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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why buy a new one? Refurbished looks and feels the same!, June 11, 2010
This review is from: TomTom XXL 540S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished) (Electronics)
I received this for a birthday gift (that I picked out), and I can not tell it from a new one. I even got the latest map update! Not sure if that was luck or not, but I'm not complaining. I've had two other Tomtom's, and they work fine for me, although the Garmin's do have a better looking interface. I drive a semi, and although this does not have truck routes, if you use some common sense you'll do just fine.
The lane guidance is nice, as is the junction view (although a little gimmicky). I've even found the pronunciation of street names to be quite good, unlike what some others have said (even does a good job of saying "Puyallup"!).
I can easily recommend this product, especially at this price for a 5" unit.
Do yourself a favor and get the ARKON TTEP115 TomTom EasyPort Windshield / Dash Mount to replace the near useless mount that comes with this model, though!
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best value for your dollar, May 27, 2010
This review is from: TomTom XXL 540S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished) (Electronics)
I've used TomTom, Magellan and Garmin in the past. Rather than repeat the feature list I'll state that this is far and away the best unit I've ever used. I tried the latest Magellan and Garmin, but neither had a chance against the TomTom. Stop shopping, buy one... you'll like it.
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22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Returned item--no more TomTom's for me!, July 10, 2010
This review is from: TomTom XXL 540S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Factory Refurbished) (Electronics)
I purchased this unit yesterday, it arrived today and it's now sitting on my desk, packed up with a return label and waiting for the UPS Store to open up on Monday. This is, in fact, my very first review of a product I've gotten from Amazon, and it's a very negative one. There seem to be a lot of very happy TomTom users out there, but I'm certainly not one of them....but I really gave it a try! Actually I gave TomTom TWO separate tries--I bought a TomTom ONE 140S a couple of months ago as a cheap but adequate (or so I thought) replacement for our Garmi Nuvi 660 which we lost on the way to our new home in New Mexico. I was never able to get the 140S functioning properly (see below) and returned it about a week later.
The reason I've always had a hankering for a TomTom is probably because I really like the POTENTIAL of the "TomTom HOME" software. It's nice to be able to access and manipulate the device via the computer and the possibilities for this really being a super-useful feature tempted me. TomTom also seems to have a very large and loyal following, they look good, seem to have a lot of bells and whistles--so what's not to like? Here's my list:
The original 140 never worked properly. The first thing I did was hook it up to the computer and followed the instructions to get my free update to the latest map. Bad idea. After downloading the map (1.5 hours) I was greeted with a message saying that the NEW map was too large for the device. I placed several calls to TT tech support but none of the recommended fixes ever restored the unit to full functionality--including a complete reformat of the Garmin and reload of ALL the software. It may have been fixable, but after several hours I threw in the towel and sent it back. However, had it worked right out of the box it would have gone back for the same reasons that the XXL 540 is being returned:
A. Text-to-speech is terrible. When I took the XXL 540 out for a test run today I was surprised to find that there were no street names being announced in the turn-by-turn directions. A call to tech support revealed that I had to choose on of the "computer" voices in order for that feature to work, so, OK--I switched it over. Only to find that the street names were virtually unintelligible--just a very quick blurt that if you listend VERY carefully you MIGHT construe as the name of the street you had to turn on.
B. Tried to enter an address on a well-know street here in Albuquerque: "Tennessee Street SE." TomTom only brings up "Tennesse St" and tells me there are no street numbers available, would I like a cross-street? Well, no, not really, but I entered the nearest major cross street anyway and was told that street didn't exist. Another call to tech support: it turns out that for SOME streets, for SOME reason you have to actually enter the entire street name. So entering EVERY letter of "Tennessee St, SE" did bring up the street and then allowed street number entries. Arghh.
C. I entered an "intinerary" into the 540S (as well as several "Favorites"). For some reason I was expecting that the 540S would make some kind of intelligent attempt to put the various waypoints in logical order. No. Well, OK, then there is a feature to order waypoints up or down in the intinerary, so all I would have to do is check the distance from whereever I happened to be to the remaining waypoints--that would help. Uh, NO distance to waypoints OR to favorites is listed! That's a deal-breaker, folks. My last Garmin, the 1490T handled itineraries with multiple waypoints pretty well and even the cheap Magellan 1440 that I bought for my wife has a current distance to all favorites listed in the favorites/address book section. (More on the Magellan below--a really nifty little basic unit!)
D. Screen brightness/legibility. Very poor on the 540S. Both Garmins I've owned shined in this aspect. The Magellan doesn't hit the Garmin mark, but it's slightly better than the TomTom, even with a 4.3" and not a 5.0" screen.
E. Back to my original point where the 140 was destroyed by trying to get a upgraded map....after this happened I found out that this was NOT an isolated occurrence and that to some degree or another TomTom has been aware of this problem for quite some time. In my chats with tech support today I brought this up since I didn't want to have the same thing happen with the 540S. I was told that this problem was both easily avoidable and fairly easy to fix, but that first-level TomTom techs weren't too "up" on it and it had caused a lot of problems. Also during my 3-4 tech support calls today, the TomTom servers were "experiencing problems" and the techs didn't have access to a lot of their information. OK, fine....except the same situation existed when I had the 140S a couple of months back....mmmmm????
Anyway, the bloom is off the rose for TomTom's and me. I'm over the convenience of TomTom Home. The text-to-speech and the especially the lack of distances to waypoints and favorites are just absolutely deal-breakers for me. I can't for the life of me figure out why these shortcomings exist. Granted, this is a refurbished unit and quite a bargain @ $99--but that's $20 more than the brand-new Magellan 1440!
I guess the silver lining, for me at least, is that my throwaway purchase of the Magellan 1440 has opened my eyese to what a great set of features this unit has! No, it doesn't have ANY connectivity--can't even download an address from Google maps. Nor does the Magellan have any intinerary/route building features, at least not in this inexpensive unit. But it does have all kinds of very useful features: you can save any entry to an "address book" with complete info including phone numbers for destinations. There are a whole set of user-definable "one-touch" buttons that will bring up a saved a destination OR (and this is really useful) a favorite SEARCH. The "Advanced Lane Guidance" feature works better than the Garmin or the TomTom. Not bad for $80.00, brand new! So I'm either heading over to Costco to pick up another one....or, maybe I'll just continue on my search for the "perfect" GPS... which would include: instant alerts for all speed cameras, complete interactivity with Google maps, including the ability to customize a route on Google maps and download it to the GPS (I think this might be do-able now, but it doesn't seem to be easy????). Oh, and a built-in radar detector ;-).
To summarize: I really WANTED to like the TomTom! I really wanted to use TomTom HOME. I really like the "IQ" routes technology (although I don't know if that works as advertised either). But they've got to get the BASIC stuff implemented to a much higher standard before I'll consider one again.
For those who are happy with their TomTom's--all the best. If you are considering purchasing one, if the shortcomings I've experienced illuminate the decision-making process at all, great. If any of this makes an impact on TomTom, even better.
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