and plains. Worth bearing in mind if you live on a border.
Trip time predictions are very poor. For a trip from Alameda CA to Port Angeles WA the initial prediction was around 18 hours, which means they are using an average speed of around 50mph. That may be reasonable for I880 on a Monday at 9am but its 50% out for I5 in northern california. The actual duration was about 14 hours including stops for food and fuel and a visit to Hertz in Portland, OR. On smaller roads the errors are much larger. For the Nephi UT to Tonopah, NV the predicted time was over eight hours and the actual trip time was just over four. On major rural roads in Canada with a 60mph limit the trip times appear to be based on a 30mph average.
Routing is fast and the suggested route is certainly in the right direction, but there are issues related to poor choices of road speeds. The software works out the time taken for various routes based on the average speeds for those road classes, but the low freway and major road settings lead it to choose apparently shorter routes through urban areas, this means that it avoids fast roads like US101. In Calgary it routed my south for miles on city streets when I was only half a mile from Deerfoot Trail which is a 65mph road with no stop lights and ultimately becomes I15 at the border. There are also minor weirdnesses, on my daily commute I take I880 south from Oakland CA to San Jose CA, at I238 it directs me to take the off ramp, then then on ramp back to I880. Strangely, if you start from a different place it is able to route you straight down I880 without detouring to the off ramp. Mostly the routes arent bad though, but Garmin did it better five years ago.
Rerouting: If you ask for an alternate route it seeks an alternate for all of the route. So if you are going from Oakland, CA to Seattle, WA and get stuck in traffic trying to get to the freeway and ask for another route it will not only change the entrance onto the freeway, it will also reroute the rest of the trip, so instead of a long day on I5 you may find yourself on a three day drive up the coast. The simple solution is to divert until you are past the problem and then to resubmit the original destination.
There are some major mapping errors, much of the time in Canada and Montana the mapped road position was tens or even hundreds of yards from the actual position. This causes the software to either show you driving through open fields near the road, or down the wrong side of a freeway, or even down the frontage road hundreds of yards away on the far side of the freeway in Banff national park. This causes some strange voice directions too, like "turn around when possible" when you are driving down I15 at 70mph and have been going the right way for hours and have to keep going straight ahead for hours. Most city streets in the US are spot on though. But the maps do seem to be 2-4 years out of date.
POI problems. The POI list is very lacking. Maybe half to two thirds of gas stations are missing. But worse is the method of selecting POIs. You can look up stores by name, but in the case of the major chains you can get quite a few hits. In places like the San Francisco Bay Area theres a world of difference between somewhere 11 miles down I880 and ten miles across the bay, the first is a 22 mile round trip and the second could be 70. All you get is a list of stores with distances, no address, no direction. So you cant tell which 15 mile distant place they are in. If you select the wrong one and thereby discover that you need to drive thirty miles and cross a toll bridge to get there then theres no back button, you have to go through the whole POI selection process again. This is a method that is not yet ready for the real world. It took me a good ten minutes to discover that the POI list didnt know about the particular version of the store that I thought it should know, I guess I didnt really need it, but then Im not always in my own back yard. Garmin gives the address and direction of POIs before you commit to one.
The map accuracy and POI list needs a lot of work.
Only the main map display follows the day/night color scheme, the route map and browsable maps remain in their standard eye wateringly bright colors. A brightness control would be more useful than night colors, but to get to that you have to go to the PDA settings, not something I feel like doing whilst driving.
At the end of November 05 Tomtom released Navigator version 5.21 for Windows Mobile 5. The behavior of the system has certainly changed. The most noticeable thing is that it now strongly prefers the shortest route in many situations. Unfortunately that means that it will now route me on surface streets rather than the adjacent interstate. For example Alameda to Emeryville can be achieved almost exclusively at 60mph+ on I880, I980, I580 and I80 and yet the new version chooses the surface streets at 25mph with lights every block. I suppose it cant be expected to know that the route it chooses goes through West Oakland which has more murders than most European countries. In the Mojave and Death Valley it often routed me down dirt roads when there was a decent highway nearby. Whether its the map data or the routing, they need to know that a trail formed by a bulldozer driving through the desert isnt the same thing as a metaled road.
I have contacted Tomtom customer support about the ludicrous average speeds, however they have not contacted me in a month, much less the 24 hours they promissed. Neither Tomtom not Teleatlas have given any sort of response to my eight map error reports, if I am going to all that trouble to accurately describe their errors the least they can do is acknowledge that they have received them, right now I dont know if they are dropping them in the round filling cabinet.
