Review by Will for TomTom GO 920T Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator with Traffic Receiver
Rating:
I purchased this over two weeks ago at Best Buy, here in Los Angeles for $599.99! Yes folks, thanks to Best Buy’s notorious price difference on the web and in their infamous intranet, I made them honor what I saw at home on my computer! And yes, this was for the TomTom 920T!

It is slimmer, lighter, nicer and loaded with more features than any other portable GPS device in the market! Functions within the TomTom 920T are very similar to other models. I upgraded from the 910 and did notice some very good changes in its software, and in its ability to do a bit more configuration than on the TomTom 910.

One of the things that I like the most, aside from its new redesigned shape was its ability to search for different POI’s (Points Of Interest) with better matching results while at the same time providing you a lot of additional information, such as distance, physical address, map overview, phone number (if available) and yes, the ability to dial it directly.

By the way, this is something that Garmin GPS devices have always been able to do, including searching restaurants by food type, e.g. Italian, Mexican, Chinese, etc. With the exception of this last search feature, I do believe that the new TomTom takes it one step further, which is good.

This upgraded feature is very important, because as most TomTom users know, previous versions of TomTom POI search, would just result in a long list of POI’s matching what ever you input and nothing more. For example, if you typed Best Buy, you would get a list of all Best Buy stores in the county, but without any distance information, map preview, address or phone number!

This would obviously force you to route each resulting POI one by one, until you finally obtained the one that you really wanted, which was a waste of time! Well, not any more and I am very glad that TomTom made this very necessary upgrade!

Here is a list of things that I noticed:

The light sensor gone from the top and now sitting very discreetly in the front.

The remote control has been improved and is now Bluetooth.

It seems to me that it is somewhat faster in performing any commands faster than its predecessor.

Accepting spoken directions is a plus and has worked well for me so far, no complaints.

The screen is huge and seems to have been improved, because I now can see everything much better than on the previous model in bright sunny days.

The speaker sounds fragile with the default voice, compared to the 910, but sounds much better with a human voice and the music sounds great!

You can now hear all instructions through your car speakers by tuning it to an empty radio station. I tried it, but did not like it at all, too much static and sound is extremely low, could be because I live in downtown Los Angeles.

The included RF transmitter is a winner, it is very accurate in obtaining traffic data and I notice that it does so upon turning it on and it updates itself periodically as I am driving. However, it would have been better if they would have built it into the unit in order to avoid another wire from hanging from the unit.

Phone integration is great and fast, the sound quality is very good and I have been told by people who I call that it sounds very good. I make and receive between 200 to 300 calls a day, so this is a plus! Unfortunately, it does not sync well with my Palm Treo 750, so I miss out on many other TomTom extra features that requre my cell phone in order to be able to obtain data, such as weather information, map downloads, gas prices, etc.

I also do notice that its ability not to lose signal is improved, which is good, since as I have already mentioned, I live in downtown LA.

The included software is also great and much better than previous versions of TomTom Home.

What’s in the box? The TomTom 910, the RF transmitter, car charger, windshield cradle, desktop cradle, remote control, software and manuals.

All in all it is a great GPS unit, very nicely and intelligently designed and the only reason I do not give it a 5 is because of the use of an external RF transmitter, instead of a built in one and lack of important travelling tools, such as those found in several of the Garmin units.

I feel that TomTom, given their current market share and being so strong in Europe should include different measurement and currency conversion tools, as well as a different language translator and a virtual tour guide program similar to those found in several of the Garmin units.

This thing fits in the pocket of your shirt! If I were sightseeing in France, I would want to have access to these types of tools!

However, to be fair, the new TomTom 920T does include a several great features not found in other units, specifically the Help Me feature which, will assist you in many emergencies such as in letting you know where you are, instruct you where to walk to your closest emergency assistance point or even guide you in applying first aid!

I highly recommended to anyone and I do hope that TomTom will improve their already magnificent product with the suggestions that I have made, maybe one day TomTom will team up with Google and provide similar information as MSN does for the Garmin NUVI.

Review by Values Privacy for TomTom GO 920T Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator with Traffic Receiver
Rating:
EDIT #2:

I won’t alter the original review below. But I want to put a final summary at the beginning:

Get a Garmin and save yourself a lot of headache and frustration and awful user interface. Get a Garmin if you like knowing which side of the road your destination is, and getting really good POIs, and better customer service, better everything really.

I will never get another TomTom again. I can’t change the number of stars now, If I could, I’d give this a 1 now. I’ve never reset anything so many times to get it working.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

I used to have a Garmin Nuvi 350 (older and cheaper) which got lost so I bought this figuring both TomToms and Garmins would be good choices and this was a good chance to try the other company! (I can’t help compare this to my old Garmin because that was my first GPS unit and I liked it).

Observations in no particular order:

-You can only save 48 favorite locations (I have no idea why). If you have too many favorites, you can save them as POIs but then when you want to navigate to these points, you have to pick the state and city first and then the POI instead of just a favorite. (You can create your own POI category and call it “friends” and put favorites in it but it’s more work)

-I really like that I can set it to ask me if I want to take the fastest or shortest route every time I put a route in. This is really nice if something is near and you don’t want it to tell you to go to major roads to get there. This option was buried in the Garmin and was aa pain to get to every time.

