TomTom Go 930T

I wanted a GPS under 250 dollars with a wide screen and able to carry a map of the US and Canada and a map of Western Europe at the same time. By first bought was a TomTom XL 330 which not only wasn't able… to carry both maps at the same time but to be fair it was a lousy product and ended up returning it for a full refund. After the poor experience with the 330 XL my first impulse was to go running into Garmin's arms, but their GPS with what I wanted ended up horribly expensive (250 dollars for a map of Western Europe. Are you joking right?), way over 500 dollars. So I realized the Garmin was out of my budget and to tell you the truth, a rip-off. How much better can they be to charge you twice of even three times the price of a TomTom? Believe me they are not. Besides, TomTom is unbeatable in Europe maps and POIs, which I needed for my road trip. So I ran into a very good offer from Amazon for a new GO 930 for just 249 dollars and I didn't hesitate. Considering it can go up to 500 bucks, I grabbed it as fast as I could The maiden trip of my 930 was a road trip to Disney World in Florida and to tell you the truth I was a bit disappointed on its accuracy and chosen routes -some times I ended up in the middle of an empty forest, my "destination"- but then realized it was not only my TomTom as by brother's Garmin did exactly the same thing and we both ended up in the same forest, so I gave is a problem common to all GPS, or at least to these two brands. However, during my road trip within Europe my 930 was a tremendous asset, I never got lost and it found all the POIs I put on it, and got me there with accuracy and on the estimated time. It even found remote locations on unpaved roads, any name and location I threw at this TomTom it got them: restaurants, castles, famous locations, vineyards, natural wonders, supermarkets with specific types of foods, free wireless access points, etc, etc. It also recalculated routes pretty quick if I missed an exit or that turn or decided to take a more scenic route. Overall a great help on my trip, I have no regrets whatsoever. It even still guided me accurately on long tunnels without satellite signal using the Enhanced Positioning function, and when the satellite was again available it picked-up the route at the estimated point with no problem. The Advanced Lane Guidance also saved me of many easy to fail exits or turn on very complex highway intersections, and it popped-up every time there was one, even in those no that complicated. On the technical side, my experience was mostly positive: It found the satellites in less than a minute, the screen is bright enough although it can be challenged under direct sunlight and the battery life is pretty good. You can fix the screen brightness a bit if you download the free bright colors mode, and it will make it easier to see the screen under direct sunlight. The sound was also loud enough and the voice was clear and very easy to understand, even when reading foreign street names in English. The way to hang-it to the windshield is very good even if it doesn't has a lock like the 330 XL had (although it didn't work I think). It never fell and was easy to hand the GPS to it On the not that positive side, the interface can be better, it is a bit complicated to navigate and can be a challenge to find certain functions. Image quality on the screen could also be better. At these times of cheap touch-up displays, even those with HD quality, it's unacceptable that TomTom equips one of its high end GPS with a screen where you can count the pixels with your fingers and produce broken down graphics at the edges with a poor response time. Sometimes I feel like I was looking at the rendering of a 1970 Atari Gaming Console hooked into an old TV. It also had way too many functions like MP3 reproducing capabilities, blue-tooth (which works only for a few selected phones), picture storage, FM transmitter, remote control, etc which I think are not really needed and just add weight and price to the GPS, but this can be a matter of opinion But the positives far outweighed the negatives, making it a great GPS

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The Window mount keeps coming off the window. It's ok for for a while, but eventually it falls. Also tried it with a beanbag base. There's only so many times it can do this before the unit breaks. I… searched their web site for help, but the site's search doesn't work. I looked at some forums, and it appears this is not a rare problem. Anyway, I just got it. This problem and the comments on customer service tell me this is one headache I don't need. I'm going to return it.

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TomTom is without any doubt the WORSE GPS unit/ Customer service / Warranty service of ANY GPS manufacturer. My first TomTom the on/off switch was so flimsy it would turn the unit on by itself while it… was sitting in the car or on a desk. TomTom finally replaced that one under warranty, but the reconditioned repair they sent runs out of battery power after 45 minutes without being plugged in. When turned off fully charged, the battery will be completely dead within a week WITHOUT the unit being turned on. I called TomTom customer service, and their warranty department tells me they WILL NOT WARRANTY REPLACE a GPS unit that runs at least 30 minutes under battery power. Also, they told me it was normal for their GPS units to run the battery down within a week WHILE TURNED OFF, and will only replace it under warranty if the battery dies completely within 2-3 days while the unit is turned off. To recap, TomTom warranty says a fully charged battery only lasts 30 minutes, and a fully charged battery will die after 2-3 days with the TomTom GPS TURNED OFF. So, if you want to be like me and have a hundred dollar paperweight after purchasing it only 10 months ago, buy this GPS for yourself, or even as a gift! Otherwise, I would avoid this manufacturers products entirely. Arthur Penrose p.s. TomTom customer service, if you are reading this, my case number for the facts in this review is 091006-000350. I would not want anyone to think I was making any of this up.

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I bought this GPS for a trip to Spain in September. We used it for three weeks while there and were generally satisfied. The unit is a bit more difficult to use than our old Magellin, but certainly has… more features. The US/Western Europe maps are good and the internet update is a definite plus. Spanish as well as other European streets are difficult to enter and many are not in the unit database, so we wound up using Google Earth and entering Latitude/Longitude coordinates to find many locations, which worked quite well. The sound quality is average and we had to try several different computer voices before we found one that we could reasonably well understand. Also, the unit should have more volume. In addition, the computer voices tend to butcher the pronunciation of both English and Spanish cities and street names. The screen is difficult to see on a bright day and we tried various combinations of map colors and brightness and finally found a barely acceptable solution to this problem. All in all, the unit is satisfactory and a bargain at the price. I would recommend it for anyone traveling to Western Europe as well as for use in the United States.

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