TomTom 920 Review (LONG!)

TomTom 920 Review

For those of you who want the quick and dirty here is is. I decided to put his first when the forum wouldn't let me post the whole review. The rest of the review will be in the following posts.

Synopsis?
Likes
Nice sensitive and responsive touch screen.
Remote!!!
The ability to personalize the menus
Ability to modify the colors of the map.
3D and 2D map.
Finding destinations if you are unsure on spelling or have a partial name.
Text to speech is present
Graphics.
Battery Power
Large screen
Thin size
MP3 Player

Dislikes
Short List of Search Results ? MAJOR -.
Looking addresses up ? MAJOR
Don?t Turn Here Instructions ? MAJOR
Incorrect last mile routing ? MAJOR
Does not tell you which side of the road your destination is ? MAJOR
Time zones not recognized? MINOR
Can?t browse the map from the front screen ? MINOR
Poor and late turn Instructions without a ?DING? ? MAJOR
Random Automatic shut down ? MAJOR
Touchy Power on and power off. ? MINOR
No ?rerouting? instruction ? MINOR
Doesn?t Cancel the route when you arrive ? MINOR
She talks too much and too often ? MINOR
Power Connector facing the wrong direction ? MINOR
Night Colors are too Bright ? MINOR
Remote doesn?t access quick select features ? MINOR
POI which direction ? MINOR
POI information is not set up well ? MINOR
No Grocery Store Category in POI ? MINOR
Map scale ? MINOR
Limited Map zoom on fromt screen - MINOR
Map Angle on 3-d - MINOR
No external volume - MINOR
Fm modulator problems ? MINOR

Do I like the TomTom, well yes. The price is good and I now have a European map which will soon get used. But would I buy another TomTom. It depends on if they fix the major problems, but probably not. I don?t think Garmin or Magellan are perfect, far from it. That is why I decided to go for the TomTom this time. I?m just not sure it was the right choice. If you want the bells and whistles I think the TomTom will do well. If you want the Safest, and Most Accurate and Reliable GPS I don?t think this is the brand you want. The GPS should be helping you keep your attention on the road and the other drivers while helping you get to your location. With TomTom I am deciphering verbal directions, worrying about missing turns, looking away from the road, and getting into situations where I have to cross several lanes of traffic to make a turn at the last minute. I just don?t think the TomTom has it quite right yet.

I'd like to hear if other people agree with this synopsis or not and why too so if you disagree with something in here please let me know. This is my opinion only and wanted it out there for those doing the research on their own purchase.

Richard

Now for the rest of the review...

The indepth review

. I previously used the Magellan for about 2-3 years and it was far from perfect. Some of the problems that I can remember off hand are?

? the touch screen sucked. It was slow to respond if it decided to respond at all.
?you needed an exact spelling of the location you want to get to or else you couldn?t find it Wal-Mart had to have the dash in some locations and could not have it in others.

I should first tell you the things that I like about the TomTom 920. That way this does not end up looking like a complaint session.

1. Nice sensitive and responsive touch screen.
2. The remote!!! I never thought a remote on a GPS would be anything more than a waste but my wife and I have really enjoyed using the remote. There is now a minimum of leaning forward and touching the screen. Zooming in and out is a breeze and switching songs is easy as well. Finding places to go is quicker. The remote is one of the best if not the best part of this GPS. And, if I get another GPS the remote will likely be one of the major deciding factors.
3. The ability to personalize the menus. This is a great part of the GPS as well. I wish it was possible to modify every menu and I would be much happier. There are a lot more modifications I would make and I think that the general population of users would be able to come up with a better and quicker menu layout than the people at TomTom. Nothing against the TomTom engineers I just think it take driving and using the functions to get it just right.
4. Ability to Modify the colors of the map. Although I have not done this yet I am happy it is an option. The night colors are too bright and I would like to change the colors to something darker.
5. The 3-D and 2-D map. The older Magellan that we had only had a 2D map. I thought the 3D would be nice and I?m glad we have it. The 2D map should be available and is something we often use frequently to get a birds eye view of what is going on.
6. Finding destinations ? this was a major reason for our purchase and turns out to be fairly accurate IF you have the right city. This GPS will find places if you have an incomplete or even misspelled destination in some cases. The Magellan definitely had a problem with this. If you had a partial name or incorrect name or if you knew it was ?something Depot? then you weren?t going there.
7. Text to speech- a must as far as I?m concerned and this GPS is not the best at it but it is present and I think it?s a requirement.
8. The graphics. This is what my wife mentioned. She really likes the graphics of this model over the Garmin and Magellan. I did read someone complain how the angle of the 3D seemed to be not quite right and I?d have to agree although this is a minor complaint.
9. Battery Power is another great option that not all GPS?s have. Again, this is an option that I would not do without in a future purchase. Putting in POI?s or looking for a place to go while you are sitting in the hotel room and deciding which restaurant is closest is something that I don?t want to be without in the future.
10. Large screen. The amount of screen real estate is nice on this model and is equal to what I had with the Magellan. I had considered getting something smaller this time around but I?m happy to have the size of screen we have.
11. Size. Small and light. The thickness of this GPS and the weight is small enough to slip this into your pocket if you need to. I certainly couldn?t do that with the Magellan 720. It was way too big although it did have a few external buttons that I?d like to have on the TomTom, most specifically the volume.
12. Plays music. Another nice thing to have. Not mandatory but nice. This option also has a few problems that I?ll discuss below.

