Community First Responder looking for an accurate device

Joined
Dec 27, 2011
Messages
4
Location
UK, Essex
TomTom Model(s)
GO Live 825 Europe
Hi there my name is Steven and I'm looking for a TomTom that can give me accurate individual address location in my home town and surrounding villages as I'm a Community First Responder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_first_responder that needs to be with a casualty from call origin in under 8min and my current Road Angel Sat-Nav has I'm afraid cost me a lot of time on more than one occasion!

I'm warming towards the GO Live 825 Europe but have no idea if it will do what I desire.

Do all of the TomTom products do a full post code search and if the house/building number is added will this make the final outcome more accurate?

Please help as I'm wading in Treacle at this moment in time!!!!

I'm not so worried about it being able to tell me that there's a five mile traffic Q 60 miles ahead the local address accuracy is far more important to me.

I'm also liking the sound of the Voice command and control. Is this any good and will it work as I hope and dream....get a response call....jump in car....start driving....while en-route tell TomTom where I need to be going???

Any advise and help will be very much appreciated and thank you in advance :)

Regards

Steven
 
As far as I know, all current TomTom's sold in the UK should do full 7-digit postcode search.
(We get occasional reports where the required postcode files seem to have gone missing, but they are easy to download and install).
If you JUST enter the postcode it will navigate to the centre of the postcode area, but if you also give it the house number, it will navigate to that instead, usually it's fairly accurate (certainly in big cities).
Personally, I've always found it works very well, but there have been some discussions in the past where it has gone wrong in a rural area where a single postcode can cover a very long road. I guess there will be errors in every map or database, but as I say it usually works fine for me.

A couple of points...
1. Although several TomTom models offer voice control, for some daft reason, they don't offer it for postcode entry, so you have to say town name, road name and house number. A lot of people love it, but I find it a gimmick. When it works it works well, but if it cannot understand you, then you get in a hell of a mess and end up swearing at it!
This can happen if you are asking for an address usung a place name that it hasn't got the road filed under.
Having said that, in London you seem to be able to ask for a street in a particular town (such as "Wandsworth") or just in "London"

2. Older models including the Go x50 range have an on-screen keyboard that has both letters and numbers on the same screen. So entering UK postcodes is easy.
But some bright spark who designed the new models reckoned the buttons were a bit too small, and changed the keyboard so you have to tap on a "1-2-3" key to switch to numbers.
With a postcode like "W1A 1AA" that means constantly switching between letters and numbers (as I write this it seems petty, but it really irritates me every time I use it!)
 
Hi Can I make a couple of observations.

I work as a taxi-driver in the NE UK and some of your requirements and my needs are similar

I use a go540live which so far has been very reliable, you need to keep the maps up to date and check the postcode file is also current.

By the time you have turned the unit on, captured the gps fix, even allowing the for the fix download, and plugged in about 1 minute is probably gone.

If you need to find walks or areas which are not car friendly they do not show on the map, I use a good A2Z find a good road access point and plot to there.

New housing developments can take up to 2/3 years before they appear.
Some house numbering is chaotic and does not give you a good fix, ie. wrong side or not given

Good local knowledge is always better than a gadget and I guess that an 8 minute radius could be learnt.

Julian
 
Alas - the GO540 is GOne. There are still a rare few refurb GO740 Live units available here in the U.S. Not sure about the UK. Overkill, but you may find a refurb GO940 Live there as well.
 
Thanks for such a detailed reply :)

.........Older models including the Go x50 range have an on-screen keyboard that has both letters and numbers on the same screen. So entering UK postcodes is easy.
But some bright spark who designed the new models reckoned the buttons were a bit too small, and changed the keyboard so you have to tap on a "1-2-3" key to switch to numbers.
With a postcode like "W1A 1AA" that means constantly switching between letters and numbers (as I write this it seems petty, but it really irritates me every time I use it!)
Now this is interesting as I'd hoped that both letters and numbers would be on the same screen as they are on my m8's XL that I had a play with. After reading this I gave him a call, it turns out that he bought it a couple of years ago. I'd just assumed that all models would be the same!!! I popped into Halfords today for a play and the screen on the 1000 is very slick. I've still not come down hard on a model yet and I'm almost at the point of buying a Start20 as it would appear to be as capable as any of the others at getting me to an address and if it wasn't for the fact that I like the idea of Bluetooth and the RDS traffic thing I'd probably just go for one. I've had a good look at the 750 online today and this is very tempting as it is only £30 dearer than the Start20 but with many more bells and whistles. I'm going back to Halfords tomorrow for another play just to be certain that when doing a postcode only search that both letters and numbers don't come up on the same screen as I'm sure that one I played with today either at Halfords, Comets or Tesco did have this feature,but I've now since forgotton which one it was!! I've also played with a number of Garmins today and they definetly have both letters and numbers on the same screen!!!!

Any further advise or thoughts will be greatfully received, thank you :)
 
By the time you have turned the unit on, captured the gps fix, even allowing the for the fix download, and plugged in about 1 minute is probably gone
When I'm on call I currently leave my Road Angel SatNav turned on and hot to trot with the postcode page already pulled up and even with the first two didgits of my local area code 'CM' typed in. There's also normally plenty of time to update/fettle any info on the GPS while running to a job as we have to obide by normall trffic law (no blue lights and sirens) so when in a que of traffic or at lights it's possible to find time to safely amend detail or add more detail.

If you need to find walks or areas which are not car friendly they do not show on the map, I use a good A2Z find a good road access point and plot to there.

New housing developments can take up to 2/3 years before they appear.
Some house numbering is chaotic and does not give you a good fix, ie. wrong side or not given

Good local knowledge is always better than a gadget and I guess that an 8 minute radius could be learnt
This is what I've been doing for some time now as my current SatNav can not be relied upon except when running to a job out of area. I popped into a local estate agents and asked them for one of thier free maps that they give out, then had it laminated. It's this that I've been using exclusively for some time now when responding to jobs in my local area, combined with what little local knowledge I have. I shant stop using the map, but I hope that a modern SatNav can help me better pin point a house number along some of the longer roads we have.
 
One thing I forgot to mention is that the new models (Go1000/5, Via and Start20/25) are much quicker at planning most routes.

The older models USED to be very quick until TT invented IQ Routing and that unfortunately had the side effect of slowing down the route calculations considerably.

These new models bring the speed back to something similar to what it used to be.
 

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