First time poster needs help with TOMTOM 720.

[BigUn]

I just bought a TOMTOM 720 and liked it pretty well till I saw a pals Garmin NUVI 600 in action. I?m bettin that there might be a way to make my TOMTOM do much the same tasks and that I still haven?t learned many of the ?tricks? yet. I hope. We needed building supplies for a project. Mike typed in shopping in his Garmin. Then told it building supplies. It brought up EVERY building supply place in the area by name, address, AND PHONE NUMBER! We sat there with cell phone and called a couple to find one that had what we needed, pressed go to and bingo, on our way. My TOMTOM only gives very general info on stuff like malls. Mikes Garmin when asked about Wal-Marts list all the Wal-Marts in the area, closest first, with address and phone numbers as well. Can our TOMTOM?s do this? I have tried everything I know to make it happen with NO LUCK at all. Please help the Newbie! Thanks folks.

 

[will381796]

Yes, to a point. One thing I liked about the Garmin 750 I tried out was the fact that they categorize and sub-categorize their POIs. For example, like you said, he first probably selected "store" as the category and then selected the subcategory "building supplies" or something like that. Then the garmin popped up the list. TomTom's do not sub-categorize their POIs. You hit the "shopping" or "retail stores" categories and all POIs in those categories, whether they be clothing stores or hardware stores, will show up. It really helps if you know the name of the store you want, because you can search by specific name.

Most of the POIs in the TomTom include the store's phone number, and if you have a phone paired with the 720 via bluetooth, you can call the store directly through the TomTom by pressing the "Call" button.

 

[dhn]

I just bought a TOMTOM 720 and liked it pretty well till I saw a pals Garmin NUVI 600 in action. I?m bettin that there might be a way to make my TOMTOM do much the same tasks and that I still haven?t learned many of the ?tricks? yet. I hope. We needed building supplies for a project. Mike typed in shopping in his Garmin. Then told it building supplies. It brought up EVERY building supply place in the area by name, address, AND PHONE NUMBER! We sat there with cell phone and called a couple to find one that had what we needed, pressed go to and bingo, on our way. My TOMTOM only gives very general info on stuff like malls. Mikes Garmin when asked about Wal-Marts list all the Wal-Marts in the area, closest first, with address and phone numbers as well. Can our TOMTOM?s do this? I have tried everything I know to make it happen with NO LUCK at all. Please help the Newbie! Thanks folks.

Some suggestions:
1. Goto this link http://tomtomforums.com/showthread.php?t=4998&page=7 and goto post 64. There is a link there to get the poi.dat file and crpoi.dat file for a 920 but which work on a 720. These provide you with 3-4 times the number of poi's in a 720. Simply overwrite (using Explorer) the current .dat files in the 720's map folder with the new ones.
2. If you navigate to-->poi-->(near you or in city on on route) and click on 'find', then type part of a specific names, all poi's with that portion of name will appear. For example, if you type 'depot', all businesses with that name, including 'Home Depot' should appear.