More review

Okay, so now that you know I don?t hate this GPS I do need to tell you I have been getting more and more aggravated with TomTom. Some of these complaints are minor and some are major enough that I am pretty confident I will NOT be buying another TomTom. These are not necessarily defects, although I think there are a few, but rather the details that make a product a fine working machine rather than a machine that gets the job done.

1. Search Results ? MAJOR - you only get four pages of results when you search for something. The Magellan would give you options until you got tired of looking. Here is an example that happened today. I?m in Orlando (there will be quite a few Orlando examples) and I want to go out to eat. Menu->Navigate to->POI->POI near you->Restaurant? (yes that is too many buttons to press before finding a result but that is a subject that I will only mention.) So I get 24 restaurants, 6 per page, all within 2 miles of my location. Well, you would think there would be one on the list I could choose but I it turns out they are all fast food places. There are a few work arounds for this but they take a while and seldom come up with many extra results. This is a MAJOR downer with this GPS and is a MAJOR reason to think about getting different brand.

2. Looking addresses up ? MAJOR ? So say I have an address I want to find or goto. Like the Italian Consulate in Miami. 4000 Ponce de Leon in Miami. So here Menu->Nav to->POI->POI in city->Select State->Select City->Select Street? wait it?s not there. Here is the problem. The Miami Italian Consulate is in Coral Gables which is a suburb of Miami. Had I not figured that out I wouldn?t have made my appointment on time. With the Magellan I didn?t have to pick a city. I could pick a state and put the street in a much nicer option. This has been a problem with this GPS on enough occasions that I have to think about asking for a city and zip code when getting addresses just in just in case the GPS doesn?t locate the street. To me this is not acceptable and is another main reason for not purchasing a TomTom GPS.

3. Keep Right instructions/Keep left instructions ? MAJOR ? While this was only a minor inconvenience previously it has become a major hassle in and around Orlando. I suspect it is a problem in any major city with medians but is not limited to this situation. Example. I?m on Interstate 4 and my next exit is 180 miles away. The GPS even tells me, ?continue on Interstate 4 for One Hundred and eighty miles.? This statement is fine but when you look at the turn instructions, it tells you that the next turn is in 2 miles. Basically, at each exit for the next 50 miles the GPS told me, ?Keep left then continue on Interstate 4 Eastbound.? Then at the exit, ?Keep left.? You can understand how this would become extremely aggravating and eventually I had to browse the map to see when the next turn was actually occurring and either turn off the route for 20 miles or so or just ignore the GPS. This, of course, defeates the purpose of the GPS. I also found myself paying more attention to the GPS than I did to the road. With the Magellan nearly every instruction was important. Also, there are times when she tells me to ?keep right at exit 75B? when 75B is a left exit. Turns out, she wanted me to stay on I-4. Why not just say ?stay on I-4?. This caused several incorrect exits, a significant time loss, as well as causing confusion and aggravation, all things that a GPS is supposed to prevent. More examples below. ?follow Florida Turnpike 72 miles? (next turn shown in 5.2 miles) next instruction ?after 2 miles keep left, Florida Turnpike? next instruction, ?after one half mile keep left Florida turnpike?, next instruction, ?keep left?, this can end up being repeated every 2 miles on the worst roads. That?s a useless instruction about every 45 seconds for 50 miles. This consistently happened on I-4, Hwy 98, and Hwy 275 in and around Orlando.

