Reviews Written by WiG

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Pros: very easy to preview/modify proposed route, nice feature set

Cons: doesn't pronounce street names, has dificulties scrolling the map

Review date 8/12/2007

I spent over 3 hours shopping for GPS at large stores, playing with different features and different models. Of TomTom, Garmin and Mio brands, I found TomToms to be the best. There are some truly indispensable navigation functions in it. It makes it extremely easy to avoid
any part of route by clicking on the street name in the porposed route and selecting "Avoid". It easily browses
through any portion of the route, in visual or text
mode. Once the route is proposed, it can be viewed either as a sequence of screenshots of all turns or as a list of textual directions (think yahoo/google directions). When clicking on the text, the corresponding map pops up. There's also a way of telling the unit that there's a road block in front of you, which will make the GPS to re-route.
The map is large and clear. So are the directions. Note, that it does NOT pronounce street names. The interface is quite intuitive. There's a one-click access to volume control while it's guiding you along the route. It can even play back a full
simulation of any itinerary before the trip.
The only real negative/annoying thing I have noticed was the free browsing of the map. It is hard to drag the map around on the screen, and the zoom control is somewhat inconvenient. The unit tends to spontaneously leave the map and jump into the menus and make multiple undesired menu selections as a result of a single finger movement. I have tested it on older (TomTom 510) and newer (TomTom Go 720) and also on multiple One XLs (in different stores). The problem is consistent only on One XL. Nevertheless, if you practice with the unit, in about 5-10 minutes this problem will pretty much go away. The secret is to press harder than normally with your finger and give it a second before touching the unit and dragging the map. This did the trick for me.
All in all, I still highly recommend this unit. I am buying one myself today. However, if you have extra money or can wait for awhile, I would say TomTom Go 720 that has just come out is the real deal. It has no problem free-viewing the map, it DOES pronounce street/proper names and has tons of new features: Bluetooth, MP3 player, sophisticated "Help Me!" functionality and much more. ...