After more research I have found many reports of Tele-Atlas inaccuracies (in the UK, for example, major towns missing and impossible directions at some of the bussiest interchanges in the country, like the M4-M25 near Heathrow airport, which may well be the first interchange many foreigners meet in the UK) and even major cities missing from the database.
Compared to iNavigator 2.1.2 Europe: Tomtom update rates are faster, the maps are drawn better, the voice prompts are timed and spaced better. Tomtom shows more useful data than iNavigator, though still not near the standard of old Garmin dedicated units. iNavigator Europe has some serious usability issues related to windows-style menus covering up essential controls like the map zoom and exit buttons. The zoom control on iNavigator is persistant, but not available as often and is very difficult to use whilst driving (on Tomtom the top corners zoom out and in, on iNavigator its a tiny little control at the bottom center). It may not be fair to compare the US Tomtom (Teleatlas) maps to the European iNavigator (Navtech) maps, but they are about comparable. Both have their issues but will still get you there in the end.
On balance still a good product, however I am becoming concerned that the hype of the advertising campaigns isnt matched by world class technical teams. It took more than a month to answer the first support question with "sorry, no". But to be fair, most of it works well. And it is very pretty. Overall I havent seen a better solution.
Around two months after I asked some fairly pointed questions, on their web site, I just received three emails saying that I must update my questions to indicate that I still required support or they would close them if I did not respond in 48 hours. So I did. In each case I commented "yes I still want you to answer my question". Thats an interesting technique for clearing your tech support backlog, but it does nothing for your customers. Im starting to think that all they want is your money and they dont care whether they, or their product, does a good job.
Despite my response they closed the calls 48 hours later. Not good.
I did finally get some answers from support. You can buy the European maps on-line for a very reasonable price. They dont have any solution for the GPS receiver powering off when it loses bluetooth comms and they dont see it as an issue.
Im looking forward to a software upgrade which I hear should come out soon. Ill update this review when it does.
On: 2005-11-24
[edited 4/09/06 for some final thoughts]
This review is based on over six months of daily use and two road trips through much of the western USA and Canada.
First, this software with the Holux GPSlim 236 is what I should have bought. The Tomtom GPS receiver is pretty, but the necessity of switching it on each time you use it (rather than it coming on with external power) has made it a pain to own and Im going to toss it in a drawer or donate it to a GPSless friend.
I use a Dell Axim X51v, so performance is not an issue, even on thousand mile routes the initial route calculation only takes a few seconds.
Installation. The installation was simple and trouble free. I had heard that getting the product registered might be an issue but as soon as I connected my PDA to the internet and entered the key I got authorized. I guess the individual state maps are on the rest of the CDs, I only needed the installation and the first two map CDs. For myself Id rather this had been on a DVD. By comparison iGuidance Europe, which is on a DVD, took two trips to the Internet to search for help and quite a bit of messing with the Bluetooth connection before it could see the receiver.
Connecting. If the application is started whilst Bluetooth is disabled on the PDA it simply enables it and connects. Other than waiting a few seconds there has never been an issue with the Bluetooth initerface. If you need to pair it the code is 0000. If you need to use a different GPS then tap the screen, hit "change preferences" then three right arrows and then "show GPS status". Hit the "Configure", use the arrows to select the right hardware and hit Select. Easy. In iGuidance I had to add the receiver as an outgoing serial connection and then tell it which com port had been assigned.
The hardware works reasonably well, the Bluetooth receiver has mostly locked on fast and stayed locked everywhere except inside tunnels and a ferry, and even there it managed to receive a couple of satellites (how?). Twice the lock on has taken more than ten minutes, I have no clue why, the satellite display showed around eight good signals but it just didnt lock on. A selling point of the hardware is that it shuts off if the Bluetooth link is down for more than a few minutes. That is sensible, no point running the battery down. But theres a down side, if you want to put the receiver somewhere where it can get a good signal, like on the rear parcel shelf and plugged into a power socket in the trunk, then youd rather not have to climb in the back each time you get in the car to switch on the receiver. In the long run this may be a killer for me, units like the Holux GPSlim236 can be plugged in and forgotten, they can also take an external antenna which the Tomtom cant... though to be fair it shows no sign of needing it either, in the middle of the first floor of a 300 wide multi floor parking structure it still locked onto six satellites.