4. Another Issue with routing ? MAJOR ? I think this is associated with the above issue of medians in larger cities. Consistently, I was routed around the block to get to locations on the left side of the road. Here is how it would work. The business is on the NE corner of a road and I am traveling east on that road. Now any normal person would turn left at the intersection and then turn right into the business or a second option would be to pass the location and do a u-turn at the next possible location. Something the Magellan was good at suggesting. The TomTom, however, has me pass the shop , then take a right a few blocks down and head south. Then take another right and a third right and finally a left and head back towards the shop on which will now be one the right side of the road. This is very aggravating especially when you see yourself drive past the shop you are trying to find. Then you begin to wonder if the GPS knows where you are going. Am I heading to the old shop location? Is the GPS not accurate? Do they have the wrong address? Okay, then, I?m just turning around. So, when you turn around the GPS reroutes you right where you would have been had it told you to take a left at the destination to begin with. An example of this is getting to Southern Oaks Gun and Pawn in Orlando from Kissimmee.

5. This leads into the next complaint ? MAJOR ? this is not as major as the others above but is an easy fix and would lead to a much more pleasant experience. Tell me what side of the road the destination is. The Magellan would say, ?destination ahead on the left?. The TomTom says, ?destination ahead? I read about this problem before my purchase and felt it wasn?t a big deal but in a major city with three lanes in each direction and businesses everywhere and you have no idea where your destination is or what it looks like this becomes a major hassle. Countless times in the last week, we ended up turning around, going around the block or driving like idiots cutting across several lanes of traffic to get to our destination. This is just not acceptable. If you are heading to WalMart or Home Depot okay but a small business in the center of a busy downtown, no way. This is just one more reason to avoid the TomTom.

6. Time zones ? MINOR ? crossing time zones this GPS will NOT adjust the time. This is not a huge deal but if you have the destination time displayed it may or may not be accurate my plus or minus several hours. You can set the time but if you want to sync your time it appears to me to be set to Central time only.

7. Can?t browse the map from the front screen. - MINOR - A nice thing about the Magellan was that if you wanted to browse your route, or the map in general, while you were driving you just touched the screen and dragged the map around. This is not possible with the TomTom. You have to go through several menu selections to find the ?browse map? and then browse around. I do like how the browse function works in the TomTom but I think it is important to be able to browse from the front screen. This is not a showstopper though. I do find myself pulling an iphone maneuver on the map to zoom in and out. It would be really nice if it would work that way.

8. Turn Instructions ? MAJOR overall ? This is actually a bunch of little things that I have just now decided are a major problem with this GPS.
a. ?Left turn ahead?(TomTom). The Magellan would tell you Left Turn in 2 miles?, then ?left turn in ? mile? then, ?DING DING? ? The TomTom just tells me there is a turn ahead. Not a distance. So now I am, again, taking my eyes off the road to check out the GPS and when I need to turn. Unacceptable.
b. Late turn instructions ? I mostly use the 2D map in the city and the 3D where there is a lower road density. I have noticed that the turn instructions (on the 2D map at least) are consistently late. This causes me to take my eyes off the road when I am getting close to a turn and check the GPS multiple times before the turn to make sure I don?t miss it. Unacceptable.
c. No Ding ? MINOR ? On the Magellan you get the, ?DING DING? at the turn. This is a great deal for several reasons. First of all, when you are driving sometimes you just get into the zone and the GPS becomes part of the back ground noise, but when you hear that ?DING DING? your attention goes right to the GPS and if you?re lucky you have just enough time to make your turn but if not you at least you know that you need to take some action and make sure you are on course.
d. The ?don?t turn here? instructions that were discussed earlier.

