NaviGadget

tomtom navigator 5 review on T-Mobile MDA with OnCourse GPS receiver

Jul 28, 2006 bluetooth, gps navigation, reviews, software, tomtom

A nice short review of the TomTom Navigator 5, T-Mobile MDA, and OnCourse GPS receiver combo was done recently on theunwired. If bought seperately, these items cost $150, $300, and $130 respectively. The reviewer was able to get the TomTom Navigator 5 and the OnCourse combo for about $200, so that sounds like a good deal. Overall the review says good things about all three gadgets with some minor issues such as two applications sharing the audio on the MDA. Long story short, here are the pros and cons:

Pros

• Long battery life
• Quick satellite acquisition time (a.k.a start up time)
• Decent user interface, big icons
• Strong GPS signal
• Real time traffic info available and built into routing software (extra cost though)
• Certainly can take you from point A to point B without your traditional map

Cons

• Software in CD format (too many disks)
• Map loading via PDA is slow
• Slow application startup time
• Clumsy point of interest navigation UI
• Some routes might not be optimal or map might not be up to date

Review also talks about TomTom Traffic. This service, which costs around 40 Euros in Europe, is offered as trial in the US for free.

Getting real time traffic, IMO, is a key function for routing software. TomTom Traffic does not provide official service in the US at the moment. But I heard from support that there is a free trial going on between now and end of the year in the US. I decided to sign up for it. To do that, I first had to sign up for an account on the TomTom web site. Then set up Service Account in Change Preference using my email address and password.

To use real time traffic, I had to plan a route first. Then I went to TomTom Traffic and Update Traffic Info to get the latest traffic info on that route. It allowed constant traffic info download and let me determine the time interval. I set it for manual update as I don’t want my EDGE data to be used continuously during commute, since I cannot receive phone calls while using EDGE data.