The 3D and normal map displays are both useful, however the zoom controls only last a few seconds and then the map returns to showing only a small section of road ahead. The zoom seems to be controlled partially by proximity to your next turn and partly by local road details, so in urban areas you get about a quarter of a mile. Perhaps they did this for safety, but in that case they shouldnt have provided the controls. In cities this is ok but when you are driving around rural areas it doesnt let you see the area around you, so you cant see if your route is sensible. I have taken to using the browse map view and then moving it as I drive in rural areas. I should be able to zoom the display until it shows a level of detail that is useful to me and it should stay there. When zoomed out the map display does continue to show useful detail, iGuidance drops too many map features and if you are on small remote roads can leave you looking at a blank screen.
There are many choices for map colors and its easy to get day and night color schemes that give good contrast and visibility. You can also choose from several clear male and female voice options, in English these include US, English and Australian accents. Terminology tracks accent, so if you choose English English you get motorways instead of freeways; amusing but not a problem.
The text at the bottom of the screen can show the next turn, speed, distance to go, current time, time to go and eta. The choices are configurable, but nothing like the twenty or thirty that Garmin allowed you to choose from six years ago. The text is very small, I have good eyes and I really have to look hard to see the figures. If Im 400 miles from my next turn I need to know that a lot more than I need to know Im going to be turning left when I get there. For this sort of price it should be possible to have more control of the information displayed. iGuidance shows even less information and gives you less control. But this is another case where Garmin had a better solution six years ago.
Touching the lower right corner brings up the overview of the route, this should have pan/zoom controls and be in the day/night color scheme. For a trip of several hundred miles its hardly possile to make out the route on the full VGA display of the X51v.
The options for finding a destination are easy to use, the ones I have needed were address, city center, POI and point on map. The routing is also non-volatile, so you can stop for the night and resume in the morning. One strange thing is that the previous destinations are stored per map, so if you route to a city on the major roads map and then switch to a more detailed map the destination isnt on the list of recent destinations. The unit exhibits a common problem to north american products, you cant route between countries, you cant ask for a route from Calgary Alberta to Salt Lake City Utah because there isnt a map that has both cities. If you want to route from Bute Montana to Idaho Falls Idaho you have to use the major roads map because the states are on different major maps, west and plains. Worth bearing in mind if you live on a border.
Trip time predictions are very poor. For a trip from Alameda CA to Port Angeles WA the initial prediction was around 18 hours, which means they are using an average speed of around 50mph. That may be reasonable for I880 on a Monday at 9am but its 50% out for I5 in northern california. The actual duration was about 14 hours including stops for food and fuel and a visit to Hertz in Portland, OR. On smaller roads the errors are much larger. For the Nephi UT to Tonopah, NV the predicted time was over eight hours and the actual trip time was just over four. On major rural roads in Canada with a 60mph limit the trip times appear to be based on a 30mph average.
Routing is fast and the suggested route is certainly in the right direction, but there are issues related to poor choices of road speeds. The software works out the time taken for various routes based on the average speeds for those road classes, but the low freway and major road settings lead it to choose apparently shorter routes through urban areas, this means that it avoids fast roads like US101. In Calgary it routed my south for miles on city streets when I was only half a mile from Deerfoot Trail which is a 65mph road with no stop lights and ultimately becomes I15 at the border. There are also minor weirdnesses, on my daily commute I take I880 south from Oakland CA to San Jose CA, at I238 it directs me to take the off ramp, then then on ramp back to I880. Strangely, if you start from a different place it is able to route you straight down I880 without detouring to the off ramp. Mostly the routes arent bad though, but Garmin did it better five years ago.
Rerouting: If you ask for an alternate route it seeks an alternate for all of the route. So if you are going from Oakland, CA to Seattle, WA and get stuck in traffic trying to get to the freeway and ask for another route it will not only change the entrance onto the freeway, it will also reroute the rest of the trip, so instead of a long day on I5 you may find yourself on a three day drive up the coast. The simple solution is to divert until you are past the problem and then to resubmit the original destination.
There are some major mapping errors, much of the time in Canada and Montana the mapped road position was tens or even hundreds of yards from the actual position. This causes the software to either show you driving through open fields near the road, or down the wrong side of a freeway, or even down the frontage road hundreds of yards away on the far side of the freeway in Banff national park. This causes some strange voice directions too, like "turn around when possible" when you are driving down I15 at 70mph and have been going the right way for hours and have to keep going straight ahead for hours. Most city streets in the US are spot on though. But the maps do seem to be 2-4 years out of date.
