pros and cons of a TomTom 400 after using garmins.

shay

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after reading the thread on the issues with the nav 6 I thought I would post as honestly as possible, my views on my tomtom 400. It might help some who are considering moving from Garmin.

Caveat: I am a very light user of a gps, I put in the destination, select fastest or shortest, and off I go. I don't use basecamp or equivalent to plot routes

A big con for me is the TomTom screen. Compared to a garmin, the info on time and distance to destination is very small and on the right hand side of the screen. It's difficult to read and the garmin layout is definitely better.

Search is good. I was going from Dublin to Killarney, searched for the name of the hotel and it popped up. but, to search for a hotel in the area, you have to put in "hotel" into the search field. this brings up all hotels near you. Garmin's screen with choices for banks, petrol, hotels, restarurants, is better.

Routing works, I use fastest or shortest (with avoid tolls and motorways). does what it says.

the TomTom equivalent of basecamp is Tyre. It doesn't work on a mac, you have to use mydrive. Mydrive is basic but gets the job done.

importing co-ordinates and routes from google maps can be done, it takes a little time on google and gpx routes have to be converted to tomtom's format.

I started with a 2610 and bought a 350 lm 4 years ago. Wasn't particularly happy with the 350, issues with routing, so bough the tomtom last year. I'm happy with the tomtom.

I have a kTm so no issue with compatibility with wheels on a GS.

Above is not knocking Garmin or TomTom, just as honest a review as I can give.
 
Tom Tom has now moved on to Myrouteapp.com, works on all formats including Mac. Also allows you to compare planned routes on various map bases - TT / Garmin(Here) / Google.
 
I have always preferred maps for route planning anyway and I usually look at a big map first to get an overall picture of the area in my head. But if you want to put a route into a GPS you need to plan it, eventually, on an interface of some sort.

I plan my routes using a mixture of (in my case) MYDRIVE (as it is now) and google maps with street level to check out a particular road.

I will spare you my oft repeated personal opinions on Basecamp/Garmin vs Mydrive/TT planning tools etc because I have said it on other threads and I'm not about convincing others one way or the other by repeating mantras.

You mentioned the presentation of DTG and TTG but, as with any presentation of data, you do get used to it. On the theme of presentation, the TT rider's depiction of imminent safety camera encounters is far superior on a TT. After the "ping-ping" which draws your attention, it comes up with a side bar the height of the screen on the right with a stretch of the road you are on and a little camera symbol which gets closer to the bottom as you get closer to it. This change to the screen lets you know that the "ping" you heard is a safety camera immediately, and not something else and a quick glance is all that's needed. I found that on the NAV VI, that wasn't the case. Not only that, on the NAV VI you cannot sepcify distance to warn in with quite the same finesse; it was either short, medium, or long whereas on the TT you can specify metres or at least it gave you a distance figure. Short medium or long tells me nothing.GPS's make all sorts of sounds and depending on which alerts you have they can be anything.

The only criticism of the -400 in this respect is that, as opposed to my integrated car one, you can't customise alerts to give different sounds. So I have a siren for cameras on the car one, but maybe a ping for a petrol station. That instantly gives the sounds a priority.

Anyway, as I said, I always preferred maps BUT, the advent of safety cameras and the consequent ability to be warned of their impending crossing has got me using GPS far more and is a big part of why I always have my GPS on. Therefore, it's important to have an easy to spot alert which the TT does very much better. I would guess that safety alerts has paid for my GPS many times over over the years.
 


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