Go 600 US release date?

[KOTULCN]

Has anyone heard when Tomtom was going to release their new GPS lineup? Last I heard was July 30th and obviously that didnt happen!

 

[dhn]

I haven't heard of any release date for the USA, either.

 

[canderson]

Not a peep so far. We're lagging behind Europe on the release again.

 

[iMikeSW17]

Well I don't know about the US, but I am receiving my 6000 today in the UK.
Dispatch from Netherlands was immediately after order (a few hours). So either supply is plentiful, or demand is low...

 

[dhn]

None of the Nav4 devices are available in North America at this time.

 

[Andy_P]

Well I don't know about the US, but I am receiving my 6000 today in the UK.

Let us know what you think of it (both immediately AND after a few days of actual use!)

I've been playing with one for some time and would be interested in some other opinions.

 

[canderson]

@Andy
How has the Live end of it been working out for you? Care to elaborate a bit about the service? 2G? (poking my stick here, I know...)

 

[rrpnd]

I have been wondering the same thing as the OP. I just looked on TomTom's website and the Go 2535 Live is no longer presented. The only live GPS on their site is the Go 1535.

 

[rrpnd]

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/01/tomtom-go-series/

According to the above article, it looks like tomtom may NOT be introducing a new model with built in capability to get live services, but all will require linking with a smartphone through their app. I hope this is not the case, as I don't own a smartphone but enjoy and use live traffic quite often. It has saved me time on many comutes.

Can anyone confirm the information given in this article? Is there any hope tomtom will release a sim card model of the new series?

 

[dhn]

Sometimes, what gets announced never actually makes it to production.

 

[Arno]

I surely hope you are right this time.

 

[zengshengliu]

According to this
http://corporate.tomtom.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=816872
It is true that it required a smart phone in order to get traffic, but the good thing is, its free if you have the GOx00 devices

 

[canderson]

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/01/tomtom-go-series/

According to the above article, it looks like tomtom may NOT be introducing a new model with built in capability to get live services, but all will require linking with a smartphone through their app. I hope this is not the case, as I don't own a smartphone but enjoy and use live traffic quite often. It has saved me time on many comutes.

Can anyone confirm the information given in this article? Is there any hope tomtom will release a sim card model of the new series?

As noted in the article, these products were made available in Europe last year. At that time, the 5000 and 6000 were offered with internal cell/SIM in a way similar to the old GO Live series (e.g., 740, 1535, etc) here in North America. If it works as announced at CES, those two models are not on the list of scheduled products for delivery to North American customers.

That's actually not a bad thing. Those of us with existing GO Live products are painfully aware that 2G service in NAM is slowly being discontinued, and AT&T has made it clear that there is an absolute date set to 'turn off the lights' as of January 1, 2017. As you like Ubergizmo, see their commentary on this here: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/08/att-to-discontinue-its-2g-network-by-2017/

Once the 2G network bandwidth from the various carriers is converted to use for 3G and 4G services, that's going to leave those of us with legacy units in a bit of a pickle - there's simply no practical way to convert existing GO units to other wireless technologies. The problem that follows on from this: I suspect TomTom is uninterested in trying to hit the moving target of North American wireless protocols. Unlike Europe where GSM has been the defacto standard and something they could depend upon for a connection pretty much anywhere, we've been a great deal more fractured here in NAM with our service offerings. I'm guessing the TomTom logic was that in order to reliably serve more customers, they would assume that the customer would be in a better position to provide the connectivity. The added benefit is that since TomTom won't have to deal with provisioning service to their customers through Jasper and AT&T, their expense for providing the service is decreased. While that shifts the cost (if any) to the user, it allows TomTom to offer their traffic service at no additional charge. Given the fairly small amount of data consumed to produce TomTom traffic, it is probably the case that users would see a lower cost overall in data plan charges than the traditional $60/year cost of a regular GO traffic subscription.

Meanwhile, I'm not in any hurry to see these units arrive in North America. Unlike the glowing report of the appearance of the user interface in that article, I've seen quite a number of complaints about it from European users. Further to that, it seems this entire lineup lacks many features that a previous TomTom user would expect on a new TomTom PND. Wouldn't hurt my feelings to see TomTom delay introduction here to clean some things up and get missing basic features incorporated.

 

[rrpnd]

Thank you for the detailed response. Unfortunately, it looks like consumers like me will eventually not be able to get live services without paying for a smartphone at 50 dollars more per month than my current non data plan. I understand it's time for 2g to be phased out, but it's hard to believe TT cant come up with another way to get the data to the units

 

[- et -]

Thank you for the detailed response. Unfortunately, it looks like consumers like me will eventually not be able to get live services without paying for a smartphone at 50 dollars more per month than my current non data plan. I understand it's time for 2g to be phased out, but it's hard to believe TT cant come up with another way to get the data to the units

I have not seen a specific announcement that the new units will continue to provide the capability, but the earlier models have had the capability of acquiring traffic data from data broadcast over FM radio. To get that information you have needed to buy a model that includes a power cord which includes a built-in FM antenna, or separately purchase such a power cord/antenna.

The disadvantage of that approach is that the data is provided by local sources, so it is available only in larger metropolitan areas, and is normally updated much less frequently than the "HD Traffic" data that TomTom supplies via the cell phone system.

- Tom -

 

[canderson]

As noted, I wouldn't be in any hurry to pick up one of these newer units anyway. While there really are some interesting improvements in them, on the whole, your 340 and 2535 are a heck of a lot easier to read and have a lot more features. At the moment, the Live being offered for the new units covers only traffic and speed cams. So far, nothing like Live search or fuel or any of the rest of the features to which you've grown accustomed exist, and we have no promises that they ever will.

 

[canderson]

The disadvantage of that approach is that the data is provided by local sources, so it is available only in larger metropolitan areas, and is normally updated much less frequently than the "HD Traffic" data that TomTom supplies via the cell phone system.

The RDS-TMC solution also has issues with 'resolution'. Due to the nature of the data within the RDS broadcasts, it will inevitably cover fewer 'street segments' than Live, and will do it with less actual geographic resolution than Live. It's limited by the size of the numbers used to act as pointers to chunks of street in a special look-up table shared by the provider and the TomTom unit.

 

[rrpnd]

Certainly disappointing to hear that the new units arent refined enough yet. Perhaps I should try to find a 2535 live for sale out there somewhere just as a backup to the one I have and wait this out for another year. Also, not really interested in RDS traffic. Once you experience live traffic, there isn't any going back. I'm just hoping I can find a more reasonable solution than a smartphone when I need to.

 

[doctormstein1]

Certainly disappointing to hear that the new units arent refined enough yet. Perhaps I should try to find a 2535 live for sale out there somewhere just as a backup to the one I have and wait this out for another year. Also, not really interested in RDS traffic. Once you experience live traffic, there isn't any going back. I'm just hoping I can find a more reasonable solution than a smartphone when I need to.

Just wanted to let you know that the 2535M live unit is nowhere's to be found in the USA No websites have them and are totally discontinued. The only possibility is a used one on Ebay. The 2535M live is reallly the best . Has all the features you could want.

 

[canderson]

Another item you might consider is the GO 1535M or TM Live. Currently very stable, and apart from the mount (it's integrated into the unit), has no 'dings' against it.