Tuesday 7 July 2009

TomTom GO 930 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator Review

I researched GPS very extensively: Navigon, Magellan, Garmin, Tomtom.
tomtom 930T was my last hope, as every one I have tried had some serious flaws either in reliability or routing. I was ready to give up, but 930T had exceeded all of my expectations. Unfortunately, tomtom and others rushed to the market "Line Assist" and "Junction View", but it took almost a year to mature. So the damage was already done. tomtom, navigon and garmin delivered on this promise, others did not. But all of them set wrong expectation and paying some price now.

Anyway, top of the line tomtom 930T is priced currently almost as an entry level GPS. Europe + North America maps, Enhanced Positioning Technology, Bluetooth remote (not a gimmick), free lifetime RDS-TMC traffic receiver(actually works very well, the whole traffic implementation make the most sense), 1-year subscription to tomtom traffic(cell data), Light Sensor are the "icing on the cake". Current prices are a steal.

Everything, the packaging, unit and accessories quality are top notch. With one big exception - windshield mount. It is just embarrassing, but Arkon TTGO115 solves the issue for $16. Touch screen is the most responsive in the class. Interface is a bit different, but it will grow on you. Navigon has the worst one. Voice Address entry is working even with my heavy accent.

GPS Sensor is extremely sensitive, sometimes it manages to pick up GPS signal on the middle of the commercial buildings. Locks on satellites almost instantly. If it is not, make sure you installed a free tomtom QuickGPSfix. If you do not use wireless data on the cell, you will need to connect it the computer (tomtom home) once a week to load a next week of satellite positions update.

930T has tons of options, so if you feel adventurous it will keep you busy for a while: GUI customizations, Custom POI, Map corrections, tomtom buddies, tomtom HOME.

For some reason I only received Europe map update guarantee, for North America I have to phone in tomtom support. After a proof of purchase verification they released map update to me. All maps updates fit on the built-in internal 4GB memory with plenty of the free space to spare.

There is a lot of discussion about routing, but I agree with tomtom 90%, Magellan 80%, Garmin 75%, Navigon 70%. When you disagree with tomtom, it gives up without much of a fight and usually choose the new route I wanted. Try to pull this off with Garmin...

Internal speaker sound quality and volume is the best in the class. Text-To-Speech voice quality is also very good and quite natural.

Bluetooth is very stable and works as Swiss watch. Some folks may not find their phone as officially supported, but it work with way more phones than on the list. You just need to experiment with different models/provider option. For example AT&T folks may find that "Cingular media net..." is the right option, not "AT&T wireless". My LG Shine is not supported, but working just fine as phone and data modem.

POI database quality is not as thorough as Garmin or Magellan, but way better then Navigon (although Navigon may have over 9 mil of POI with latest map update).

930T is about a year on the market, so tomtom managed to polish it up pretty well by now.

930T runs on Linux and Linux rocks!!! So far, units running on Windows CE seems to be most unreliable ones (freezing, locking up, reboots).

Last time I checked, Amazon still had some of these. However, being this on the Best Seller list, they may not be in stock for long. If they are out of stock that means that you will have to wait, which I hate...

Click the Link below to get yours now: