NaviGadget

TomTom GO Live 740 reviews around the web

May 14, 2009 gps navigation, reviews, tomtom

TomTom GO Live 740 recently got a bunch of reviews and we wanted to share a few of those here at Navigadget – all on one page:

Engadget

…Trying to check the local weather forecast? Expect to wait a minute or two for the GO 740 LIVE to queue up the data; meanwhile, you can get the information you’re after and reply to a few emails on your handset. For those with no smartphone and no data plan, the connected features are certainly more appealing, but we still argue they aren’t worth $120 per year. Spotty traffic alerts, slow-to-load weather forecasts and marginally stale fuel price updates just aren’t worth paying extra for, especially after you just laid down so much money for the device itself…

Gizmodo

…This past week I drove around with the new $400 TomTom Go 740 LIVE, both around town and on a road trip, and I was shocked to see that the problems I used to bitch about years ago still persist. What good are turn-lane guidance, connected searches and live traffic and weather—let alone user-editable community-powered mapping tools—when the basic experience sucks so painfully?…

GPS Review
Mostly in response to Gizmodo “review”…

Yes, the graphics are not quite as crisp as Garmin devices. That is true. But it hardly impacts my ability to get to the destination. It isn’t so ugly that I have to turn away in horror. And the screen refresh rates of TomTom devices are frequently cited by customers as being faster than many of the newer Garmin devices.

And from the UK

pocket-lint

But diving into TomTom Home you get a sense for how much in real terms this type of device will cost you. After the initial outlay of £340 odd, the Live services will cost you £7.99 a month, and if you want the latest maps, to be constantly updated with these, (aside from user corrections) will again cost you more. Playing into that idea of being an everyday device, this cost may be worth it, but if you buy the TomTom for holiday use twice a year, it doesn’t look like good value for money.

pcpro

The speech recognition tools are another area of improvement, adding the ability to control various aspects of the device – such as switching between 2D and 3D views as well as simply entering addresses. We found this worked well, but though it recognised street names and cities okay, it occasionally had difficulty in recognising numbers, bizarrely.