Customer Reviews

TomTom GO 910 4-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(32)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(41)

 

 

First of all the good news. The display and automatic panning on the Tom Tom 910 are second to none. It is MUCH more visible than the Garmin Nuvi 350 and the automatic panning works much better. The actual mapping algorithms seemed to be approximately the same in both units neither, insofar as I was able to determine, having much of an advantage over the other. Mapping details on both units are excellent. Bright light visibility is outstanding - much better than the Nuvi.

The unit, compared to the Nuvi 350 and 360 is considerably larger and more cumbersome. Additionally, the mounting solution on the Nuvi is slightly better than that on the 910 - more compact. The voice prompts are loud, clear and timely. The ease of use is just great (with the exception of the POI implementation) and the visibility and quality of the display are great.

The bad news: POI access is cumbersome and poorly implemented. Hopefully a firmware upgrade will fix this problem in the near future. As it stands now, you cannot enter the name of the POI that you wish to go to without going through an intervening category screen made even more cumbersome by the fact that you may guess the category wrong! Then, the POIs only come up in alphabetical order or by distance. For me, this particular deficiency was the deal breaker. Selecting a POI must be as simple as possible in a AIO (all in one) GPS navigation solution. There are so many capabilities that you give up in these simplified AIO solutions that they should perform their designated functions easily and efficiently. The Nuvi does this, the 910 does not. The nuvi allows you to search POIs by name. The TomTom 910 does not.

This device is intended as an extremely simple point to point navigating AIO GPS navigation solution and is not intended to enable the use of way points or easily changing the course selected by the unit. You have essentially two options: the shortest route and the fastest route. Fortunately, the mapping program selects routs that are very acceptable. Personally, I like to look at the overall route and fiddle with it. This unit is not designed for such use. Microsoft Streets and Trips is ideal for this kind of tinkering, but terrible for point to point navigation while on the go.

Make sure and get the most recent firmware updates on the Tom Tom website which will fix the known bugs and further improve the functionality.

I give this unit a 3 star on form (compared to the elegant Nuvi), a 4 star on the functionality for which it was designed, and a 5 star on the beautiful bright display. You will not be disappointed in the beautiful display, the automatic panning, the actual map functionality or the bright light performance. But the POI solution is cumbersome and frustrating.

I love this little machine. It's incredibly intuitive, has clear graphics, reasonable reception in Manhattan (no GPS is great with tall buildings), but it seems to konk out after a night of charging.

Have no fear! It's not dead, just do a soft reset! Use a pin and hold the soft reset button for 5-10 seconds (the reset is not on the face, but in the hole at back where the unit connects to the base; opposite side of the gold circle, up just a little from the green strip). Apparently the battery shuts down if it's overcharged, so if you charge it for more than a few hours it might not turn back on again. Reset it and you'll be on the road again!

First of all let it be known that I read ALL of the reviews before writing this one of my own. I found one thing to be the common factor in each review. If you run the firmware update this GPS comes to life and will make you happy. The TomTom Home software makes this as easy as connecting it to your computer and runnng the program. The software does the rest! Remember, it's new and many changes will come along to improve the functionality as TomTom analyzes the product and gets feedback from it's users. Don't be afraid to contact them to offer your input!

Next, the scores given for this GPS have been greatly reduced by customers who are unhappy with the companies they purchased it from, not in the quality and performance of the 910. Others are complaining about other TomTom GPS units and NOT the 910. If you are complaining that you paid too much then hear this---I PAID $1400.00 for the Magellan 700 when it came out two + years ago and although a good GPS, it's now dead and had been locking up constantly for the past 6 months. Try getting a hold of Magellan support in Canada and you'll find out how much the Canadians "like" Americans!! I have tossed the Magellan in lieu of the cost and frustration involved in repairing it. Additionally, the out of box mount was useless and $50.00 later for a windshield mount was little improvement!

Pay attention to the alignment of the suction base when you mount the 910 on the windshield and turn th lock until it clicks (just like it says in the book!) and it will stay tight. Oh ya, how many other units come with the home charger, docking station with a USB cord, a car charger and a remote control for the money you just paid? Let me help you answer that: NONE!!!

The hands free phone (Bluetooth) is great, the remote speeds up the navigation screens and if you take the time to customize the screen with all the toys they include it becomes a cockpit of information!

OK, so the moral of this review is rate the finished product, not your lousy experience with your vendor or shipping problems or your inability to follow simple instructions from the manual. Thsi GPS deserves 5 stars and nothing less.

I'm a former Garmin Nuvi user who borrowed a TomTom from a friend. Once I used the TomTom I realized just how much was missing from the Nuvi. If I never used the TomTom I'm sure I would have kept the Nuvi but I just found myself being frustrated by all the things I couldn't do once I went back to the Garmin. As soon as the 910 came out I sold the Nuvi and I'm so glad I did. I love how you can customize so many aspects of the 910 to your liking.

