Tomtom 2535 of all kinds shows up on Amazon

[dentateck]

Amazon.com: tomtom 2535
Here we go, yesterday it wasn't there and today it shows three 2535 models: 2535M Live for $350, 2535TM for $320 and 2535TM WTE for $350. Of course its a pre-order and there are no dates yet, but at least it's already in the system. It should come with 8GB or flash twice of 2505, otherwise these are very similar in every aspect besides possibly newer firmware with hopefully features missing from 2505. Start your engines, new tomtoms are coming our way

 

[gatorguy]

So far that jives with the March 10th release I had heard. This is the perfect site to get the latest on these new TT's. There's at least a couple folks here who might be sorta, kinda familiar with them.

 

[dentateck]

I have my eyes on 2535M Live, although i realize that despite March 10 target date for these, Live service won't be available until late spring at the earliest. If I understand correctly, its now a full year of Live included up from 3 months that were announced earlier. So what happens if for example I buy 2535M Live as it comes out and Live service is not available yet? Does that mean I'll get my year starting from when it goes live or from date of purchase? I'm dying to test that Live service for traffic before i commit to buying it here in NYC

 

[dhn]

None LIVE users have waited five months (and counting ... ) for promised Latest Map Guarantees. TT has extended the usual time to 90 days and now, it seems, they've got to extend that.

If you want a LIVE unit that works **now**, find a 740 LIVE model. A fellow mod, mvl, has one and uses it often in the NY City area with positive results he reports.

And trust me, mvl is a VERY demanding person which makes his input so invaluable here.

The point is..... if a 740 is satisfactory for him, should also be a good fit for your needs.

 

[dentateck]

I was debating whether to get myself a new 7xx or 9xx unit with Live, but both lines are nearing it's end of life cycle and TT will probably stop refreshing it's firmware soon. If I could get my hands on 2000 line demo unit so I can at least get a feel of how fast or how convenient it is for my needs it would be so much easier. But none of my local stores including Best Buy carry live demo units of new TTs, so its only you guys i can rely on. My 730 was and still is a blessing but it might die on me any day now. That's why I'll bite the bullet and go with one of the new models, be it Live or barely breathing

 

[mvl]

So what happens if for example I buy 2535M Live as it comes out and Live service is not available yet? Does that mean I'll get my year starting from when it goes live or from date of purchase? I'm dying to test that Live service for traffic before i commit to buying it here in NYC

LIVE has been around for almost 2 years in the USA, so I'm sure it'll be available for the 2535M LIVE at launch.

Even on the European GO 1000 LIVE launched last summer, LIVE was one of the few features that worked from day one.

The 740LIVE is absolutely awesome in NYC. NYC has tons of alternate routes everywhere, and LIVE tells you exactly which ones to take vs ignore. I save at least one hour per day when I visit NYC, due to the 740LIVE's amazing routing. I enjoy formerly suicidal trips (eg: Newark to Queens at 4pm on a weekday), as it pleases the "inner geek" in me to watch the 740LIVE brilliantly route me around every single traffic jam.

One warning, if you drive a lot in mid-town, use either the iPhone app, or wait for the Sony XNV LIVE. Portable GPSs of any brand are absolutely useless in midtown, as the tall buildings block out any usable satellite signal. The iPhone app will use a registry of geolocated wifi hotspots as a GPS backup. And the Sony XNV will use the car's speedometer and brake sensor as a GPS backup.

 

[dentateck]

LIVE has been around for almost 2 years in the USA, so I'm sure it'll be available for the 2535M LIVE at launch.
Even on the European GO 1000 LIVE launched last summer, LIVE was one of the few features that worked from day one.

For some reason I was under impression that LIVE wasn't available for 2xxx series just yet, I must've picked it up on Engadget or like. I'm really glad that you have such a positive experience with it, so it makes my decision so much easier, I'll go for 2535M Live just like I wanted to.

The 740LIVE is absolutely awesome in NYC. NYC has tons of alternate routes everywhere, and LIVE tells you exactly which ones to take vs ignore. I save at least one hour per day when I visit NYC, due to the 740LIVE's amazing routing. I enjoy formerly suicidal trips (eg: Newark to Queens at 4pm on a weekday), as it pleases the "inner geek" in me to watch the 740LIVE brilliantly route me around every single traffic jam.

That's exactly what I need, I don't drive in the city, just in boroughs and my job requires me to be at the client's in least amount of time possible, thats where LIVE should come in. And I do have full Tomtom app on my iPhone as a backup in case i do drive in the city or my main GPS fails for some reason.

 

[canderson]

That's exactly what I need, I don't drive in the city, just in boroughs and my job requires me to be at the client's in least amount of time possible, thats where LIVE should come in.

While I've had a bit more luck with "up time" for Live Services than mvl, the fact that he still gets good use of them should say something about that service. I'm happy to say that in the Denver area, my 740TM Live hasn't ever been "non-Live" once while I've been in the vehicle. Others report that their firmware leads them to do some peculiar things to keep them operating on Live services (selecting Buddies, etc. on a regular basis). I've never had that issue.

The 740 looks to be headed into discontinued mode soon, but the firmware (at least my 9.054 firmware - I've refused to update beyond that) has been rock solid thus far. You should be able to pick one up for a decent price. The "Live" freebie only lasts for 90 days on these, however. They're not into "We're sorry - can we bribe you not to send it back my promising you "X" months of additional service" mode for the 740

Moving to ANY of the new models will drop a couple of features that came on your 730 (which is why my 720 remains in use in one vehicle), but whether you miss them would depend upon what you use. If you use the 1/8" aux out jack to pipe the audio through to your car audio system, you'll be unhappy about that - as one example.

