Discover and Expert

[srphelps]

Hi everyone
im just wondering when and if the new TomToms Discover and Expert are coming to America? I drive a commercial vehicle and a personal vehicle and I would love to have a device that has dependable traffic and so on. My 620 WiFi just will not stay connected like it should. My friends keep telling me to switch to Garmin but in my opinion TomTom maps are ALOT more current and accurate
‘Thanks All

 

[canderson]

First, I'm surprised that you're having an issue with your 620. You're using your phone as a WiFi hot spot for it, right? I've always found that vastly more reliable than the BT solution.

Yes, I would expect to see the Discover unit here very soon. In fact, I'm surprised that we haven't already seen it. There were a couple of very annoying bugs that hit only English speaking countries, so it was late in a number of other countries as well.

Tell us a bit about what you like and don't like about your 620. It will give us an idea as to whether the Discover would be a good fit for you. I'll just say a few things that I know about it: 1) Performance is quite good compared to the 620. 2) It (so far) offers absolutely ZERO custom POI support. 3) It is getting regular incremental map updates rather than having to wait for quarterly updates.

 

[srphelps]

First, I'm surprised that you're having an issue with your 620. You're using your phone as a WiFi hot spot for it, right? I've always found that vastly more reliable than the BT solution.

Yes, I would expect to see the Discover unit here very soon. In fact, I'm surprised that we haven't already seen it. There were a couple of very annoying bugs that hit only English speaking countries, so it was late in a number of other countries as well.

Tell us a bit about what you like and don't like about your 620. It will give us an idea as to whether the Discover would be a good fit for you. I'll just say a few things that I know about it: 1) Performance is quite good compared to the 620. 2) It (so far) offers absolutely ZERO custom POI support. 3) It is getting regular incremental map updates rather than having to wait for quarterly updates.

Well the only thing about using the WiFi hotspot is it’s a big time battery drain on a iPhone however I just plug it in other than that it is a top rate GPS. Now the expert I’m liking the idea of a 7 inch screen and being a commercial driver I would love to try out all there new features. I have been using a garmin for the past few years and as I stated in America Tomtom maps are unbelievably excellent compared to (Here)

 

[canderson]

The Discover also comes in a 7". If you're driving a 'commercial vehicle', though, the Expert would be the better choice since it provides numerous other features helpful to larger vehicles (bridge height, hazardous goods tunnel restrictions, etc.). I don't have a sense as to when that will arrive here, but again, it shouldn't be all that long given that they finally worked out the bugs that were preventing a North American release.

If I hear anything more about a NAM release later on, I'll try to remember to post here.

Of interest, I don't find the WiFi usage is what eats into battery life on my Android. Since mine is an OLED display, I find that it's the display that really does that. But as you say, plugging it in resolves that. I was concerned that you were seeing connectivity issues or something with your 620 + WiFi. Actually, you were pretty specific about that in your first post. Can you elaborate? Apple usually has only Bluetooth issues, which seem better with the latest iOS release.

 

[srphelps]

The Discover also comes in a 7". If you're driving a 'commercial vehicle', though, the Expert would be the better choice since it provides numerous other features helpful to larger vehicles (bridge height, hazardous goods tunnel restrictions, etc.). I don't have a sense as to when that will arrive here, but again, it shouldn't be all that long given that they finally worked out the bugs that were preventing a North American release.

If I hear anything more about a NAM release later on, I'll try to remember to post here.

Of interest, I don't find the WiFi usage is what eats into battery life on my Android. Since mine is an OLED display, I find that it's the display that really does that. But as you say, plugging it in resolves that. I was concerned that you were seeing connectivity issues or something with your 620 + WiFi. Actually, you were pretty specific about that in your first post. Can you elaborate? Apple usually has only Bluetooth issues, which seem better with the latest iOS release.

I’m sorry
through the my Drive app will not stay connected through WiFi it seems to be flawless

 

[canderson]

I’m sorry
through the my Drive app will not stay connected through WiFi it seems to be flawless

Yeah, OK, that's the general sentiment. Which version of iOS are you running now? Rumor has it that the latest seems to have worked out some of the issues with the BT stacks that were creating a lot of the disconnects.

 

[srphelps]

14.6 to be honest I haven’t tried sence the new update Im was just kinda following along in Tomtom’s forums and reading other user’s trials and failures and kinda going along with that

 

[canderson]

Haven't spent any time lately on the corporate boards. Does it look like 14.6 is providing ANY relief?

 

[srphelps]

Not yet it seems to be mostly people with the rider and others just bashing Tomtom
‘unfortunately
I still have the app in my iPhone I’ll give it a try after while and report back

 

[canderson]

Try out the combination of the latest phone app and iOS together.
I still prefer using WiFi as, at least for Android, it's actually much better on battery life than the app.

 

[srphelps]

Well everyone I got my 620 to connect with the my Drive app. Got really excited btw. Shut down my unit came inside for a few hours and went out to try and let it reconnect and to my disappointment I could not get it to reconnect for the love of money. Now just for the record I deleted the my Drive app and re downloaded it sighed back in and did a soft drumroll reset on my 620 i was able to reconnect it again went for a small Drive, took a few hour break went out to try again and it wouldn’t connect. So I’m kinda at a loss. Im kinda thinking it’s a hardware problem and not so much software. But the WiFi connects every time. So all this my story I don’t blame TomTom or Apple I think it’s a combination of the 2 I haven’t heard on any forums any if this problem will ever be solved other than to just start from scratch and try again
witch is the direction Tomtom is going to take
hope all this helps bare in mind I’m not a electronic engineer so there may be other steps I could have tried but unaware of
Thanks