more

9. Automatic shut down ? MAJOR - I?ll tell you what, on the Magellan there was a nice function where if you had everything plugged in and you turned the car on the GPS came on. When you turned the car off the GPS turned off. The TomTom has something similar but it does not function properly and is set up wrong to begin with. Here is how the TomTom is SUPPOSED to work. When you turn the car off the GPS goes to,?shutting down in 10 seconds? and starts to count down. If you want to cancel the shutdown, you can. This is how it actually works. You are driving down the road and the screen comes up saying,?shutting down in 10 sec.? If you are lucky, you happen to be looking at the GPS when this happens and can cancel the shutdown. If you aren?t as lucky, then you look over and the GPS is off. If you are really unlucky then your really into the talk show and have driven 15 to 20 miles past your exit. I can neither confirm nor deny the previous statement ever happening to yours truly. I think this problem has something to do with the voltage regulation at the cigarette lighter and if the voltage falls for a split second, the GPS assumes that you have turned the car off. When I disabled the auto-shutdown feature this problem seemed to stop although it has happened to me at least once since.

10. Power on and power off. - MINOR ? the power button is either sensitive or sticky and the GPS will occasionally turn on in the glove box and turn off just as easily. I still haven?t figured out if I have to hold the power button down or I can just tap it. I end up holding it down for about 5 seconds until I see the screen come on. I wish this was a little more responsive or at least just let me know when I can let go of the button. I figured out you do not have to press hard you just have to hold it down.

11. No ?rerouting? instruction ? MINOR ? this may actually be a major issue but I think it is just more aggravating than anything. With the Magellan I would hear, ?Rerouting? which at the time sounded like, ?you missed your turn dumbass.? Well, I miss that now. Here is the reason. Often there are times where if you miss your turn you can just turn at the next block. BUT, when you do actually miss a turn the first thing you tend to do is try to get back to that turn. I?m not thinking, ?let?s see what the GPS says?, I?m thinking, ?crap the GPS just told me to turn there and I need to get back to that turn.? When I would hear, ?rerouting? from the Magellan I was always able to glance at the GPS quickly and see if the reroute had me turning around, ?make your next available legal U-turn? or if it had me driving to the next block. With the TomTom, by the time the time I realize it has rerouted me I am already in a parking lot trying to turn around. Or have made a u-turn and now it?s telling me to go keep moving forward.

12. Doesn?t Cancel the route when you arrive ? MINOR ? This is not a big deal but when you hear you have reached your destination you shouldn?t have to then Cancel your route the next time you get in the car.

13. Text-to-Speech complaints ? MINOR ?
a. Many streets have several names and often I need to turn on one of these streets. The TomTom feels the need to say them all and the LAST one on the list will be the name of the street. Now I find that when you are in a city, it is more likely that a minor highway will have a name rather than a number and when that name comes last it is more likely you will miss your turn. Example ? ?Left Turn Ahead Highway Four Hundred Sixty Five, Highway Thirty Nine, State Route Two Hundred twenty six, Florida Avenue? then when it is actually time for the turn you get the same instruction without the ?ahead? part. (Just read it again.) I would prefer just the name or the name followed by the most major highway number. ?Turn Left in ? mile, Florida Avenue, Hwy Four Sixty Five.?
b. Highway numbers. In Kansas City there is a Highway that goes around the City. The name? I-435. Now what did you just read? Was it ?eye four thirty five? or ?Interstate Four Hundred and thirty five?? TomTom picks the later which may be picky on my part but Magellan picks the first. When you are on a highway coming up to a three or four split highway decision, which do you want to hear?
c. Mispronounced street names. To be honest this is not a problem for me. As long as I can figure it out pretty quickly or understand what she is saying I don?t mind. I can translate ?Or-lawn-doh?, ?Bee-No-Vee-Sta? and ?Dayz-Moins? pretty easily. Magellan did have a ?Highway 98, State Route tay-tay? that my wife and I always got a kick out of.

14. Power Connector facing the wrong direction ? MINOR ? very minor really but the connector routes the wire to the back and the wire has to do a 180 and come right back forward to the outlet. I don?t think this will cause a failure but I think a side exit or front exit would be better.

15. The screen brightness is too bright at night ? MINOR ? It draws your attention away from the road and is just too much. I am hoping to change the color scheme to help with this but I do think it is an issue that needs to fixing.

16. Remote doesn?t access quick menu options ? MINOR ? This is kind of a downer because the options I want to use most frequently require me to lean forward and touch the screen. Picky yes, but how much did I spend on this thing?

