TomTom but which one help please

[happyhero]

Hi Can anybody guide me, we want to buy a TomTom for my daughter and saw some for around the £100 mark, so I went looking on Amazon and typed in Tom Tom and tons came up so now I am lost.

We wanted to keep close to the £100 mark and my wife thinks she should have one that covers Europe as occasionally she has driven in France and Holland and will probably do so again. It would need to cover the UK fully, ie door numbers and all roads and the same for Europe would be nice but I know they did one which just had major roads of Europe in the past and this would be ok if including door numbers for Europe got too expensive.

I also see there is version 3 and version 4, what is all that about? Is 4 not the latest and thus the preferred one and is there a reason to buy version 3, ie some benefit as opposed to buying version 4, since they are selling it still?

Amazon seems the cheapest so can someone guide me which one to buy please or maybe even give me a link?

Any help would be appreciated.

I have the original 1st TomTom by the way which has UK and Major roads of Europe and I bought a bigger chip for mine so that I could have all the maps on one chip and swap maps etc, so I know a bit about them, but no master.

 

[Estrella]

Tom Tom is a ripoff IMHO.

I bought this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146672 and put Tom Tom software that downloaded from the net on it. It does everything a Tom Tom does for 50 sheets. Bargain

 

[JohnD]

I bought the TomTom One XL Europe, at the time the Europe was for sale on special offer at the same price as the UK and Ireland version. It does maps to the door of my friends in Germany, France and Italy (which is what I wanted for my hols) and will also do "pedestrian routes" if you are walking about on hols. I think it works out more expensive if you add on "Europe" later.

I would not again pay extra for a large screen as when driving I don't look at it.

I just had a look at the "Which" tests and their best buys (below list price £200 as you might get a special offer at this time of year) are (cheapest first)

TomTom
One Europe £106.99

Garmin
StreetPilot C510 Deluxe

Garmin
Nuvi 205WT

Sony
NV-U82

Snooper
Strabo S360

ViaMichelin
Navigation X-970T

Garmin
Nuvi 610T Regional

TomTom
GO 520

TomTom
GO 530 Traffic

Snooper
S600 Syrius Plus

Garmin
Nuvi 760

TomTom
GO 920

Mio
DigiWalker C520t with MioMap v.3.3

TomTom
GO 720T

so I should think any of them that you can get at your price will be OK.

"Traffic" is worth having, I bought an add-on from Fleabay for about £15

 

[Kes]

My problem too, as the spouse wants one (I don't, I'm not too impressed with the efforts of other people's kit). I found the Kiero FS900 on ebay which looks good and has europe too, but haven't shelled out the necessary £120 or so yet. It's too new for many reports, but the alternative is a £250 TT GO 730 and I'm loathe to spend double just for the offchance that I'll keel over in europe and spouse has to drive home.

 

[happyhero]

Cheers JohnD so what does the TomTom Europe do with the UK, ie does it go right down to house numbers for UK and since it does not say Major roads of Europe what does it do there?

Also have you any idea about this version 3 and 4 business?

 

[Kes]

The 3.5" screens seem very fiddly to touch, my fingers were hopeless on the pseudo keyboard on a TT, and that was standing in the shop. Do the larger 4.3" screens tend to have correspondingly larger keyboards?

PS The metric system does not seem to have reached satnavs.

 

[JohnD]

I don't know about versions.

My Europe one will navigate to Postcode or Street Name and Number or to City Centre in UK and Ireland, It does the same to European Addresses (haven't tried the postcodes yet as the ones I know are per town not per bunch of houses

I just checked an address in Germany, I put in the name of the (small) village, and two letters of the street name, and it knew the street. I put in the house number and it planned the route.

you can set Miles and yards, or km and metres as you prefer. Also language of your choice.

 

[worto03]

Hi,

I ordered this one

http://www.cdiscount.co.uk/SoundVisionandSatNav/v-399-191.html

and it arrived a couple of days ago, the only dif I can see between version 3 and version 4 is that version 4 has rounded corners and the thing to attatch it to your windscreen is built into the back of the device instead of seperate - this is pretty handy actually.

It does 6 digit post codes which is a must have on any sat nav so yes you just put the post code in then it asks you for the house number.

It connects to the GPS system in about 5 seconds (after installing an update)

It also comes with free map updates for a year and free breakdown cover for a year too.

It's £84.99 which is a bargain but cdiscount also let you buy over 3 months interest free, they are on quidco giving you about another £2 off and are doing a vat back deal at the moment giving you £11odd back in Jan - not sure how the VAT bit works but I was happy to pay the £85 for it anyway so any back is a bonus.

The next one up seems to be the XL which has a widescreen display.

Hope this helps, worto.

edit - hummm just read your post properly & the one I've posted doesn't do europe - you might be better off with one of these two

http://www.bargaincrazy.com/epages/...018101N01D&AID=6274488&PID=1546795&SID=284320

using code 'WFMLY001BCP' to give you free delivery & 20% off making it £89.60 - this is a V3

or

this one which is a refurb tomtom go 720

http://www.totalpda.co.uk/TomTom/TomTom-GO-720.7513.html

using code 'find-satnav-deals' for free delivery.

 

[tim west]

I've had the original tom tom one for ages with no problems, the software versions have constantly been upgraded but a warning I upgraded to the version which gave an onscreen compass etc and am very pleased with how it all performs but the next version software upgrade although would have given a limited few more features came at a cost, due to limits with internal memory and extra demands from the new features they reduced how many POI's you could have if you upgraded so i decided to stay with my version and didnt bother upgrading again.

This may be the case with future versions? Some features, some not? So i'd advise going onto the GPS forums at pocketgpsworld.com to check on what the advantages and disadvantages are.

 

[happyhero]

thanks guys help much appreciated

 

[cjard]

Tom Tom is a ripoff IMHO.

I bought this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146672 and put Tom Tom software that downloaded from the net on it. It does everything a Tom Tom does for 50 sheets. Bargain

Yes, but in taking such a step you're condoning software piracy. I did the same but bought IGO8.3 and installed it on the very same unit. I far prefer the IGO software since having a play though I'll admit I was a die-hard TOmTom fan beforehand.

Quick question for you; is the WinCE OS on your unit the chinese version or the english version? Mine's chinese, so I'm shortly going to be calling into my local takeaway and asking for a translation of some of the error messages I cannot figure out