TomTom Navigator 5 3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

by TomTom

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3 x 2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0009PD3P0
• Item model number: 1H50.082
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Turn your PDA into a wireless GPS navigator with the TomTom Navigator 5 Bluetooth wireless GPS system. The easy-to-use device, which boasts straightforward touch-screen operation and an intuitive interface, navigates directly from your PDA's address book by integrating TomTom's software into the PDA menu. Once installed, the unit delivers clear and accurate spoken instructions and 3D maps that lead you from point A to point B, with no wrong turns or questionable routes in between. To ensure that each calculated route meets your expectations, the TomTom Navigator 5 even lets you review and test the directions before you actually start driving--a good way to avoid notorious speed traps or rush hour traffic jams.

The Navigator 5 gets things started by offering an extensive guided tour, which quickly demonstrates all the features and helps you maximize the GPS experience. Users will also appreciate the dynamic status bar, which they can customize to improve utility, and the useful onscreen tips that pop up when needed. And thanks to the millions of points of interest (POI), you'll be able to find parking lots, gas stations, hotels, restaurants, and more in virtually any city in the country. Plus, the device offers an automatic alert option that tells you when a certain POI is approaching.

The receiver uses Bluetooth wireless technology to communicate with your PDA, eliminating the need for cumbersome connecting cables, while the high-performance GPS antenna ensures the best possible reception at all times. The receiver is particularly ideal in urban environments--whether driving or walking around city streets--as the antenna can pick up signals amongst skyscrapers and other traditional GPS impediments. Just as conveniently, the Navigator 5 is one of the smallest and lightest wireless GPS receivers in existence, fitting easily in your pocket, purse, or backpack.

Additional features include multilingual voice instructions in more than 30 languages, with both male and female voices (the user interface offers 18 languages of its own); a compass mode that gives you even more orientation while driving or hiking; and a high-capacity battery that lasts up to five hours on a single charge. The device is also compatible with TomTom Plus services, which offers traffic and weather information, plus additional voices, points of interest, and more.

The Navigator 5 works with the following PDAs: O2's XDAII, XDAIIi, and XDAIIS; PalmOne's Treo 650, Tungsten E2, Tungsten T3, Tungsten T5, and Zire 72; Dell's Axim X30, Axim X50, Axim X50I, and Axim X50V; HP's iPAQ H1940, iPAQ H1945, iPAQ H2210, iPAQ H2215, iPAQ H3870, iPAQ H3970, iPAQ H4150, iPAQ H4350, iPAQ H5450, iPAQ H5455, iPAQ H5550, iPAQ H5555, iPAQ H6340, IPAQ HX2110, IPAQ HX2410, IPAQ HX2750, and iPAQ HX4700; Qtek's 9090 and S100; and T-Mobile's MDA Compact and MDA III.

The unit, which measures 1.69 by 3.35 by 0.59 inches (W x H x D) and weighs only 2.4 ounces, is backed by a one-year warranty.

What's in the Box
TomTom Navigator 5 GPS, built-in battery, user's manual.

Product Description

The vivid 3D navigation view allows a better understand of your current position as well as view any upcoming actions and points of interest. Simply click on the icon and TomTom Navigator will lead the way. Choose from thousands of points of interest in more than 50 categories, for instant re-routing past unexpected obstacles. TomTom Navigator USA features the very latest digital maps of the USA and Canada from Tele Atlas and are viewable in a 2D or 3D manner. They give you comprehensive coverage of America and Canada, and even includes islands. However, despite containing more information than ever, they don't take up more memory thanks to the latest memory-saving techniques. The GPS receiver uses Bluetooth technology to eliminate the need for connecting cables, and a new, high performance GPS antenna to ensure the best possible reception. Easy to use - Simple touch screen operation, intuitive interface View route - Review and test the calculated route before driving Dynamic status bar - Improve readability by customizing the status bar Tip feature - Discover everything TomTom Navigator 5 has to offer through useful onscreen tips Multilingual - Voice instructions spoken in more than 30 languages, in both male and female voices Compass mode available - Displays a compass on screen for even more orientation while driving Wireless Bluetooth Receiver - High performance with high capacity battery that lasts all day on a single charge TomTom PLUS offers you traffic and weather information, additional voices, points of interest and much more Screen size varies upon your Palm - PocketPC PDA or compatible mobile phone

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

150 of 156 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good product let down by maps, routing and support, November 24, 2005

By 

Chris (Alameda, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: TomTom Navigator 5 3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)

[edited 4/09/06 for some final thoughts]

This review is based on over six months of daily use and two road trips through much of the western USA and Canada.