17. Where are the POI?s ? MINOR ? The Magellan had an awesome feature where if you were driving down the road and want to eat somewhere, you look up restaurants and next to your distance from the restaurant you also have a direction arrow. This way you don?t end up picking a restaurant that is the closest to you but at 3 miles away only to find that it is 3 miles behind you. I always complained that it should only show the restaurant in front of me. Well the TomTom has some sort of green or yellow arrows that I have not figured out yet. If anyone can define these please do. It certainly does not tell you if you are picking a detour that is behind you.

18. POI information not handy ? MINOR ? This is another irritating problem. When you are looking for POI?s you get the name only. This is a problem if you are looking for the Starbucks on 1st Ave. You end up with a list of 20 Starbucks and have to go to each one and see the address. Why not have the address or some portion of the address in the list. This other problem is that the phone number is also on a separate page which makes things more difficult as well.
19. No Grocery Stores in the POI categories ? MINOR ? I do think this should be added. Not everyone wants to eat out when they are traveling. Most times we will stop at a store and pick up lunch meat and bread or something else. TomTom just makes it more difficult. I can look for restaurants but not for groceries.

20. No map scale ? MINOR ? Still this is irritating. The Magellan had a scale but it would only be present for a second as you zoomed in or out. Please add a scale on the map GPS makers.

21. Zoom ? MINOR ? The GPS limits you o how much you can zoom out when you are trying to route to a location or if you are already routed. I wish I could zoom out more sometimes.

22. 3D Map Angle ? MINOR ? I read some peoples complaints about this and kind of blew it off. I do think it is not quite right though. I can?t really place what I don?t like about it so it may be more of a personal preference.

23. No external volume button ? MINOR ? I would like to see this although the remote does the job fine. This is a minor issue.

24. FM Modulator ? MAJOR (for some) ? Here is the problem. All the sound goes out the same way. You can have the directions go out of the GPS speaker and have the music get FM modulated which is my preference but if you FM modulate the music you have to either turn up the GPS volume and get blasted by the TomTom?s instructions or turn up the car volume and get a huge amount of distortion. Now if you hook the GPS directly to the car I don?t know if the same problem exists. Unfortunately, I do not have the headphone jack on my factory car stereo.

Umm.. okay? Tell us something we don't know.

I do agree with you on some points. You would be much better off writting this to TomTom directly. I sure as hell always make sure I voice my opinion to TomTom. I wrote to them about the 24 POI limit 2 weeks ago. 24 POIs? Are you effing kidding me!?!? Who the heck came up with that magic number 24 anyways?


Ohh and by the way, some of your claims are incorrect as you say the unit does not do certain features but it really does. Time for bed right now but I'm sure others will chime in and explain.

I too own a Magellan but that thing sure has a whole other world of problems. Perhaps I should make a thread that points out every minor and major problems. I'm sure it will take up at least 7 pages of text on this forum.

I Agree with sageuvagony that you have some of your dislike issues wrong eg Poor and late turn Instructions , Night Colors are too Bright, or Random Automatic shut down. I believe that is to do to the way you have your settings. setup.
Saying that I do agree with a lot of your dislikes.

I to have a 4-5 year old Magellan and although it has some good points it has lots of bad ones.

I don't believe you will find the perfect GPS out there at this time, they all have there good and bad points but things will get better in the GPS world as time goes on, just like the computer world and othere electronic devices.

Look what computers can do today that they couldn't do 8-10 years ago and at a fraction of the cost.


Footnote : sageuvagony I don't know what you mean my 24 limit on POI I have 37 in my poi in my poi file. You can download all kinds of POI including grocery stores like Superwalmart, Publix Albertsonsetc etc.

GarCor, the 24 limit is the 4 screens of 6 when you want to see a listing of a poi category how you've selected (on route, in city, etc.) While there may be 100 items in a specific category, only the closest 24 get shown.

(One can access the others by clicking on 'find' and typing in a partial combination of letters for a category. So, typing in 'don' in the restaurant category will allow for the listing of all MacDonald's in the poi file .... but you probably knew that, eh? )

dhn said:

GarCor, the 24 limit is the 4 screens of 6 when you want to see a listing of a poi category how you've selected (on route, in city, etc.) While there may be 100 items in a specific category, only the closest 24 get shown.