-I really like the avoid the toll roads feature

-The Mac support isn’t as good. I have a Mac and the software is up to version 1.6 on the Mac and 2.1 on Windows. I had to find a Windows machine to be able to set a password on it. I realize the Mac version is on it’s way but it’s just unprofessional of them to say it works with Mac when it’s not as good.

-I like the Garmin better for finding gas stations while you’re on the road. The Garmin would show you the list and point an arrow which direction it’s at and how far. The TomTom is a bit strange.

-It finds satellites really, really fast, and if they are lost it estimates where you are based on your speed.

-The POIs are also strange. I won’t say which is better but both units found POIs the other didn’t. The Garmin was better organized.

-It works well with my phone and iPod and FM transmits to my car all at the same time.

-It has light and sound sensors and adjusts itself accordingly.

-The SD card slot is sealed up with a “No SD required” sticker.

-The display is very nice.

-Maps update incrementally when you connect it to a computer.

-If you use the provided antenna for traffic, it’s free (I’m not sure if that’s true with Garmins, I really don’t know for sure, I just got that impression from the Garmin specs).

-It feels well built.

-It doesn’t have an accessory that just sits on the dashboard, all the mounts are suction or adhesive.

-Garmin’s user interface is better. This isn’t bad though.

-Having to reroute because of an obstacle or finding alternat routes is better on the TomTom though.

THE REMOTE: I did a number on the remote trying to open it to put the batteries in. Push the little tab FORWARD (toward the front), then INWARD (toward the face of the remote). The tab is part of the face of the remote so pushing it in will push out the faceplate. Because of the lack of careful instructions and my anger and frustration I really marred the tab.

This would be perfect if it had WiFi buit in so it didn’t depend on a specific computer platform or having data plans with cell phone providers to update maps. Or if it could pair with a computer via bluetooth since it’s in there already. With such a big price tag they should have either had more than 4 GB of memory that’s already almost full out of the box or kept the SD card slot for more memory (as the other reviewer was saying about voice recognition in different areas).

I like it, and I’m glad I got it, but if I had to buy another GPS (which I hope isn’t anytime soon!) I would get a Garmin instead.

EDIT:

I had to go to go to Chicago and downtown Detroit (I’ve never been to either city before).

-I’m convinced it tried to kill me in Detroit. I’d get on a freeway from the left and immediately it wanted me to take the exit on the right 3 lanes across…

-It doesn’t tell you whether you destination is on the left or right. So I’m in the middle of the city and it tells me I’ve arrived and I have no idea which lane I should have been in or which way I should go. I really missed my old Garmin in this regard.

-Avoiding Toll roads worked like a charm.

-The same port is used for the iPod and the traffic antenna. I couldn’t use both at the same time.

-The iPod volume is a lot lower than the instructions to the point where if I want to listen the iPod at a hearing level, I get blasted with instructions because it’s SO much louder. I can’t seem to control it.

-There is no way to get the destination address from the unit. I had my friend’s address in there as a favorite. It told me I was there but it wasn’t exactly right (which is ok, no GPS is exactly right) but I didn’t have the address handy and it wouldn’t show me the address. So I was parked on the street trying to find my friend’s address on my laptop instead. (Again Garmins do better in this regard).

The new mac software (v2) has been released but it still would not back up the unit because of some error so I manually copied the content to my computer (I hope this is a good way to be able to restore it if something happens). I still can’t operate it from the mac to change the password for example.

I have since learned that password protecting the unit is useless since a thief can just replace the files on it and doesn’t need to know the password.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Review by F. Kalkattawi for TomTom GO 920T Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator with Traffic Receiver
Rating:
PRO: The unit navigates well and find the satellites quicker then competition.

smoother refresh then competition and I like the graphics.

The unit feels well built

CONS: I purchased my unit from the US but TOMTOM is misleading on there advertisements that do not disclose everything. I assumed my unit will work in Europe just as in the US. Well that is not the case.

1) Voice address input: If you purchased your unit in the US, the voice input only works in the North America maps. Your unit will not have the voice address input capabilities for the Europe map. I contacted support and they said that I need to delete the North America map voice address input files and install the Europe voice input files. I asked why not both are on there? Well I came to find out that the internal 4Gig flash card is not enough to hold both. So you have to do this fix manually each time you change maps between Europe or North America. Delete a set of files and replace with the other set and vice-versa each time you travel between Europe or North America.

2) Since my unit is purchased in the US, the Traffic cable (RDS-TMC) only works in the US and not in Europe. I have to purchase another Traffic cable (RDS-RMC) for Europe.

None of this is disclosed and I believe these are a combination of false advertisement on the box for item 1 and 2…and a design software flaw for item 1 above.

3) Competition build-in speaker sound quality is much better then the 920T

In the US, this opens the company to potential lawsuits. Hopefully TOMTOM will do the right thing to correct the information on the boxes and website and offer the current owners some kind of compensation since the unit does not do everything it says it does.