Entering addresses is super easy. Just tap on the on screen keyboard and it will auto fill based on what you've typed in so far. You can also navigate directly to GPS coordinates if you want. Driving when surrounded by tall buildings is pretty good although it may think it needs to recalculate your route if you stop. Once you get moving again it locks back to your road and you're on your way. Reception is definitely better than any previous TomTom models. QuickFix is great. I've tried using the 910 with and without it and it really does make a difference. When you connect the 910 to your HOME software it will download a QuickFix data file which allows the 910 to acquire a satellite lock in no time and I get more satellites when I first turn it on. More satellites is always a good thing.

Text to speech is very good overall. After trying all the voices I have to say that Dave is the most natural sounding of them all. There are some video samples available on the web if you search for it that give you an idea of what to expect. There are some issues with some of the pronunciation but for the most part it's a fantastic addition that really helps you get to your destination. I think it's worth the extra money. If you miss a turn or if there is a mapping error or a road is closed, the unit reroutes you within seconds so it's no big deal. Even my mom who has never used a car GPS before loved it when she took it on her trip to California. Now it looks like she's going to buy one for herself.

I think the biggest complaint that I've seen with other web reviews is with the POI database but each time I've used it to find a bar, gas station, store etc. it's been right on the money. Sometimes the location of an address may be off by about 50 yards or so and this usually happens on roads that twist and turn all over. On straight roads laid out in a grid it's dead on. An arrow points out what side of the street your address is located on which is nice. I like the advance planning and itinerary features which come in handy for longer trips away from home. The screen is easy enough to see even in direct sunlight although if you have a white shirt on it will reflect much more than darker colors. Still, it's not that hard to see the display in bright light.

Make sure to connect your unit with the HOME software and check for updates so that you can use the QuickFix data. The application software on the units from Amazon may not be new enough but I'm not positive. I never leave home without it and wouldn't dream of going back to paper print outs. There is nothing better on the market today.

I bought this because I had to drive in Switzerland during a business trip there.

The nice thing about this model is that the European maps are already included at the time of purchase so there is no need to shell out additional $$$$. The thing to note though, is that you have to activate the European maps online using Tomtom Home.

So Tip #1: Don't wait until you get to Europe to activate the European maps.

When I got into Zurich, it was past 10pm. Unfortunately, the unit refused to power up. So I had to ask around for directions to get from the Airport to the Hotel.

At the hotel, I managed to find a paper clip to reset the unit after which it powered up fine.

Tip #2: Don't leave home without a paper clip.

The third and last problem occurred the next morning when I had to drive to Bern for my meeting. The 910 powered up fine but could NOT find the satellites.

I ended up asking around for directions again in order to get on the highway to go to Bern.

While driving on the highway and on a hunch, I reset the Home location to the meeting location in Switzerland. The Home location had been previously set to my home address in California.

Once the home address was set to a location in Switzerland, the unit started to work!

Tip #3 : When changing continents, reset the Home location to somewhere on the continent where you are.

Once I had gone over that last hump, the 910 worked perfectly and brought me all to way to the Avis location in the middle of Geneva after my meeting.

The Go 910 is definitely the best GPS device out there today. I used it on a long sojourn on the East Coast over the Fourth of July weekend and it never missed.

Before I left I loaded up a bunch of playlists onto the device with plenty of room to spare!! Before I left I was concerned about the mount drooping in the hot weather. I don't know if people have tried this, but you have to turn the dial on the mount such that it clicks in twice. There's a first click, then dial farther until the padlock symbol meets the dot. Even in the 90-degree weather the dock didn't move.

Voices had some trouble with street names, but still, with the text-to-speech it was nice to have something more than the generic "turn right here."

Love the big screen, better than Nuvi 360 AND the Streetpilot c550, my next turn was always visible well in advance. Phone conversations were clear and map accuracy was fine.

A GREAT product!

This is a great unit. I purchased the TomTom Go 910 because it was preloaded with maps of North America and Europe. I am in Europe more than the USA so I wanted a unit that could get me around all the European countries seamlessly. Many units require that you switch European maps between countries, but not this unit. I can report that the unit works perfectly.

I recently drove from Lyon, France to Torino, Italy and then to Cameri, Italy. The unit worked fast to define the best route and got me to my destinations without any errors. In fact, in Torino I went to a friend's apartment following the directions exactly. When the unit said "you arrived at your destination" stopped the car among large buildings downtown and phoned my friend to see if he knew where I was. He looked out his apartment from the fifth floor and waved to me! The unit placed me directly in front of his apartment. And yes, it never lost signal even when on the narrow roads buried between tall buildings. I also noticed that in the small town of Cameri, Italy it knew every small road in town.

It is also interesting to note that the unit tracks your approximate location even when going thru tunnels (I had no signal but it apparently assumes you are still going the same speed). But after a few minutes in the long tunnels it stops and waits for you exit and then refreshes in about a minute.

