Opinion of XL340S

[daewootango]

Hey guys!

I'm FINALLY in FL so I've gotten the chance to have a look at my XL340S for the first time. I haven't used it much as yet but I think of what I have seen so far I can make an initial opinion on it. Let's begin shall we?

The FIRST thing I did (as per the recommendations of the members of this humble board) was to use Windows Explorer to backup all the files. That took about 55 minutes to accomplish (this is a new computer but it is on the lower end of the spectrum so it's short on processing speed).

The next thing I did was to upload my custom-designed car icon! Yeah! That was a cinch to do. I had already prepared the icon, a motorcycle rider viewed from behind (I can upload it to the board if the guys here want, though I must admit it's not 100% because now that I've seen how it looks on the TT I need to make a few adjustments). The only problem I had was that the red colour around the edges of the image were out of the required parameters and I saw a red border around the icon on the TT. I just went back in and corrected the colour and voila! Problem solved.

I found the setup procedure to be easy and to the point and I passed that in no time.

At this point I have to compare the XL340S with the only other GPS unit I have ever used and it's my girl's Magellan. The Magellan is an example in simplicity and is very intuitive. I'm sorry, but I can't exactly say the same for the XL340S. I tried to find my daughter's school but it would not go to any location beyond a few miles. I was using the POI feature. I typed in the first, then the second, then the third words in the name, and it stopped short half-way through the fourth word (too many characters?!?). It found one of the schools in the group of schools, but wouldn't go as far away as my daughter's. Quite odd.

Another problem I had was this: When I have a route programmed, I can't seem to pan ahead to see what route is being mapped. I have to change screens to another page for that. The Magellan was pretty good in that I can just touch an arrow on the screen and it would pan forward and so on. I miss that feature.

That being said, I'm satisfied with my purchase and I'll be letting you guys know what I think about other features as I encounter them.

 

[dhn]

If you tap the bottom left of the status bar while in driving (or 3D) view, the screen switches to 2D view to let you see 'the biiger picture', so to speak.

 

[alfie67]

Commenting on POIs, when searching for location of a school (near me), I find 48 schools within 3 miles. When searching for airports (near me), there are 54 located within 139 miles. How far out it will search "near me" seems to be limited by amount of POIs found..

You can also search POIs in city, along route, near destination, and near home. I forget the parameters of how far off a route it will search - seems like it's only a mile or two?

 

[daewootango]

@ DHN: Yeah...I noticed that. I just noticed the difference with how the Magellan operated. Now to set the record straight, the Magellan isn't perfect either, but I'd love a similar (perfected system on the TomTom).

@ alfie67: The range is pretty limited it seems. But I'm gonna be toying with it some more to see what it's really thinking when it's bringing up results.

 

[daewootango]

Okay, guys. UPDATE. I finally got the scooter I planned to install the 340 on. Well...not quite. I had originally planned on getting another model but I ended up with this one instead. It's a Taotao 50. The first challenge I encountered was that the handle bars were not exposed (covered by the dashboard faring). This means that the mount I had bought would not fit the handle bars as was intended. The only other place to install it was on the rear view mirror. Of course, the mirror rod is waaay to skinny to allow the mount to bolt to it so I had to get creative. I got a piece of rubber tubing from Lowes and fitted it to the mirror rod and VOILA! Problem solved. I did a test run of the GPS and it worked pretty well. Except that I can't hear or see much while under way! The wind noise and engine buzz is too loud and the mount allows so much vibration that I generally can't see much except the red lines that show the route. That's enough I guess. Anyway, I used it to get to a friend's house and it was spot on. Here are some pics of the scooter with the GPS in place.