The bottom line - A trouble-free out-of-box experience

[jweint]

I'm going over to Radio Shack and buying a brand spanking new 720 tonight. I want to take it out of the box, charge it, and have a totally trouble-free installation. If I don't care so much about voice recognition, just want to let the install guide me through getting the latest home, unit, and map software....will I have a fully operational unit at the end of the process? If not what pitfalls will I run into?

 

[dhn]

I'm going over to Radio Shack and buying a brand spanking new 720 tonight. I want to take it out of the box, charge it, and have a totally trouble-free installation. If I don't care so much about voice recognition, just want to let the install guide me through getting the latest home, unit, and map software....will I have a fully operational unit at the end of the process? If not what pitfalls will I run into?

May I suggest you get at least a 2 gig SD card as well. You won't regret it. Chances are you will be offered a free upgrade to TomTom Home software that installs with the CD. Take it.

Chances are, you will also be offered a free map upgrade through the (upgraded) Home software Map Guarantee. NOTE: There will be a slip of paper in the box (green, I think) that you have to scratch to get the code for the 30-day map guarantee. DON'T throw this piece of paper out!

So: you'll be offered a free software upgrade for TomTom home. You'll probably be offered a free map upgrade. You also will be probably offered upgraded firmware for the unit.

And......you will need to charge the unit for 2 hours using the dock connected to the computer **before** you do any of the above.

Well..........you asked, didn't you?

 

[jweint]

....trouble-free out-of-box experience

Thanks for the advice....I don't mind going through all of this as long as it works when I'm done. I've been a software qa manager for over 20 years...and I know...it's all about setting up the environment properly before you start. Otherwise, it's very easy to corrupt it.

 

[jweint]

Out-of-box....one more question

I can either use a Windows XP laptop or Vista-based desktop as the primary host for my 720...any problems with drivers or stability on the Vista front?

 

[fanchee]

No problems on an XP machine, hopefully someone else can comment on Vista.

 

[TinkerDude]

TT and Vista

No issues noted with Vista Ultimate so far. Not Vista-related, but I did notice that TT Home v2 does away with the option to install "Other Content" (interpreted: non-TomTom content) that v1.6 had. I haven't had a chance to explore other installation options yet, but I'm sure there are other installers out there. FWIW, after two TT One XL-S's died early deaths (without my help, bad lot at Best Buy?) and test-driving a Magellan Maestro 4040 for 2 weeks before returning it, so far the 720 is the bomb

 

[Medic]

I can either use a Windows XP laptop or Vista-based desktop as the primary host for my 720...any problems with drivers or stability on the Vista front?

Running Vista, No Problems, No Compatibility Issues.

--Phil

 

[srochwerg]

May I suggest you get at least a 2 gig SD card as well. You won't regret it. Chances are you will be offered a free upgrade to TomTom Home software that installs with the CD. Take it.

Chances are, you will also be offered a free map upgrade through the (upgraded) Home software Map Guarantee. NOTE: There will be a slip of paper in the box (green, I think) that you have to scratch to get the code for the 30-day map guarantee. DON'T throw this piece of paper out!

So: you'll be offered a free software upgrade for TomTom home. You'll probably be offered a free map upgrade. You also will be probably offered upgraded firmware for the unit.

And......you will need to charge the unit for 2 hours using the dock connected to the computer **before** you do any of the above.

Well..........you asked, didn't you?

The slip of paper is not used anymore when you upgrade to Home 2.1. Instead you go under the file menu of the Home 2.1 and you will see "use latest map gurantee". Just click it and away you go. It will not ask for the code on the slip of paper.

My 720 worked fine out of the box 2 weeks ago using Vista. If you have a heavily firewalled secured work laptop it may not see the Tomtom. My home computer works fine as does my son's laptop. However, my work laptop does not see the unit. The laptop has many security programs running and Mcafee.

 

[jweint]

Trouble-Free Out-of-Box Experience......Almost

Well, after charging the unit last night the entire process of a successful install, upgrade, and configure took about 4 hours.

1) The TomTom Home upgrade went as planned...no issues...now at Home 2.1x

2) The 7.10 map update was another story....download was clean..took about an hour...ran into the "not enough space" issue. Backed up the entire 720 filesystem. Let the update utility remove the old NA maps. The install of the 7.10 map went fine.

3) Updated the firmware to 7.221...no issues

4) Enabled the speech recognition....working

5) Verified that Google Maps can send an address to the device as a Favorite....working.

6) Paired it with my Samsung D807 GSM phone via Bluetooth....working

7) Haven't taken it for a ride yet but it seems that it can grab 4 or 5 satellites from my window and plan a route...I should be good to go...have a 260 mile trip to Maryland at the end of the week...will have some fun planning the route as an itinerary..... thanks everyone for your feedback

Jack Weintraub

 

[shed]

i have only just got my tomtom720 , well last wed, and i think it is the dogs bollocks. everything worked as expected infact it exceeded my expectations as there were no issues with the handsfree or any updates, just to confirm you no longer need the slip of paper for the map guarantee