First, this software with the Holux GPSlim 236 is what I should have bought. The Tomtom GPS receiver is pretty, but the necessity of switching it on each time you use it (rather than it coming on with external power) has made it a pain to own and I'm going to toss it in a drawer or donate it to a GPSless friend.

I use a Dell Axim X51v, so performance is not an issue, even on thousand mile routes the initial route calculation only takes a few seconds.

Installation. The installation was simple and trouble free. I had heard that getting the product registered might be an issue but as soon as I connected my PDA to the internet and entered the key I got authorized. I guess the individual state maps are on the rest of the CDs, I only needed the installation and the first two map CDs. For myself I'd rather this had been on a DVD. By comparison iGuidance Europe, which is on a DVD, took two trips to the Internet to search for help and quite a bit of messing with the Bluetooth connection before it could see the receiver.

Connecting. If the application is started whilst Bluetooth is disabled on the PDA it simply enables it and connects. Other than waiting a few seconds there has never been an issue with the Bluetooth initerface. If you need to pair it the code is 0000. If you need to use a different GPS then tap the screen, hit "change preferences" then three right arrows and then "show GPS status". Hit the "Configure", use the arrows to select the right hardware and hit Select. Easy. In iGuidance I had to add the receiver as an 'outgoing' serial connection and then tell it which com port had been assigned.

The hardware works reasonably well, the Bluetooth receiver has mostly locked on fast and stayed locked everywhere except inside tunnels and a ferry, and even there it managed to receive a couple of satellites (how?). Twice the lock on has taken more than ten minutes, I have no clue why, the satellite display showed around eight good signals but it just didn't lock on. A selling point of the hardware is that it shuts off if the Bluetooth link is down for more than a few minutes. That is sensible, no point running the battery down. But there's a down side, if you want to put the receiver somewhere where it can get a good signal, like on the rear parcel shelf and plugged into a power socket in the trunk, then you'd rather not have to climb in the back each time you get in the car to switch on the receiver. In the long run this may be a killer for me, units like the Holux GPSlim236 can be plugged in and forgotten, they can also take an external antenna which the Tomtom can't... though to be fair it shows no sign of needing it either, in the middle of the first floor of a 300' wide multi floor parking structure it still locked onto six satellites.

The 3D and normal map displays are both useful, however the zoom controls only last a few seconds and then the map returns to showing only a small section of road ahead. The zoom seems to be controlled partially by proximity to your next turn and partly by local road details, so in urban areas you get about a quarter of a mile. Perhaps they did this for safety, but in that case they shouldn't have provided the controls. In cities this is ok but when you are driving around rural areas it doesn't let you see the area around you, so you can't see if your route is sensible. I have taken to using the browse map view and then moving it as I drive in rural areas. I should be able to zoom the display until it shows a level of detail that is useful to me and it should stay there. When zoomed out the map display does continue to show useful detail, iGuidance drops too many map features and if you are on small remote roads can leave you looking at a blank screen.

There are many choices for map colors and it's easy to get day and night color schemes that give good contrast and visibility. You can also choose from several clear male and female voice options, in English these include US, English and Australian accents. Terminology tracks accent, so if you choose English English you get motorways instead of freeways; amusing but not a problem.

The text at the bottom of the screen can show the next turn, speed, distance to go, current time, time to go and eta. The choices are configurable, but nothing like the twenty or thirty that Garmin allowed you to choose from six years ago. The text is very small, I have good eyes and I really have to look hard to see the figures. If I'm 400 miles from my next turn I need to know that a lot more than I need to know I'm going to be turning left when I get there. For this sort of price it should be possible to have more control of the information displayed. iGuidance shows even less information and gives you less control. But this is another case where Garmin had a better solution six years ago.

Touching the lower right corner brings up the overview of the route, this should have pan/zoom controls and be in the day/night color scheme. For a trip of several hundred miles it's hardly possile to make out the route on the full VGA display of the X51v.

The options for finding a destination are easy to use, the ones I have needed were address, city center, POI and point on map. The routing is also non-volatile, so you can stop for the night and resume in the morning. One strange thing is that the previous destinations are stored per map, so if you route to a city on the major roads map and then switch to a more detailed map the destination isn't on the list of recent destinations. The unit exhibits a common problem to north american products, you can't route between countries, you can't ask for a route from Calgary Alberta to Salt Lake City Utah because there isn't a map that has both cities. If you want to route from Bute Montana to Idaho Falls Idaho you have to use the major roads map because the states are on different major maps, west and plains. Worth bearing in mind if you live on a border.

