Used TomTom for Australian Maps

[Gilly]

Hi
I am a current user of a TomTom One which has done me great service & is perfectly good for my travels around the UK. However fed up with hiring cars abroad with inferior SatNavs I want to take a TomTom with me. I want to buy a used model in case of loss / theft etc Can anyone recommend a model to me for uploading Australian maps to & what I should be looking for when buying used.
Many thanks.

 

[Andy_P]

Any reason you don't want to use your existing ONE?
Is it a UK or Europe model?

 

[Gilly]

Thanks for replying My TTOne is a 3rd Edition 512mb UK & Ireland without a card slot Good for what I generally use it for but impossible to upload maps to I understand. Is that right?

 

[Andy_P]

No, it's not impossible! But with only 512MB of internal memory you ARE rather limited in what maps will fit on it.

However, there's an Australia map that's only 142.1 MB on the TomTom website, so that should fit easily.

You'll probably have to temporarily move your UK map onto your PC to make room, but it's all possible.
Have a look here, to see if you want to spend the money.

If you want to go ahead, we can talk you through removing the UK map before you use TomTom Home to buy and install the new map.

 

[Gilly]

Thanks again
I was guessing that was what I would need to buy even if I eventually used another device. As long as I could save my UK maps & restore later I would be happy to buy & upload the Australia maps to my existing machine. Is there an on-line guide that I could read through to decide if I'm capable of doing it. Thanks again

 

[Andy_P]

not sure if there's an on-line guide as such, but it's pretty straightforward.

The map itself AND the all-important key files that lock it to your device are all in the named map folder (something like "Great_Britain_and_Ireland" or "United_Kingdom_and_Eire", I forget exactly as I've only got Europe maps here)

So a simple way is just to connect to the PC and use Widows Explorer to move that folder off the TomTom to somewhere very safe on the PC, just like you would do when you make a backup but MOVING not COPYING.

Then, you would run the TT HOME utility on the computer and go to the "Buy Maps" section to add the new one.

Alternatively, I if you go there first, withoout deleting the map, Home SHOULD be clever enough to work out the space needed and to tell you that it needs to move the UK map off onto your computer, and then do it all for you, followed by installing the new one.

I've never done it that way because there USED to be some issues with where the map got put if you had a model with both internal memory and a card slot, but I think they sorted that out long ago.

 

[Gilly]

Andy Apologies for not thanking you sooner but everything appears to have worked exactly as you said (I suppose proof will be if it works in Australia) Many thanks again for all your help. Best wishes

 

[Andy_P]

Cool!
Don't forget you can use the "Plan Route" (which used to be called "A-B Advance planning") to plan a route or two in Australia before you go there, just to check it's all working.

You need to use Manage maps / Switch map to switch to the Australia map
Then use Plan route to set a start point and destination (using any of the normal ways such as Street Address, Point on map, City Centre).
Once it's calculated the route you can use "Details" on the summary screen and then "Show Route demo" to actually see it working.

When you actually get to Australia, do be prepared for the TomTom to take quite a long time to "find itself", so don't wait until you're actually in the hire car coming out of the Airport carpark before you switch it on!