Anyone got a TomTom?

Talk Electrician Forum

Help Support Talk Electrician Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
W

wabbitwabbit

Guest
If so have you signed up to Traffic subscription?

If so how the ferk do you activate the bar steward thing?

I acquired the Traffic & Camera subscription and the TomTom web site instructions to activate was written by a complete eejit. I really do wish that they would get the plonkers that write this stuff to sit down in front of a PC and with TomTom try and follow their own written instructions. Grrrrr.

Cheers (if any)

 
Tom Tom employees all have road angel nav systems cos they know how shite their instructions are . :p

 
Yes WW that is what I used to do in the Dark Ages only I used Multimap, well I did until Microsoft acquired them and 'surprisingly' (not) their product has deteriorated since. So then I used Google maps, then I got bored.

Guess no-one heerrehas a TomTom then, which by the way is very, very good indeed as a satnav system ?:|

 
dunno how it all works upgrading online WW, but personally i have a Navman and find it loads easier than tom tom, for the basic finding where the street is anyway.

as for routefinder etc, thats fine if you know exactly before you leave the house, or you back at a pc everytime before the next job.

dont work so good on emergencies when in the field, or working away from home. I would need about 30 or 40 A-Z 's ......

 
Oh sod it.

The mobile I have is not supported to run with a TomTom. I have been told the best thing to do is get a much lesser unlocked mobile via ebay and when I want to use the TomTom in conjunction with wireless/internet for Traffic and Cameras use that mobile instead.

I must admit TomTom support is fantastic, extremely helpful and obliging.

 
If so how the ferk do you activate the bar steward thing?
Wow, do these things guide you to a pub and inform the barperson of what you are going to drink? I MUST get one! :^O

 
Wow, do these things guide you to a pub and inform the barperson of what you are going to drink? I MUST get one! :^O
Well funny you should say that but the TomTom (Go 520) I have has a bluetooth link to my mobile and so you could actually call up the pub and order your pint of Spitfire from your 'TomTom' :D

Yes Mr. Diaz, they are really very good at navigating one around. I was up in London last weekend for a Christening and it took me back to the A40/M40 via a load of private roads and all of a sudden we popped on onto the A40 west bound. It was brilliant, thank God because if it suddenly lost the satellites as far I was concerned I was in the middle of nowhere.

 
had a tom tom nicked about a 2ish years ago untill the van window was smashed, i dont know whats better advice, dont leave your tom tom in the glove compartment or dont park in the kings cross area.

 
My TomTom Go 500 is wonderful. I never go anywhere in the car without it. I have even used it on foot several times.

So what are its best features - apart from the basic one of getting you to where you want to go?

1. When travelling on motorways/dual carriageways and that ilk, clear indication of how far it is to your turn off (not the wife). It is so much easier to decide whether it is worth overtaking that awkward slow ******* in the middle lane or not. If you're only going another 2.3 miles then it isn't, is it?

2. When you have to divert unexpectedly. I travel in London a lot, and I know my usual routes very well, but these days I frequently encounter complete gridlocks and have to take to the side streets where it is easy to get lost. No matter where I get to, "She" knows and is able to get me back on track, without me having to do anything with it. So now I have it running even when travelling well-known routes. Even so, nothing can absolutely protect you from the curse of the Blackwall Tunnel.

3. The speed indication. I didn't realise before just how low my speedometer reads.

4. The reminder of local speed limits. Sometimes I forget what the current limit is. This is a new feature on my TomTom (I got a software upgrade) but many of its speed limits are wrong.

5. Locating places by postcodes is just fantastic! I don't need anybody's address anymore, just give me the postcode!

So what are the weak points?

1. The maps are not perfect. I have been told to turn right in 80 yards, when at the time I was travelling at 70pmh (honestly, officer) in the right hand lane of the M6. I have been told to enter one-way streets from the wrong end. And I have been told to turn right where right-turns are prohibited. And these have not been due to recent road changes.

2. It is not easy to get an overview of the area of your route. Zooming in and out is quite clunky.

3. It is quite difficult to tell it to take a detour like "don't go in the direction we need to go until we have detoured in the opposite direction for 10 miles south and then 10 miles west, to avoid a snarl-up.

4. It is an absolute pain that you can't leave it visible in a parked car without it being stolen through a smashed windscreen. You can't be seen to put it in the boot either. In some areas you even need to clean off the rings it leaves from its rubber foot on the windscreen.

5. It is very easy to accidently switch it on when carrying it about in its little cloth bag. If you don't notice and it goes flat, you are absolutely stuck for about 3 hours while it charges up again. You can't give it a quick blast to get it going. If your complete weekend itinery is entrusted to it then you're stuffed.

6. The cable is not very strong. Mine is split where it plugs in.

7. The TomTom people have a big website, full of information, which is most unhelpful. My TomTom came with a 256Mb SD card which was almost full with the supplied maps. After a year or two I bought an updated map (expensive) and it wouldn't fit, even when I deleted the old one. I went out an bought a 2Gb SD card and spent days trying to make it work. After much research I discovered that different sizes of SD cards are formatted in different ways - and the TomTom can only support cards upto 1Gb. At no time would the TomTom people actually publish this explicitly on their help site. After I got it out of them (by email) I went back to the help site and it still was not there, despite all sorts of trivial information being there.

8. They keep emailing me with crap offers. Every now and then there is an offer worth considering so you have to put up with it, but it is so irritating. It is like buying a sofa from DFS, you feel that if you don't buy it at 50% off then you are being done.

9. It is easy to accidently increase the volume to deafening levels.

10. For people who wear glasses like me, the printing on some parts of the screen can be hard to read with glasses on. Mostly I just listen to what she says (why do I get so much pleasure from doing the opposite occasionally?) and only glance at the screen to confirm an overall route through a complex junction.

For a tradesman travelling to multiple sites then it must be indispensible. When I'm God, possible now that Blair has stepped aside (his opinion, not mine), then it will be mandatory for all vehicles involved in trade to have them.

I don't have the traffic-trouble avoidance feature as my phone is not supported by the TomTom. Before I go to the expense of an extra phone with facilities that I would not otherwise use, can anyone tell me if it works well? It is no use to me at all if by the time it tells me to avoid the Blackwall Tunnel I am stuck in the 3 mile square gridlock leading up to it.

 
What a blooming good dissertation SpecialLoc and very accurate as well thanks for that and I would concur with all you say.

The TomTom is a very good bit of kit. The one thing I would like is the option to have different voices, John Cleese seems to be the only one option whereas my old mate (sparky) has a Navman and he has all sorts of voice options such as that of Donald Duck, which to me would be more like home - as in having SWMBO in the back seat :^O :^O

 
Hey up,

I have Tomtom running on my Nokia. Works a treat (have done for about 2 - 3 years)

I'm not signed up for any online services incase they catch me *cough*cough*

I've got loads of voices on mine, speed cameras, about 100 different types of POI (although you have to turn majority off as it slows down the system). Latest UK maps inc western europe (incase jobs get so bad I have to travel) ;)

If you can access the system/memory card you can upload extra voices.

I assume you use TomTom Home ?

D.

 
Top