 

[offthegrid]

I think he was confusing Live service and HD Traffic in the US which isn't available right now but however they configure it should be available with the 2535 Live when it becomes available for sale.

 

[mvl]

It's been hard to decipher exactly what HD traffic will be in the USA.

Tomtom's CEO has described it as inferior to the European HD Traffic service, but better than any other competing service in the USA.

That pretty much describes the 740LIVE now, so it'll be interesting to see what the improvement, if any, comes out.

Tomtom's CEO said one of the key purposes of bringing HD traffic to the USA is so that Tomtom can push it's in-dash services platform to the USA and allow it's car manufacturer clients to have a standardized platform in more of the world. By the 2012 model year, a manufacturer could ship the exact same system to USA, Europe, China, India, Russia, and Brazil - which is a compelling sales position.

If Toyota pushes it's Tomtom in-dash services to the USA, or Fiat pushes them out to Chrysler, then there will be tons of probes on the road and less of a need for the missing cellprobe data.

 

[gatorguy]

BTW, that March 10th date I mentioned isn't from an official TomTom source, just a mention by an acquaintance. Don't hang your hat on the 10th exactly as it was supposedly their target date, which they often miss.

 

[offthegrid]

They have said they'll have several hundred thousand gps probes + IQRoutes and incident reports. Probably between the IPhone users and active Live subscriptions they have that many.

GPSPassion got that straight from the head of TomTom traffic in the US Jeff Kim. He also said there would be some effect from their use of OpenLR rather than TMC code for traffic. Kim also said that their probes report back to them every 2 minutes versus some companies use probes that report every 15 minutes.

TomTom, portable GPS car navigation systems - OpenLR? - Open, Compact and Royalty-free Dynamic Location Referencing

Also these new units will have 'Advanced IQRoutes' which is broken down into 1 minute increments. No one else has historical data as good as TomTom at this point anyway so I suppose they can get away with less real time probes since they are just looking for anomalies against that.

No cell phone triangulation at all.

They have to be getting incident reports from either Clear Channel or Westwood One since they are the only national providers.

They are hiring a Junior Live Services Analyst in Concord.

TomTom, portable GPS car navigation systems

It's been hard to decipher exactly what HD traffic will be in the USA.

Tomtom's CEO has described it as inferior to the European HD Traffic service, but better than any other competing service in the USA.

That pretty much describes the 740LIVE now, so it'll be interesting to see what the improvement, if any, comes out.

Tomtom's CEO said one of the key purposes of bringing HD traffic to the USA is so that Tomtom can push it's in-dash services platform to the USA and allow it's car manufacturer clients to have a standardized platform in more of the world. By the 2012 model year, a manufacturer could ship the exact same system to USA, Europe, China, India, Russia, and Brazil - which is a compelling sales position.

If Toyota pushes it's Tomtom in-dash services to the USA, or Fiat pushes them out to Chrysler, then there will be tons of probes on the road and less of a need for the missing cellprobe data.

 

[mvl]

I'm really happy with my present job, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to apply.

 

[dhn]

I'm really happy with my present job, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to apply.

Maybe you can work the midnight shift, mvl. After all, from the time of your posts, you seem to be up 24/7 anyway!

 

[dentateck]

I think he was confusing Live service and HD Traffic in the US which isn't available right now but however they configure it should be available with the 2535 Live when it becomes available for sale.

Can you even have HD Traffic without Live enabled? It's not FM based TMC if I understand correctly, but a part of Live? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can have Live without HD Traffic but not the other way around. You can see how its easily gets confusing even for techies let alone an average customer. I blame it on TT, they should differentiate it and explain it to average Joe in simple terms, don't you think? But then again, magic words like "LIVE" and "HD Traffic" help them sell more units

 

[offthegrid]

You've got it right.dentateck;

Mvl, good one. I cracked up when I read that.

Can you even have HD Traffic without Live enabled? It's not FM based TMC if I understand correctly, but a part of Live? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can have Live without HD Traffic but not the other way around. You can see how its easily gets confusing even for techies let alone an average customer. I blame it on TT, they should differentiate it and explain it to average Joe in simple terms, don't you think? But then again, magic words like "LIVE" and "HD Traffic" help them sell more units

 

[canderson]

One thing I'm wondering is whether the owners of the 740 Live - obviously not one of the 'new' models - given that they will be contributing to the data input side of the equation, will be afforded the full benefits of the output. One would hope so. Would be a rip to take the info from those units and not provide the better product in return.

 

[mvl]

In Europe, the GO 1xxx reports different HDtraffic from the GO7xx/9xx LIVE models. The GO 1xxx appears to have a smaller mileage radius of reported traffic.

So Tomtom appears to have the capability to report 2 sets of traffic out to its userbase. Whether they'll leverage that capability on the GO2535LIVE vs 740LIVE remains to be seen.

 

[dentateck]

BTW, that March 10th date I mentioned isn't from an official TomTom source, just a mention by an acquaintance. Don't hang your hat on the 10th exactly as it was supposedly their target date, which they often miss.

You are right as usual, they missed it again

 

[bjerrems]

Every day I check theTomTom USA website, and it pisses me off to see that the banner ad is still for the (in my opinion) useless "customizing" your TomTom GPS with graphic designs, while the UK ad is for the GO 1000, a true advancement in navigational power.

TomTom, please have respect for the intellect of the USA : Start shipping the GO 2535 M Live!