A few weeks ago, my wife and I spent a weekend in Columbus, OH, with two other couples. On the way down there, one of the cars was equipped with a portable GPS unit, the Garmin nüvi 660. Impressive, little unit. Until I saw the price ($799US). Time to rethink the whole portable GPS purchase.
What to do? I researched the available units, and also went to the blog where I knew that there were plenty of reviews of GPS'. If you said engadget, you would be wrong. I went to vowe.net. And if that weren't enough, I asked vowe for his opinion (yes, I do listen to him). What did he recommend? The TomTom ONE. About the same form factor but without the heavy price tag (about $299US).
Last weekend, I bought the TomTom ONE.
So far, there are only two things that I find annoying:
1) To type in destinations, you are presented with a touchscreen keyboard. Not a "QWERTY" keyboard, but an "ABCDEF" keyboard (and I have to mention that the Garmin has the same layout). I can understand that they did this probably to have it fit within the screen, but it is hard to find the letters. This is going to take a while to make the adjustment.
2) There isn't an AC adapter included in the box for charging the unit. You either charge it while it is plugged in to your computer's USB port or with the car adapter. This doesn't mean that there isn't one, there is, but it is an additional option ($20US). I suppose TomTom did this to keep the initial price down.
One item that this unit is also lacking is text-to-speech. That is, it doesn't shout out the street names as you travel. But it does display the names and it does tell you when to turn. I have not found that I am missing text-to-speech. May I ask what the big deal is with that, any way?
Setup is extremely easy and straightforward. I think that it took me all of 5 minutes, from the time I opened the box until it was ready for the first trip. Plugged it into the computer's USB port, turned it on, answered a few questions, it locked on to a satellite, and it was ready to go. It can't get any easier than that. All of the mapping data is on a 1GB SD card. If you are travelling to locations outside of the US and Canada, TomTom will be happy to sell you additional SD cards for your destinations. If you sign up for the Plus service, which I am very tempted to do, you can have access to real-time traffic (so that you can route around problem areas) and weather. With that service, you can also download additional voices (such as John Cleese), updated maps, locations of safety cameras, and more. In order to use this service, you have to connect the TomTom ONE with your Bluetooth enabled phone.
For $299US, this is a great, portable GPS. Thank you, vowe, for the recommendation.
Technorati tag: TomTom ONE portable GPS Garmin
Comment posted by Volker Weber03/09/2007 08:25:53 PM
Homepage: http://vowe.net/about
I think you should be able to set the keyboard to QWERTY. I know I cannot do it on the NavMan but I remember having set it on a different device, most likely the TomTom 710. Since they all share the same software ...
Comment posted by Volker Weber03/09/2007 08:31:44 PM
Homepage: http://vowe.net/about
Yes, you can:
Choose 'Keyboard preferences' to choose the size (large or small) of the touchscreen keyboard for the entry of text and numbers (the smaller version leaves more room for items in scrolling lists), and to choose between alphabetic (ABCD), typewriter (QWERTY) and French (AZERTY) layouts.
http://www.tomtom.com/lib/doc/one/refman/1_EN_UK/TomTomONE_manual.htm
Comment posted by Gregg Eldred03/10/2007 04:18:31 PM
Homepage: http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf
@Volker - Excellent tip! And yes, I have changed the keyboard style. I am very grateful to you for recommending the TomTom ONE. I ordered the AC adapter and a carrying case for it the other day. Next up? Plus service. This is a great portable GPS at a very good price. Thanks, again, for the recommendation.
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