Trip time predictions are very poor. For a trip from Alameda CA to Port Angeles WA the initial prediction was around 18 hours, which means they are using an average speed of around 50mph. That may be reasonable for I880 on a Monday at 9am but it's 50% out for I5 in northern california. The actual duration was about 14 hours including stops for food and fuel and a visit to Hertz in Portland, OR. On smaller roads the errors are much larger. For the Nephi UT to Tonopah, NV the predicted time was over eight hours and the actual trip time was just over four. On major rural roads in Canada with a 60mph limit the trip times appear to be based on a 30mph average.

Routing is fast and the suggested route is certainly in the right direction, but there are issues related to poor choices of road speeds. The software works out the time taken for various routes based on the average speeds for those road classes, but the low freway and major road settings lead it to choose apparently shorter routes through urban areas, this means that it avoids fast roads like US101. In Calgary it routed my south for miles on city streets when I was only half a mile from Deerfoot Trail which is a 65mph road with no stop lights and ultimately becomes I15 at the border. There are also minor weirdnesses, on my daily commute I take I880 south from Oakland CA to San Jose CA, at I238 it directs me to take the off ramp, then then on ramp back to I880. Strangely, if you start from a different place it is able to route you straight down I880 without detouring to the off ramp. Mostly the routes aren't bad though, but Garmin did it better five years ago.

Rerouting: If you ask for an alternate route it seeks an alternate for all of the route. So if you are going from Oakland, CA to Seattle, WA and get stuck in traffic trying to get to the freeway and ask for another route it will not only change the entrance onto the freeway, it will also reroute the rest of the trip, so instead of a long day on I5 you may find yourself on a three day drive up the coast. The simple solution is to divert until you are past the problem and then to resubmit the original destination.

There are some major mapping errors, much of the time in Canada and Montana the mapped road position was tens or even hundreds of yards from the actual position. This causes the software to either show you driving through open fields near the road, or down the wrong side of a freeway, or even down the frontage road hundreds of yards away on the far side of the freeway in Banff national park. This causes some strange voice directions too, like "turn around when possible" when you are driving down I15 at 70mph and have been going the right way for hours and have to keep going straight ahead for hours. Most city streets in the US are spot on though. But the maps do seem to be 2-4 years out of date.

POI problems. The POI list is very lacking. Maybe half to two thirds of gas stations are missing. But worse is the method of selecting POIs. You can look up stores by name, but in the case of the major chains you can get quite a few hits. In places like the San Francisco Bay Area there's a world of difference between somewhere 11 miles down I880 and ten miles across the bay, the first is a 22 mile round trip and the second could be 70. All you get is a list of stores with distances, no address, no direction. So you can't tell which 15 mile distant place they are in. If you select the wrong one and thereby discover that you need to drive thirty miles and cross a toll bridge to get there then there's no back button, you have to go through the whole POI selection process again. This is a method that is... Read more ›

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Useless after 7 months, July 4, 2006

By 

Ben Stein (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TomTom Navigator 5 3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)

This is a great idea, with pretty good software, delivered by a truly awful company.

If you should, like me, happen to switch smart phones twice while you own it, your Navigator 5 really does become a paperweight. You can't activate the software on that third device.

You can write the company about this using the form at their web site, but they don't respond. You can call them (if you can find the phone number), but nobody answers the phone. There isn't even a way to leave a vmail message - the autoattendant gives you a choice between dead silence (if you select customer support) or ringing forever (if you don't). When these methods don't work, the company invites you, via their web site, to send a written letter of complaint - to Amsterdam.

This all sounds so unbelievably bad that I ignored similar comments posted elsewhere on the 'net, figuring that no company could really be that bad and still be in business. I was wrong.

Don't buy the TomTom. For a similar experience, take three hundred-dollar bills, stand in your yard, and light them on fire.

One more point for those who are willing to take a chance on the thing anyway. Consider that there is absolutely no vehicle by which TomTom will EVER update it's maps. What you get in the box is already outdated, and there well never be an update.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Technically fine, but too many addresses missing, March 12, 2006

By 

Avery Hedaya (Marlborough, MA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: TomTom Navigator 5 3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)

I've used TomTom for about a year now. Installation was fine on my Axim X50. Yes, it's a little confusing to install at first, but after the codes are applied, adding additional maps is easy.

When it has the address, the GPS signal and directions have been solid 99% of the time, and it quickly recovers and re-routes. I love the map interface. It does have the problem of being a several hundred yards off, but knowing this, you adjust, and I'm not sure if this problem is unique only to TomTom.

My biggest complaint is that as a business traveler, there are too many addresses missing of places that are populated and have been there for years. Because of this, I'm going to start looking at other GPS devices. If they would have more addresses, I would stick with them for sure. I've rented Avis Assist and it has always had the addresses, so this makes me believe TomTom can do better. I'll give TomTom one more chance when the 2006 maps come out. Hopefully they're listening.