POI problems. The POI list is very lacking. Maybe half to two thirds of gas stations are missing. But worse is the method of selecting POIs. You can look up stores by name, but in the case of the major chains you can get quite a few hits. In places like the San Francisco Bay Area theres a world of difference between somewhere 11 miles down I880 and ten miles across the bay, the first is a 22 mile round trip and the second could be 70. All you get is a list of stores with distances, no address, no direction. So you cant tell which 15 mile distant place they are in. If you select the wrong one and thereby discover that you need to drive thirty miles and cross a toll bridge to get there then theres no back button, you have to go through the whole POI selection process again. This is a method that is not yet ready for the real world. It took me a good ten minutes to discover that the POI list didnt know about the particular version of the store that I thought it should know, I guess I didnt really need it, but then Im not always in my own back yard. Garmin gives the address and direction of POIs before you commit to one.
The map accuracy and POI list needs a lot of work.
Only the main map display follows the day/night color scheme, the route map and browsable maps remain in their standard eye wateringly bright colors. A brightness control would be more useful than night colors, but to get to that you have to go to the PDA settings, not something I feel like doing whilst driving.
At the end of November 05 Tomtom released Navigator version 5.21 for Windows Mobile 5. The behavior of the system has certainly changed. The most noticeable thing is that it now strongly prefers the shortest route in many situations. Unfortunately that means that it will now route me on surface streets rather than the adjacent interstate. For example Alameda to Emeryville can be achieved almost exclusively at 60mph+ on I880, I980, I580 and I80 and yet the new version chooses the surface streets at 25mph with lights every block. I suppose it cant be expected to know that the route it chooses goes through West Oakland which has more murders than most European countries. In the Mojave and Death Valley it often routed me down dirt roads when there was a decent highway nearby. Whether its the map data or the routing, they need to know that a trail formed by a bulldozer driving through the desert isnt the same thing as a metaled road.
I have contacted Tomtom customer support about the ludicrous average speeds, however they have not contacted me in a month, much less the 24 hours they promissed. Neither Tomtom not Teleatlas have given any sort of response to my eight map error reports, if I am going to all that trouble to accurately describe their errors the least they can do is acknowledge that they have received them, right now I dont know if they are dropping them in the round filling cabinet.
After more research I have found many reports of Tele-Atlas inaccuracies (in the UK, for example, major towns missing and impossible directions at some of the bussiest interchanges in the country, like the M4-M25 near Heathrow airport, which may well be the first interchange many foreigners meet in the UK) and even major cities missing from the database.
Compared to iNavigator 2.1.2 Europe: Tomtom update rates are faster, the maps are drawn better, the voice prompts are timed and spaced better. Tomtom shows more useful data than iNavigator, though still not near the standard of old Garmin dedicated units. iNavigator Europe has some serious usability issues related to windows-style menus covering up essential controls like the map zoom and exit buttons. The zoom control on iNavigator is persistant, but not available as often and is very difficult to use whilst driving (on Tomtom the top corners zoom out and in, on iNavigator its a tiny little control at the bottom center). It may not be fair to compare the US Tomtom (Teleatlas) maps to the European iNavigator (Navtech) maps, but they are about comparable. Both have their issues but will still get you there in the end.
On balance still a good product, however I am becoming concerned that the hype of the advertising campaigns isnt matched by world class technical teams. It took more than a month to answer the first support question with "sorry, no". But to be fair, most of it works well. And it is very pretty. Overall I havent seen a better solution.
Around two months after I asked some fairly pointed questions, on their web site, I just received three emails saying that I must update my questions to indicate that I still required support or they would close them if I did not respond in 48 hours. So I did. In each case I commented "yes I still want you to answer my question". Thats an interesting technique for clearing your tech support backlog, but it does nothing for your customers. Im starting to think that all they want is your money and they dont care whether they, or their product, does a good job.
Despite my response they closed the calls 48 hours later. Not good.
I did finally get some answers from support. You can buy the European maps on-line for a very reasonable price. They dont have any solution for the GPS receiver powering off when it loses bluetooth comms and they dont see it as an issue.
Im looking forward to a software upgrade which I hear should come out soon. Ill update this review when it does.
On: 2005-10-30
First, the only problem I did encounter was related to having intially installed the application in the Palms internal memory while storing the maps on the SD flash card. The problem, as I found in some help files on TomToms site, is in getting the voice prompts working. You must install everything in the same place on the device (i.e. the external memory).
Other than that, everything works great. Ive had absolutely no problems connecting to the bluetooth receiver and quickly get plenty of satellite signal. Even in my living room it syncd with five satellites without a problem. Outside I consistently get seven locked in - five bars of signal strength on the meter.
The map display is great, especially the 3D view when driving. The 3D view is a closer version of your true perspective. The voice prompt system works exceptionally well, so looking at the map is rarely even needed.