(One can access the others by clicking on 'find' and typing in a partial combination of letters for a category. So, typing in 'don' in the restaurant category will allow for the listing of all MacDonald's in the poi file .... but you probably knew that, eh? )

Click to expand...

LOL learning curve again ,, hard to teach this old dog new tricks

I went from Dell Axim PDA + Holux PS/2 gps receiver + Pocket Navigator to Dell Axim PDA + GlobalSat CF gps receiver + iGuidance/Mapopolis to Garmin SP C320 to Magellan Roadmate 3050 to Garmin SP C550 to Garmin nuvi660 to Magellan Maestro 4250 to Tomtom ONE XL-S to Tomtom GO920 and stop right there for now.
Why I chose Tomtom over those Magellan/Garmin??? There was many reasons.

sageuvagony said:

Umm.. okay? Tell us something we don't know.

Ohh and by the way, some of your claims are incorrect as you say the unit does not do certain features but it really does.

I too own a Magellan but that thing sure has a whole other world of problems. Perhaps I should make a thread that points out every minor and major problems. I'm sure it will take up at least 7 pages of text on this forum.

Click to expand...

sage,

First of all, the main reason I wrote this is because I'm one of those guys who tries to do a lot of research before buying a product. There just didn't seem to be much info about this TomTom out there so I figured I should try to let some others know what's going on before they buy. I know most of this stuff is obvious to people who already have this GPS but for those who don't I think it wil be very helpful.

Believe me, I know the Magellan and Garmin both have issues. I've used them both and chose to try the TomTom.

Which parts were incorrect? Please let me know so I can edit the post and possibly make my TomTom work a little better.

The 24 POI limit work around of typing in a partial name is fine if you know what your looking for. My problem is I like to role into a new town and try some local restaurant I've never heard of. That work around doesn't help much unless I want to start going through the alphabet randomly.

Thanks for the input guys, I do appreciate it.

sageuvagony said:

Ohh and by the way, some of your claims are incorrect as you say the unit does not do certain features but it really does. Time for bed right now but I'm sure others will chime in and explain.

Click to expand...

I am revisiting this page because I wanted to add a video link to it. I noticed I still have not received any input on this. If I can improve my interaction with my tomtom and do things that I didn't think were possible with my 920 please let me know what they are. Just saying that I'm wrong without backing it up doesn't help me or anyone potentially looking to buy this product.

Thanks,
Richard

kcautodoc,

You were asking about what is customizable with a TomTom.

You mentioned you have learned how to customize the menu.
Also that you are aware of custom color schemes.

You can also customize the phone book, Create overlays for the Browse map feature, create a pla text file for play lists (MP3 Player), Custom warning sounds (speeding,etc), Custom Car Icon, Custom Startup/Shutdown images, add some 3-rd party applications (TomPlayer), Custom POI's (better than favorites), warn when near a POI category (Example: gas stations), customize status bar to somewhat, Make simple itineraries (not optimized), Custom voices (nonTTS), custom win32 drive icon, use mapshare to also customize

I don't think there is much more that can be customized other than that.

Now on to your negatives.
It does not clear the route when at the destination because you have not driven past the coordinates of where the poi is (you could use mapshre to move the poi to the entrance you used but if you update your map you have to do it again every time until enough people agree on the coordinate (mapshare) or TomTom moves it in the POI.dat)

You have to look at your screen and see where the arrow is pointing to know what side of the road your destination is on it will not say (speak) anything but supposedly knows.

You can't do anything about the Time Zone other than manually change it.

The keep left or right is very annoying and there is a speech preference that is suppose to disable this but it never works.

There is however one that will help with your highway that has multiple names (disable something numbers)

The POI search results - Green is close/on route, yellow is off , red is out of the way

Also your poi example on the corner may also be because it's coordinates are set up for the other entrance on the side street so that is why it wants you to go around the block
(A GPS does know know anything other then coordinates so it is unaware of the entrances)

Maybe if a GPS programmer would had programmed where a POI can have a range of coordinates (A,B,C) then it would say your are closer to coordinates C for the POI and route you to that one for the same destination.

I wish I could help more but I had to send my GPS in for warranty (would not find a signal) so this is all from memory and can't look-up how to do anything.

Personally, I may be adding warranty to my list of negatives (I understand they just send refurbished ones) along with other issues with my warranty.