Some quick questions from first time owner

[wonderer99]

Hey all

Just found this forum and think I may be using it quite a bit. I will starting a new job soon here in the UK which involves me driving all day and visiting 20-30 customers a day so a decent sat nav was always going to be a number one priority. I am looking at getting the 6200 so I can pretty much keep my phone in my pocket all day. However I do have a few quick questions maybe you guys could help with.

1. Most importantly, what is the deal with only being able to save 96 my places on the device? This is the one thing really making me hesitate buying as I will have at least 200-300 customers addresses I will need to look up. I was shocked when I first read this limitation. Why would a device primarily designed to find addresses not allow you to store a good number of addresses? Surely Tomtom know their products are a business tool? What is the likelihood of this number changing in the near future?

2. Related to above, what is the difference between a "my place" and a poi? Does the 6200 use poi's?

3. Lifetime traffic, speed and map updates. What exactly does lifetime mean? I hear that Tomtom are discontinuing support for a number of older models so does "lifetime" just mean until they decide to not support the model in a few years?

4. Is the 6200 the same dimensions as the 6100? Not many cases out there listed for the newer model so was wondering if a case for the 6100 would fit ok?

5. Is it possible to progam a series of destinations in, one after the other? For example if I have 10 addresses I need to visit can I input the all and go from place to place or do I need to to input each postcode in after every stop off?

6. 2G. What is the likelihood 2G will become extinct in the UK anytime soon redering the 6200 internal updates useless? Would it not be safer to opt for the lower priced 620 which needs a phone to update ?

Sorry for all the questions but want to make sure I get the right tool for the job. Regarding the issues above do any of the Garmin models offer up cleqar benefits over the TT?

Thanks

 

[dhn]

First of all, best to take a look at the guide for that model. See here:
http://download.tomtom.com/open/manuals/gox20x/refman/TomTom-GO-EU-RG-en-gb.pdf

1. Think 96 is the limit, yes.
2. 'My Place' is the new name for Favourites. Yes, the 6200 has millions of built in POIS and can handle custom POIS to a limited extent. You can install them using MyDrive BUT not the associated bmp files NOR will custom POIS show in driving view.
3. The older models have had about a 10 year run. So likely judge by that.
4. Probably, maybe support knows:

United Kingdom
02079 490 134
Monday - Friday: 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

5. You can use itineraries or make a custom poi file, I guess.
6. You'd have to ask Vodaphone. The 2G shutdown by AT&T in the USA will render current LIVE models there non functional for LIVE traffic by the end of 2017 (though many can still use a rds-tmc combo car charger/antenna)

 

[canderson]

1. Most importantly, what is the deal with only being able to save 96 my places on the device? This is the one thing really making me hesitate buying as I will have at least 200-300 customers addresses I will need to look up. I was shocked when I first read this limitation. Why would a device primarily designed to find addresses not allow you to store a good number of addresses? Surely Tomtom know their products are a business tool? What is the likelihood of this number changing in the near future?
Yes, but ... You can also create your own custom POI file for the device that contains favorites, and that could contain thousands of points. It may even be preferable to having a lot of 'loose' MyPlaces entries that you have to scroll through amongst other POI files.

2. Related to above, what is the difference between a "my place" and a poi? Does the 6200 use poi's?
The single 'MyPlaces' entries and any and all custom POI files appear together in the MyPlaces list. To keep this from getting messy, I assign all of my individual 'MyPlaces' entries to a custom POI file called _favorites. ('Favorites' is what the individual entries used to be called on prior generations of TomTom units). With the underscore, that forces that POI file to the top of the list for handy reference. So I have in MyPlaces an entry that appears as " Favorites" and a variety of custom POI files for other purposes. A custom POI file can also contain a list of your favorite eateries or whatever, though these may already be resident in the 'native' POI list that accompanies the TomTom map.

3. Lifetime traffic, speed and map updates. What exactly does lifetime mean? I hear that Tomtom are discontinuing support for a number of older models so does "lifetime" just mean until they decide to not support the model in a few years?
It is true that, for the first time, TomTom will cease supporting certain models with maps at the first of this year. Not bad considering how old most of these units are. Understand that some models came with no SD card slot and really miniscule internal memory compared to the requirements of today's much more detailed maps, so they were getting to a point where it would be necessary to segment map sets into smaller and smaller pieces. They've been trying to support these devices with 'lighter' versions of the current maps, but I think that somebody saw the handwriting on the wall as regards capacity vs. requirement. This will be the first time that any units have been declared 'end of support life' for maps since TomTom started selling these PND units.

4. Is the 6200 the same dimensions as the 6100? Not many cases out there listed for the newer model so was wondering if a case for the 6100 would fit ok?
Yes, these are physically very similar., but there's a difference in the connection to the mounts. I cannot imagine that the difference would change whether it fits into the 6100 case, but dhn's advice is good. Best to check.