Here is what I really like:
* It is very accurate and calculates routes very quickly. If you make a wrong turn, it recalculates in second and gets you back on the right track.
* Preloaded maps of Europe, and they are accurate.
* Alerts you if the speed limit drops and you are going too fast. In fact, I was watching it change as I passed speed limit signs (in Europe), and the Go910 changed within feet of passing the signs (how do they do that?).
* Alerts you to speed cameras (in Europe).
* Has a remote control that is very handy. With the touch of a button, you can have it repeat its last instruction or tell you the next instruction. Also can change volume and access all the other features.
* Signal strength is very good. I pick up nearly full signals when docked in my house, apartment (in Europe) or office. Of course, I have great signal strength in the car, even though I have one of those GM cars with the metallic coating in the windshield (my old Garmin GPS III unit would not work well thru the windshield).
* Long battery life, more than six hours.
* Speaker and sound is very clear.
* When you plan your route, it provides an estimate of arrival time. I found on a six hour trip it was within three minutes.

Here is what I don't like:
* The screen is hard to see in really bright sunlight and you are wearing sunglasses. Lifting off your glasses helps, but it is still tough to read.
* The windshield mount works fine, but the power connection from the mount to the unit is not working (the unit runs out of battery after about six hours).
* Didn't come with a carrying case. Sure it has a little case for the main unit, but if you drop it there will be little protection from a hard floor.

I usually do not write any reviews but I felt like I had to give my two cents about this product. The GO 910 has everything I need and want in a portable GPS. The out of the box experience was easy, the navigation top-rate, the re-calculation time when I missed my exit was quick, and, best of all, I could come home and dock the unit to my PC to download my address book. It even updates the software in the background as I work. Absolutely FREE - no fees!

I noticed most people mentioned their experiences with the product while driving. I want to mention that this product has a built-in battery that allows me to walk around and find local restaurants, banks, or whatever, in any town or city I'm in. (I'm an airline pilot and I don't like to get lost!) One of the route choices I can make is 'fastest', 'shortest', 'avoid highways', etc. This is great because I have found new ways to get to places where I have followed the exact same route for years without realizing that there were quicker ways to get to my destination.

Another cool thing about this product is that your experience doesn't end with the navigation. I easily docked the unit and downloaded pictures of my family, a few of my favorite tunes, and also downloaded some funny voices off of their website. I now have John Cleese telling me how to get from point A to point B! Gotta love it!

I have used other GPS devices in the past and, I have to say, this is the most accurate, most versatile, and user friendly device I have ever come across. For the price, no other GPS even comes close.

I do like the product, but there are a number of problems that need to be addressed by Tomtom - other products may be better (but I wouldn't know):
1. I'm a Mac user. Everytime I try to use the Tomtom Home application with the unit "synced," when I "eject" the unit from the desktop, it crashes/freezes, requiring a hard-reset. That means I need to use a paperclip to poke the very hidden reset button underneath the unit - something I only found after searching the internet a lot, since it isn't in the original documentation.
2. I live in a large city, and the "acquisition time" for the GPS satellite is abysmal. When I had a factory installed unit in my old car, it worked quickly (under a minute). With this unit, I leave my garage and can be out of the borough before the unit connects, which is only ok if I already know which direction to start off driving.
3. The voices: street names will only be read aloud by the "computer generated" voices, not the voice-actor voices, and the vast majority of the voices are voice actors. That's not really a big deal, but the most annoying part is: for some reason one of the computer voices recognizes the abbreviation Br as "branch." It's quite annoying when the object of interest is really a bridge, like, say, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the George Washington Bridge the Third Avenue Bridge, the Willis Avenue Bridge, the Triborough Bridge... I don't know I've ever enountered a branch while driving.
I'd like to say I love it, and as a previous reviewer said, I wanted to love it, but it just doesn't merit that kind of adolation. There are a few good features, like the route preview, which allows you to see the route in a number of different ways (map, words, 3-d drive simulator, etc.), but you have to have a working GPS signal to use it. It allows you to select a single road, for example, to avoid. It will also allow you to recalculate for roadblocks, etc. And, you can put in multiple stops apparently, but I have yet to figure this part out. As I said, the documentation is almost completely useless.
Frankly, the Tomtom people should be less interested in jamming in additional features, like the mp3 player and bluetooth device, and spend more time working on the problems with the core product.

I like TomTom GO 910, Yet every review I read raved about Garmin Nuvi 660. People wrote that Garmin has better maps, their cup suction holder does not break, like TomTom's. Garmin does not reset when the car runs over a bump. And so on.

There is one detail overlooked. The Nuvi 660 costs $800 to $900 including tax and/or shipping on December 10. The TomTom GO510 costs about half after the rebate from TomTom. The screen image is stunning. The software is clever. The features are the same as Nuvi 660, even better.

Before buying, I called TomTom's customer service. They told me the suction cup holder has been redesigned in September and it does not break. I live in Rocklin , California, in a new area which just cropped up last week on google and yahoo maps, TomTom support said the updated maps will be available before the end of he week, that means in three week time from today.

The 910 has a charger/holder linked to my home computer and Internet. I can update it weekly with the latest position of the satellite, a free service from TomTom and the unit detects the signal very fast..

The unit also has a remote control. I smiled when I saw it. Yet, in my Cadillac SRX, the windshield is inclined and getting to the GPS unit can be cumbersome when driving, The remote control solves elegantly the problem.