On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:50:33 -0500, Reginald Smithers III
wrote:

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:46:31 -0500, "Jim" wrote:

Which one to buy? Both will be on sale for $125. Which has better
features,maps, directions etc.

I have the TomTom One (not the XL) and haven't had very many problems
with it at all.

It has some peculiar "quirks" that you need to get used to - as in
rerouting sometimes gives you directions that you might not
necessarily want to take, but doing a route reset is fairly easy.
Other than that, and the occasional "take a left" where there isn't a
left to take (which is endemic to most small car navigators of this
type), the one is a fairly good unit. The new Bluetooth software
they released is VERY good and works as advertised. The maps are very
complete and you won't need to immediately upgrade them. One very
nice feature that I haven't seen on other small units is the weekly
sat data download. It's a Quickstart feature which predicts which
satellites will be in your sky for the next week which reduces load
time. Even without that feature, it loads very quickly and never
looses lock. If it does loose lock (like in a tunnel), the recapture
is instant - quite impressive.

On the minus side, the documentation on TomTom's site is not the most
helpfull - you really have to putz through it and tinker with the
machine in your driveway to get the logic flow of the One - it's not
hard by any means. If you have a pickup trucks where the windsheild
is a distance from the driver, the mount that comes with it lacks a
lot - it's very short and requires that you mount it somewhere where
it can interfer with your vision. The goose neck mount that they sell
isn't the best either - it vibrates like crazy and is virtually
useless. They do sell a bean bag type mount, but I'm not a big fan of
those. Some like them, some don't. It you opt for the external
antenna, don't. The magnet is very weak and virtually useless.

The other problem with the One is that the screen can wash out in
glare conditions - that can be annoying. That seems to be a universal
problem with what ever unit you buy though.

With respect to the Garmin 330, it's a nice unit, accurate, but it's
also subject to the same "quirks" as the TomTom so I won't repeat them
here. The one thing I did notice with the 330 is that initial
position data capture times can be lengthy compared to the TomTom, but
once it's got the data, it never loses it.

It's really a toss up when you come right down to it. I need to put a
disclaimer in this - I won't buy Garmin for a couple of reasons having
to do with customer service. TomTom has a large market in Europe and
just recently signed an agreement to purchase Horizon Navigation which
is THE name in automotive navigation systems (including mapping).

So there you have it from a user of TomTom. :)

Take it for what it's worth.

PS: If you have a "choice", go with the TomTom One XL.

Tom,
How do you type in your destination?

Touch screen and that's another thing I forgot to mention.

THE NUMBERS AND LETTERS ARE FREAKIN HUGE!!! :)

Actualy, it's a really simple process - select the address input, the
machine selects the state/town as you type it in, same with the street
and finally the number. You can input it on the fly if it's
positioned right.

Or you can select a destination - it has a built in feature that I
don't use - or at least haven't yet.