5. Is it possible to progam a series of destinations in, one after the other? For example if I have 10 addresses I need to visit can I input the all and go from place to place or do I need to to input each postcode in after every stop off?
There are a couple of ways of doing this -- either by adding each stop in reverse to the current route before departing, or setting up an itinerary in advance using your PC and following that. As one example, you can create and store individual routes using TomTom's online tool and transfer those to one or more TomTom devices.

6. 2G. What is the likelihood 2G will become extinct in the UK anytime soon redering the 6200 internal updates useless? Would it not be safer to opt for the lower priced 620 which needs a phone to update ?
Jolly good question. After being burned in North America by the phased shut-down of 2G service, I was surprised that TomTom stuck with it for Europe. As dhn says, only companies like Vodaphone know for certain what they'll do with it in the future. For now, it appears that Europe is headed to a 2G/4G life for quite some time. Although tearing down 2G obsoleted a LOT of devices here in North America, AT&T evidently felt they needed the bandwidth badly enough that they were prepared to create and deal with the grief with their existing 2G customers. Europe seems unwilling to quickly obsolete that much 2G equipment. It' snot just GPS units .. lots of alarm systems, active monitoring stations and the like use 2G as a means for getting small amounts of data back to 'the mothership', whatever that is in each case.

 

[wonderer99]

Thank you both for your replies, I really apreciate it. It sounds like this model will do me just fine then. The ability to input stops on a route on the computer and then send it to the sat nav sounds like just the ticket for me. One last question. Is there a consensus for the 6200 voice calling, message receiving and Google now intergration features? Are they any good in practice or pure marketing?

 

[canderson]

As we don't yet have the exact equivalent of the 6200 with its newer features here in North America, we can't really assist on those items. I can only say that TomTom's BT hands-free has generally worked well in the past.

You'll definitely want to familiarize yourself with the online route planner at https://mydrive.tomtom.com/en_gb/ to see how this feature works.
It is also the tool that you will use to send POI files to your device.

 

[Ian Johnson]

I would be cautious about voice recognition and lane guidance both important but neither worked on my recently purchased Go5200. I also found that it was a little slow to boot up and the touchscreen although responsive was a little slow to. Route planning was very fast both on the device and on my laptop and I liked to be able to send destination to the device. Wifi connectivity was very poor even when close to my router.

If you haven't yet bought the Tom tom have a good look at the Garmin Drivelux. Its cheaper and knocks socks of the Tom-tomi n every department. it does all you want and a lot more. It is very fast with almost instant touchscreen response and the voice commands just work perfectly with any more available comments than TT. Roure planing with multiple stops is easy and you can play route previews from and to anywhere You can customise and install POI and have them showing on the map and they are searchable within categories and I thought the the pre installed POI sets have far more information in them than Tomtom.

The only way Tom-tom beats Garmin is on live traffic but Garmin is only a little way behind.

I have had the older Tomtoms like the 1005 which was great but the newer ones just are not up to it, as least thats what I found and this was why I went towards Garmin which I have found superior .

I don't particularly have any loyalty to either brand and the one which makes the best device is the one I would buy, at the moment that's Garmin but who know that could change in the future although Its not looking that way.

 

[canderson]

What kind of voice recognition issues are you having, Ian? I'm on the equivalent code here, though it's a GO 600, and no issues with voice recognition for a long time. You haven't filled in your profile, but I did take a peek at your IP address, and I know they don't speak 'broad' in Suffolk!

 

[Ian Johnson]

I went for a lengthy trip for the first time and for the first 60 miles or so the device would go to the voice recognition page and say "Im listening" as if I had given the wakeup phrase, which I had not. Not very convenient when trying to look at map guidance. Then when I actually wanted to use voice control the device would not recognise my voice to accept commands. I stopped driving several times too do resets but this didn't help. It still wouldn't listen to me as if voice control was turned off, which of course it wasn't. Other people have reported voice control issues with other Tom-toms with it working on a hit and miss basis, I thought the had been addressed and corrected on the new 5200/6200 devices but it appears not. Perhaps USA versions are different but I expect not, I imagine the software would be the same wherever they are sold.

 

[Arno]

A lot of 'voice recognition' problems were caused by the agreed sometimes slow reaction of the device.
Because of that, persons hit the Menu button a second time causing the device to go into Mute mode.

 

[Ian Johnson]

The issue I describe happened when the divice was not in mute mode I could see the icon on the screen showed speech was on.

 

[dhn]

There wasn't a line through the icon?

 

[Ian Johnson]

No

 

[Arno]

Had you updated recently to new software version?
Some times, even if Voice Control in Settings has been activated, for the Wake-up Phrase to work the Voice Control under Menu has to be used at least once.
That can be a bit irritating; don't ask me how I know.

 

[Ian Johnson]

I was running the latest software update and in an attempt to get it working I did select voice control in the menu as well as ensuring that the icon was not crossed out. Nothing worked, it was as if the microphone was not working at all

 

[Arno]

I... it was as if the microphone was not working at all

That one is easily checked.
When you go Menu > Voice Control and start speaking, the volume bar will go up, if the mike is working.