Reviews
TomTom
Navigator 2004
This Pocket PC-based system for your car has superb graphics
and an excellent Bluetooth GPS
TomTom
Navigator 2004 for Pocket PC consists of mapping and navigation
software and a very small (3.25 x 1.25 x 0.625) Bluetooth GPS
receiver with both a standard and a car power adapter. The only
other thing in the package is a small but very well done 14-page
manual.
The
software comes on no less than eight CDs (with DVDs now so common,
why not using a DVD instead?). First it asks if you want to install
for Pocket PC or for a Palm device. You get to a menu where you
can install the application, voices, maps, or go online. Install
the application while the device is connected and then select
what map(s) you want to load into the Pocket PC. There are state
and regional maps of all 50 states, the District of Columbia,
Puerto Rico, Guam, and Canada. Maps size ranges from two to 225
MB. I picked the entire Western States, which uses 142MB. Which
means that even in a Pocket PC with ample RAM you probably want
to install the maps on a big memory card. The installation procedure
itself tries to be ultra-simple, but I ran into a couple of logical
glitches that required a reboot.
TomTom
must be activated before you can use it. For that you need the
activation code on the disk, and a device code which the software
displays on your Pocket PC once it's started. You then have to
go to the www.ttcode.com website and enter both codes to get an
activation code. That you enter into the Pocket PC and you'll
be rewarded with a ãProduct West now activated.ä But what about
the rest of my many maps? A cumbersome and somewhat obnoxious
procedure. Does TomTom think the first thing you'll do is burn
copies of all eight CDs and distribute them to your 50 closest
friends?
You
can pick any of 12 languages for the voice prompts and are then
given the choice of adding your home address via a simple system.
Then you are prompted to pick your GPS. I used the silver TomTom
Bluetooth puck which configured itself without any fuss or muss
or manual intervention. That done, you're invited to a brief tour
of TomTom that guides you through the entire application.
Compared
to most of the competition, TomTom is a model of simplicity. Start
the application and it automatically starts Bluetooth and makes
the connection. I cannot overemphasize how important that is.
Most systems I have used either constantly complained about weak
or lost signals or took forever to find and lock onto satellites,
or both. And almost all were cumbersome to set up. The TomTom
system works as close to totally transparent as I've seen. You
do, of course, have to sign off on the obligatory ãI understand
that I am not to operate this by myself while I am drivingä warning
screen.
To
go from one place to another you simply tap on ãPlan from A to
Bä which opens the ãDepart from:ä screen where you can select
from favorites, addresses, recent destinations, points of interest,
or a particular GPS position. Once the departure point is selected,
the ãPick a destination:ä screen pops up and you select where
you want to go to via the same choices. TomTom will then show
a map of the entire route, including total miles and an estimate
of how long it will take. You can also peruse step-by-step route
instructions and list those with either distance or time information.
Now you're ready to go. Hop in your car, place the little GPS
unit somewhere on the dash (it has a rubberized bottom but no
obvious way to secure it), and mount your Pocket PC in a place
where you can see it. The TomTom kit doesn't include a PDA mount,
but those are available from many sources. Flex neck mounts with
suction cups are most convenient, but I prefer fixed mounts that
don't vibrate and shake as much.
Using
the TomTom Navigator on the road is sheer pleasure. Someone clearly
put an awful lot of thought into the design and graphic representation
of this system. I'd call the primary graphic representation style
a ãmodified bird's eye view.ä It's a what a low-flying bird would
see, and it is quite close to what you, as the driver, actually
see of the road, and you can even zoom in and out. To most people,
this view is much easier to comprehend than having to look at
a map with a dot on it. I love it. A map means you have to constantly
correlate what you see on the map to what you see in real life.
That's easy for some, and nearly impossible for others. The TomTom
view is much simpler. It's close to the mapping equivalent of
what-you-see-is-what-you-get. It's actually even easy to project
a few years into the future and imagine a TomTom-like system that
pretty much shows you what you actually see with your eyes. Full
3-D mapping of photographic rendering quality. You'd actually
be seeing on the system what you're driving through. But since
we're not quite there yet, Tom Tom's current approach is the next
best thing. Another cool thing is that TomTom shows you gas stations
icons and such, so you always know what you'll find at an exit.
You
can also toggle between a day view and a night view all in dark
blues, with lights and stars twinkling above the horizon. I used
the night view extensively, with the only problem being that the
car is represented by a barely visible blue triangle on a blue
road.
There
are other areas where TomTom stands above most of the competition.