As for the previously mentioned activation, I was able to just go on the website, enter the product key that came with the maps, the device key displayed on my Palm unit, and instantly had the activation code displayed on the web site. There was no waiting involved.
A couple minor annoyances: I have found the map to be a little slow zooming in and out, but not unbearably so. Also, everytime I run the program I have to tap the screen to acknowledge some idiotic warning that Im responsible for my actions while using it and should not use it while driving, blah, blah, blah. Enough already!
Anyway, overall the system is terrific. The receiver is a nice compact size and seems quite durable. Navigation and routing is a breeze.
On: 2005-10-26
The TomTom software is great, but the receiver is terrible. My receiver only locked onto the satellites maybe 2/10 tries. I have stood outside with an unobstructed view of the sky and have had no luck. I thought the first unit was defective, so I sent it back for a replacement. Same problem with the second unit. Then, a friend of mine happened to buy one and had the same problem. Sorry, TomTom. Three strikes and you are out.
On: 2005-09-23
I received my Tomtom 5 bluetooth GPS about a week ago. I have been tinkering with it and testing it every day. No problem at all with getting activation code on the web. The bluetooth pairing happened automatically with the Axim X50v. The bluetooth was turned on when I ran the Tomtom Navigator software on my Axim. In a few seconds, the GPS receiver was found and the satellite locked in less than a minute when it was a cold start. For warm start, the satellite lock was only a few seconds.
I tried to navigate from the contact list and it works like a charm. I purposedly did not follow the GPS direction, and it re-routed me in a second. Very impressive. I had the Magellan 700 and when I detoured, it kept telling me to make a U-turn.
It also supports way point and stop over which is a big plus. You can also add current location to your favorites.
Complaints (small):
Point of interest seemed to be lacking a bit.
The restaurant list is a bit limited.
The other small complaint is the battery which is built in. I would prefer a replaceable battery and have a spare one being charged for long trip.
Overall, my Axim X50v together with the Tomtom navigator cost hundreds less than the dedicated Magellan 700 and works better.
Highly recommended!
On: 2005-07-28
This is my 2nd GPS for my Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) devices over the last couple of years and the Tom Tom Nav 5 is by far the easiest to use and work. Signal works great even in my pants pocket. I had a TeleType GPS before and it was difficult to use and understand.The only negative I can say about the Tom Tom 5 is I wish they would have Topo maps for hiking by they do not.
On: 2005-07-26
I would NOT recommend getting a wireless GPS version from TomTom. Their maps and software are great, but Ive had nothing but trouble getting my wireless GPS to connect with my Palm. Usually, it takes me about 5-20mins before every trip and at least one Palm reset to get the PDA and the GPS to connect. Might be something wrong with my particular setup, but software updates and contacting TomTom support dont help at all.
On the positive side, I love the software - the maps are very clear, the directions are good and timely, and once/when I get my GPS to connect to the Palm, its a great road companion. In short, Im going to try to downgrade to a wired version (or a all-in-one GPS system), and would highly recommend everyone to do the same.
On: 2005-07-22
After 3 days I was finally able to ger the activation code.
But no reply to my email from support...
Now it works fine and I like it, but the user interface is not as intuitive but I can get used to it.
The fact that these guys do not have a live support line is extremely disappointing and risky in my own opinion.
Also the restriction on the activation on a specific device vs. a certain user is also too much in my opinion.
I would give the product 4 starts for the software and 1 star for support, activation and other "weird" policies...
On: 2005-07-09
The product is the most complete navigation system I have (and I have quite a few!)
The Good: The voice system is the cleanest I have heard and the display easy to see. Routing is simple (do all of your routing prior to travel!) stops can be re-arranged and a completed annotation can be performed as stops are completed.
The Bad: The blue tooth does not appear to link with the lifedrive consistently (I am still trying to figure this out)Voice does not work on life drive, It works on Sony Clie TH55 and Toshiba PPC E740 w/BT accessory card.
Overall, a good system to have on the road.
On: 2005-07-08
The product is the most complete navigation system I have (and I have quite a few!)
The Good: The voice system is the cleanest I have heard and the display easy to see. Routing is simple (do all of your routing prior to travel!) stops can be re-arranged and a completed annotation can be performed as stops are completed.
The Bad: The blue tooth does not appear to link with the lifedrive consistently (I am still trying to figure this out)Voice does not work on life drive, It works on Sony Clie TH55 and Toshiba PPC E740 w/BT accessory card.
Overall, a good system to have on the road.
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