Tom Tom Go 700 – not overly impressed
Discussion
Just come back from a 2 week driving holiday in Europe with my newly acquired Tom Tom Go 500. I have to say I’m not that impressed with it. I encountered the following problems:
The windscreen mounting bracket snapped off at the start of my return journey.
As a consequence of the above the unit hardly gets a signal when sitting on the passenger seat.
It tried to send me the wrong way down one way streets on three or four occasions.
It kept loosing its position on motorways and tried to send me off on non existent junctions or asked me to do a U turn!
It kept loosing its signal in town centres – when I needed it most.
I went over several junctions/roundabouts which it didn’t mention to me at all. I had to guess which exit to take.
I couldn’t find an easy way of adding a POI on a map as a destination in my itinerary. I had to go back to the list of POI’s after viewing it on a map and add it as a new destination.
Following on from the above, some POI’s that appeared on maps did not appear in the list of POI’s when trying to add them as destinations.
If I didn’t reach a destination on my itinerary to the exact meter the only way I could get the unit to navigate to the next destination on the itinerary was to delete the previous destination from the itinerary. Not much good if you want to use the itinerary again.
So overall I’m not that impressed with it. Once you have got your destinations in there and it has a signal it works quite well. It was good navigating the motorway routes between cities but that’s the easy bit. I found it awkward to set up a route and it let me down too often in town centres when I needed it most. I was lost in Monaco for an hour trying to find my hotel.
This is the first satnav unit I have owned so I’m not sure if the others encounter the same problems. What are other people’s experiences?
The windscreen mounting bracket snapped off at the start of my return journey.
As a consequence of the above the unit hardly gets a signal when sitting on the passenger seat.
It tried to send me the wrong way down one way streets on three or four occasions.
It kept loosing its position on motorways and tried to send me off on non existent junctions or asked me to do a U turn!
It kept loosing its signal in town centres – when I needed it most.
I went over several junctions/roundabouts which it didn’t mention to me at all. I had to guess which exit to take.
I couldn’t find an easy way of adding a POI on a map as a destination in my itinerary. I had to go back to the list of POI’s after viewing it on a map and add it as a new destination.
Following on from the above, some POI’s that appeared on maps did not appear in the list of POI’s when trying to add them as destinations.
If I didn’t reach a destination on my itinerary to the exact meter the only way I could get the unit to navigate to the next destination on the itinerary was to delete the previous destination from the itinerary. Not much good if you want to use the itinerary again.
So overall I’m not that impressed with it. Once you have got your destinations in there and it has a signal it works quite well. It was good navigating the motorway routes between cities but that’s the easy bit. I found it awkward to set up a route and it let me down too often in town centres when I needed it most. I was lost in Monaco for an hour trying to find my hotel.
This is the first satnav unit I have owned so I’m not sure if the others encounter the same problems. What are other people’s experiences?
Frik said:
I thought the 500 only comes with maps of the major routes of mainland Europe. Might explain the patchy coverage at least.
No, the 500 has a full street level detail of Western Europe on a HDD which is why I bought it. The 300 has full UK street detail and major routes of Western Europe on SD cards.
Sorry I´m getting confused. It's the 700 I have so I have the full European street maps.
Also the problems I had such as it loosing it's way on the motorway, missing the junctions and sending me down one way streets the wrong way happened on the way down before the bracket snapped.
On the way back after it snapped it was near useless.
Also the problems I had such as it loosing it's way on the motorway, missing the junctions and sending me down one way streets the wrong way happened on the way down before the bracket snapped.
On the way back after it snapped it was near useless.
pls said:
www.pocketgps.co.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=26405
See the above for details about a batch of faulty mounting brackets.
Thanks for the info! I’ve sent Tom Tom an email. Will see what happens.
Whilst the bracket looks sturdy enough there’s a plastic shaft only about 10 x 6 mm linking the suction cup to the bracket. This shaft slides up and down inside the main bracket body as you move the release leaver. Add to this the fact that the shaft has a hole through it at right angles which houses a 3 mm dia metal pin then at this point you only have about a 20 mm2 cross section of plastic supporting the whole assembly. The big black plastic chunky surround is merely show. My bracket failed when this shaft sheared at the point where the hole for the steel pin is. Not surprising really.
johnny senna said:
My Tom Tom Go 700's mounting arm broke after just a week. The weakness is where the arm meets the suction cup part. Pretty naff really, the device should be much stronger than this.
Exactly where mine broke - also after a week. And I've received no acknowledgement of my email to Tom Tom support yet.
Update: Drove from Barcelona to Calais last weekend and it kept its signal for most of the time and didn’t go off on any hair brained non-existent motorway exits. However this was a pretty straightforward route with not much town driving. It did keep its signal through Paris which was handy. Is it possible different parts of Europe get a stronger signal than others?
Also Tom Tom have responded to my email and have posted a replacement bracket to me.
So the jury’s still out for me.
Interestingly I was in a taxi equipped with a Tom Tom in Barcelona the other day and it kept its signal all the way to my apartment in the centre of town. My one looses the signal as soon as I get off the ring road. I didn’t ask the guy if he had an external aerial or not but I couldn’t see any extra wires.
Also Tom Tom have responded to my email and have posted a replacement bracket to me.
So the jury’s still out for me.
Interestingly I was in a taxi equipped with a Tom Tom in Barcelona the other day and it kept its signal all the way to my apartment in the centre of town. My one looses the signal as soon as I get off the ring road. I didn’t ask the guy if he had an external aerial or not but I couldn’t see any extra wires.
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