After having plotted a route for you, some systems get befuddled
if you miss a turn or decide to go another way. Some insist you
turn around and are totally unwilling to adapt to the new route
unless you stop the car and reprogram the thing. Others begin
recalculating the route, often leaving you without guidance when
you need the system most. Tom Tom, on the other hand, is unusually
flexible and fleet-footed when it comes to changes and situations
it doesn't expect. On one of my trips the system made an obvious
mistake, routing me though a detour for no good reason at all.
I ignored that and took the shorter way. When TomTom realized
I was not following its route, it ãthoughtä for perhaps two seconds,
then simply resumed giving me directions based on the new route.
There are times when even TomTom will stubbornly insist you turn
around, but it will eventually see the error in its ways and accommodate
to the new situation.
Another
total turn-off with many systems is when the receiver loses the
satellite signal. Tom Tom's GPS puck almost never loses it.
While
TomTom does many things better, and often much better, than most
of the competition, it is not perfect. The user interface which
places up to six large icons on a screen is simple, but not always
obvious until you learn and internalize the commands. The interface
also highlights an increasingly bothersome limitation of systems
with passive touchscreens: you won't know what an icon does unless
you click on it and see for yourself. That is in stark contrast
with the active digitizer and mouse-based system where placing
the cursor on an icon will usually bring up an explanation of
what the command or icon will do before you actually do it.
Further,
even TomTom will not do all the navigation work for you. I've
often felt that in-car GPS systems work great for people who already
know where they are going, but nowhere near as well for those
who truly need help. That's because voice prompts often come either
too early or too late, or they do not truly reflect what you see
on the road. The system may say ãturn rightä but what you see
ahead of you is a road with two forks and perhaps an onramp, and
it's not clear what ãturn rightä means. TomTom's combination of
that terrific bird's eye view and intelligently designed voice
commands (ãat end of road, turn rightä or ãturn left, then stay
in right laneä) makes things easier, but there are still times
when the maps simply fail. In local traffic, sometimes an intersection
or side street would be off by as much as a fifty yards, other
times it was right on the mark. In situations where you really
need help, it's disconcerting when the system shows you should
be passing ãDrury Laneä when you are, in fact, between two side
streets. TomTom, like all other mapping packages that use the
NAVTEQ database, insists that my house number is at the bottom,
and not at the end, of my street.
The
NAVTEQ data also failed TomTom twice when I tried to navigate
to restaurants. The first time it guided me to an empty parking
lot about 400 yards away from the Mexican restaurant I had selected
as my destination. The second time it didn't list the Mels Diner
in my neighborhood, yet listed one 25 miles away. So I picked
a Marie Callender restaurant right next to it. The system got
us in the general vicinity, but then guided us to the parking
lot of a bank a good half mile away from Marie Callendar's.
There
are also occasions where TomTom briefly loses it. One time I took
a simple highway off-ramp and TomTom flipped. For several seconds,
all I saw was the triangle representing my current position floating
on an otherwise blank screen. Then the map reappeard. Not good
when you're in a tight spot. It most often happens in tight turns,
like highway on-ramps, or in situations where TomTom expects you
to go one way but you go another. Often it got the distance to
a turn wrong (like saying 200 yards when it was right there) or
advising to turn after the turn had already been made. Finally,
TomTom tended to hang my iPAQ hx4700 when I quit out of it, and
a couple of times during operation. I believe this is an issue
with the new iPAQ. I notified TomTom of this, but did not get
a reply.
On
my way to work I decided to stop by a coffee shop off the road
to pick up some hot chocolate. TomTom acknowledged my deviation
and then patiently waited until I returned to the car. It then
did its best to get me back onto the route without a hiccup. It
probably went, ãOkay, now that's off the road, and, let's see,
I don't know that alley here, but, oh, I know that street. Okay,
make a left here and then the next right and we're back on track!ä
Excellent.
Another
attractive part of TomTom is its inclusion of common-sense features
and options. Let's say you see a roadblock ahead, perhaps an accident.
Click on the ãAvoid Roadblockä icon, then select how far away
the roadblock is (from 100 yards to three miles), and TomTom will
try to find an alternate to get around it. You can also specify
waypoints. When you want to find points of interest, they are
listed by distance from your current location.
Overall,
TomTom is a remarkable achievement with only a few problems. TomTom
excels with seamless hardware integration between PDA and GPS
receiver, an excellent quasi-bird's eye view that everyone loved
and that is far simpler than a map view, and a common sense approach
to alternate routes or getting back on track. On the other hand,
the interface is not perfect, and the at times blatant errors
with addresses or early/late prompts came unexpected (though they
are a NAVTEQ issue and not a TomTom error). And there were the
freezing problems on my iPAQ 4700. Once this is fixed, TomTom
will be very hard to beat.
öConrad Blickenstorfer
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