| TomTom Go
2535M
Live |
| The most
notable feature of this unit is the HD traffic which is updated much
more frequently than standard FM transmitted traffic. In my area it also
covers major surface streets not just freeways like standard traffic
coverage on other brands. The second notable feature is the very
responsive glass touchscreen. I found the voice control to be on par
with other brands. It could not determine the streets name correctly in
several of my tests. The drawbacks to this
unit are unfortunately more numerous than the $349 price or the design
goals warrant. It is easy to see what TomTom designers were aiming for
but they fell far short at this time (May 2011). About half the advanced
features advertised for the unit are unavailable. TomTom switched from
the Home application to a web based interface which is sorely lacking in
features, usability, stability. I won't go into all the things I found
bothersome but it's slow (an update took 8 hours, it is impossible to
find any details about the updates, and much of the site is unusable
unless the GPS unit is actually connected to the computer).
The HD traffic service went offline once in the
two week period I used it. It totally lost it's location once on a clear
day with clear line of sight to the sky. Unlike other GPS units which
simply leave you in the last location when satellite confirmatinon is
lost, this unit indicated I was driving in a different city while the
screen constantly flashed.
In my opinon Tomtom released this device both
before it was finished and with some serious defects. Perhaps in the
next model they will have worked out their issues. If Garmin's new top
of the line model didn't have pop-up ads, it might have been a
contender. As it stands, any Garmin unit with pop-up ads is out of the
question even though I find their product design far superior. |
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| Garmin Nuvi 880 GPS
(Global Positioning System) device. |
| This unit
features voice guidance and voice command, bluetooth hands-free, MSN
Direct traffic information. You need at least verion 2.80 of the
firmware in order to get this unit to be recognized by the mapsource
software. The voice recognition accuracy of this unit is incredle so
far. NOTE: Microsoft has announce
termination of the MSDN service. |
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| Garmin
StreetPilot 2610 GPS
(Global Positioning System) devices for the car. |
The latest model is the 2610 shown below. This unit
features voice guidance and a very flexible user interface. It has a touch
screen as well as a wireless remote control.
User's manual in PDF format. |
| Garmin Rino 530 GPS (Global Positioning System) and 2-way
radio. See telecom page for more
info. |
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| Magellan
Meridian Color handheld GPS. |
This is by far the top of the line in handheld GPS
units.
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| Navigon line of
GPS receivers with Reality View and lifetime traffic. |
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| Alpine integrated car navigation audio / visual system |
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| Kenwood Sovereign car navigation audio / dvd visual system |
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