I travel all over the country as a rep and rely on Tom Tom Mobile very heavily. I've happily visited several customers all over London and not had to look at the map!
One of the best things about Sat Nav in general is knowing what time you are going to arrive (subject to road delays and accidents), this is brilliant for me when dealing with clients and planning my journey.
I use Tom TomMobile with a Nokia 6600. The screen is big enough to see the map and directions well but I do struggle with the small text whilst driving along but may be my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be!
I normally put
in a post code to set a destination. Only the first 4 digital in the postcode are used, you then have to select a road, and then a house number. I've found that my 'original' version can be out of date on some postcodes (around 10% of times). Most of my destinations are business addresses, this can be a problem as many industrial estate roads are not listed and most do do have a 'house number'! This means that a certain amount of guesswork is needed when setting a destination to business addresses.
With Tom Tom Mobile, you can't set preferences for roads you like. I know many back road short cuts which Tom Tom wouldn't guide you through, it prefers to send you through the motorways and A roads.
All other options are great. You can go 3D or 2D, night or day vision, sound voices can be male, female, different languages or be turned off easily (it can be irritating to be constantly told to 'keep' right' when passing many motorway junctions!
If you know there is a roadblock or accident you can select to avoid the next section of road, or you can avoid a whole road.
I ended up going around a few roundabouts more than one when I first had it as there is some lag in time between reality and Tom Tom (mainly when going around corners). You quickly learn to look at the screen before you get to the roundabout and remember which road to take; this can take some getting used to.
The information on the screen is very clear and good. When you approach a junction is cleverly zooms in so that more details is visible, this is very useful.
In the box you get a memory 'stick' to put inside your phone, a receiver which takes the ready from the satellites as well as Bluetooth the information to your phone.
If your memory stick replaces an existing one in the phone, as it did in my 6600, you will naturally loose memory capacity. As I don't use my phone for much more than call and a few pics this doesn't affect my use.
If you get a call when the sat nav is operating it will show and you can take the call.
As the system uses Bluetooth, you can't use any other Bluetooth device like a headset at the same time. I tend to not answer my calls when driving as I have a business phone but I'm presuming I could use a plug in headset.
The sat nav receiver works for a few hours once charged. It is charged through a cigarette lighter connection. My phone will operate for around 1.5 hours when fully charged. For this reason I bought a 3 way ciggy lighter connection for the car, I now have the phone and receiver plugged in constantly. Bit messy with wires in the car but I can deal with that to have constant sat nav.
All in all, a very good buy (Amazon for £169 i think). I'm disappointed that there is no upgrade for the maps on this one but if i buy a new unit (version 6 is now available) I believe there are updates.
I tried to feed the speed camera database in to the system but it wouldn't work. I've been told that when you transfer data from the pc to phone by Bluetooth it affects the file and causes it not to work, however, this is a 6600 problem not Tom Toms i believe.
There is a favorites menu for adding people that you visit regularity but I've filled it up quite quickly and find it limited.
You can also add your own lists of 'points of interest' from the internet which would be useful if I didn't have a 6600! The existing points of interest are useful especially the petrol stations!
I hope you've found this summary Exceptional, or at very least very useful.
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Oct 13th, 2006
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