The GPS market has come a long way in recent years. A decade ago, there were very few units in the secondary market for GPS, most were expensive and were mostly mediocre. The best units cost more than a thousand, and although here and there, they have a lot of bells and whistles. GPS units installed - then mostly limited to high-end cars - usually costs $ 2 3k.
A growing number of portable GPS units have come to market over the past 5 years or more. Over time, the hardware has improved, the software (the best) was very good, and prices (especially in the last year) was greatly reduced. (This last point - the sharp drop in the price - has forced many manufacturers market is now dominated by names like TomTom, Garmin and Magellan.). At present there is competition from high-end smart phones, most of which have a GPS unit built in.
(Surprisingly - or maybe not - the cost of the car factory installed GPS systems that stubbornly remained at around $ 2,000!)
Although it has been the hallmark of major friction in the GPS market has no shortage of options. This is because each manufacturer now offers an almost ridiculous number of models, many of which are only slightly different.
GPS units can be distinguished, mainly the following
1) Screen size (usually 5.3 "diagonal)
2) Ability to acquire a GPS signal
3) The GUI (GUI) presented to the user
4) The quality of the maps (how often updated, the geographic regions they cover)
5) The tendency to incorporate the traffic data?
6) Quality Routing (how good are the driving instructions generated)
7) Does the unit offers text to speech? (It is said that the names of streets, or simply say "next to the left"?)
8) The unit offers voice recognition
9) The unit incorporates Bluetooth to communicate with the phone and / or FM radio station to play on your car?
10) The unit has expandable memory, MP3 playing, etc.?
11) How good is the included mounting hardware?
Let's take one at a time the resources of this particular GPS, TomTom XXL540TM
1) The size of the display device 5. "This is on top of current offerings of the leading manufacturers of GPS. This does not really buy any other" real estate ", ie, the resolution is greater than the small units of GPS.'s Just a little larger. is useful to be honest, and is also useful because it makes it easy to maneuver touchscreen menus.
2) This unit, like all current TomTom lines, does a great job of acquiring the GPS signal. It can take less than a minute with clear sight lines, and my unit was still able to pull up to 5 satellites inside my house with the curtains closed. They also have GPS units from Sony and Garmin, and a built in unit in my car. TomTom is better than Sony to get a signal as good as the Garmin, and slower than the built in in the car (not a fair comparison, since the receiving antenna built into a much bigger).
3) The TomTom has a very good graphic interface. The touchscreen is very sensitive and almost everything that appears in an intuitively expect it to be. My biggest complaint is that there are plenty of options and option screens, you can punch - too hard to handle while driving. The positive side is that there is a "simple menu" options that will only display the screens of the most important option. Note that some of the latest models of TomTom (eg, 550) have eliminated a lot of options / option screen, leaving only the "simple" menus. What is a downside, as some of these deep menus are very useful. Conclusion: Good GUI and adhere to such a model, which at least gives you a choice of menus deep.
4) The map data is good, and this unit comes with a special life map updates. TomTom also has a "part of the map" facility that allows users to upload / download changes to the map. This means that if a group of users to discover that a street is closed, you can see this information on your GPS and have the information transmitted to TomTom, which shares with everyone else. Therefore, the maps are corrected very quickly. This unit includes maps of North America (USA / Mexico / Canada) and much of Europe. The inclusion of maps of Europe is considered a great advantage for some and irrelevant to those who do not want to take this outside this continent.
5) This unit includes the data traffic of life. The value of these data depends on where you live. Large cities have a wide coverage. Smaller cities are often low coverage. Traffic data is also sometimes incorrect. But overall, the data traffic is good, and quite reliable (where you can get). It is transmitted through the FM frequency, and an integrated antenna cable auto power adapter that comes with this unit. The real value of traffic data is that the unit incorporates the data to calculate the routing information. I was skeptical at first, but was surprised how well the player chooses the "right" way (not just the shortest route is in statute miles, the shortest or based on speed limits). This is an A + + function.
6) The quality of the road with this unit is excellent. Everything aside, that is, in my opinion, where the device really shines. They use what they call the "IQ" for routing. This is just put a mark on the following process: The incorporation of frequently updated information of the actual speed of several highways (and current traffic information) to generate the routing information. It works great. I tried several routes I drive frequently, where the best path for the real world can not be predicted on the basis of miles from land or on the basis of the speed of traffic. No other GPS I have used predicted the best routes in the real world - which includes a unit of Magellan last generation, a generation unit of Sony (updated with latest firmware), and the unit installed in the car (also updated). In one case, the TomTom comes with a very good route, but this is not one of the best. I went to the menu and said he wanted to avoid a certain way. TomTom recalculates and then came up the path (pretty obvious) is correct. Based on your reference, I am a believer in TomTom.
It is worth adding that this unit also includes "Route Guide" which is information about what a multi-lane lane of the road / path that must be prepared to change next street. This feature is included in the high-end units in virtually all lines of the manufacturer, and others, works very well here. I think this is a very useful feature and would gladly pay to get into a line of products to achieve this.
7) This TomTom unit has text to speech. I think this is a nice feature, although obviously you can see on the LCD for the same information in a unit that uses this function. TomTom is very good at pronouncing names can be expected to have a problem (for example, a name derived from the Spanish, or derivatives of Native American names).
8) This unit does not include voice recognition. Although I consider the recognition of voice quality to be a great advantage, my experience is that speech recognition in most portable GPS units is poor / no value. Some high-end Garmin units, voice recognition reasonable but are expensive and their use is still somewhat a work in progress.
9) This unit offers connectivity blue tooth for your cell phone or radio system by FM. To be honest, while these features sound good on paper, the only system I have used blue tooth to have been worth considering are those factory installed in a car (at a cost of $ 2,000 or more ... less ...) when the blue tooth is available in portable units, is particularly bad and ugly often. Therefore, the lack of bluetooth GPS is a waste.
10) This unit has an external memory slot, and memory can not be extended. Total load with two of North America and Europe maps, this device uses about 3.7GB of 4 GB is built in. But you can easily remove the maps of North America or Europe, under normal use, if need more space in the future. The lack of external memory also means that you not use this device to play music or videos or anything. Again, this is not a waste in my opinion. Few people use these features, even when they are included.
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