Garmin GPS Receiver

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

I move to the Dallas/Fort Worth area at the start of 2010 and I found out the hard way that I really needed lane assist on my GPS. I was frustrated with the Garmin I had, which was an older model and it needed a map update. So I needed a GPS that had lane assist and found this one with life time map update and traffic. I had only used a Garmin so I wanted to try a Tom Tom out and the XL 335TM wasn’t on the market yet. So I went and bought a 340 to use in the mean time. I found the maps more accurate with the Tom Tom. I could start entering my destination while still in my apartment complex setting still. When I done this on the Garmin it thought I was on the near by interstate. It kept saying recalculating when I would get out onto the freeway. I used the 340 for 13 days since that was as long as I could before I couldn’t return it for a full refund. I then went and tried out a Magellen with a 7 inch screen. The unit was so heavy it kept falling off the windshield. The maps was the same as the Garmin, couldn’t enter my destination while setting in my apartment complex. Only the Tom Tom had the streets of the apartment complex in its maps. Then I quickly returned the Magellen, which I did not like. The Magellen couldn’t find some addresses and wouldn’t even let you enter them. However, once you got to the place it would show the address correctly. I also tried a new Garmin which didn’t correct the situation of knowing I was at my apartment complex and not on the near by interstate. I was able to try all three major brands and I can tell you I am so please with the Tom Tom which has by my opinion the BEST MAPS. The unit came with the traffic interface cord and the IQ maps works great in the DFW area. It will route you around the heavy traffic and get you to the destinations quicker. Sometime I have to go out in the middle of the night, it will take you on the interstate and most direct route, but during the day it will take you to a different route but get you there faster then the interstate. I like that. If you ever think you will be in a large metroplex area even once let me advise you to get a GPS with lane assist. You will have to glance up at the unit to see in the lower left hand corner what highlighted lane you need to be in. You can’t always depend on what it is saying. Also it will let you know if you are going too fast in the lower right hand corner. The basic operation is a little different then the Garmin and the Magellen, but now that I am use to it I like it better. It is a lot easier to find as designation with zip code and I am used to a QWERTY keyboard layout which is the default setting. One other thing I might add is that you have to use the USB cable that came with the unit to update it. The cable that came with my camera would fit, but kept saying the Tom Tom was unknown device. At first I thought it was the Tom Tom unit itself after the first update, but I was using the wrong cable. Also the Tom Tom servers that update the software with have a slow connection. The update took almost an hour even with my fast 12 mbps connection speed. When picking a GPS unit you really have to ask yourself what features you want. I recommend the lane assist feature in this GPS unit. It has saved me a lot of wrong turns.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

Received an XL335TM as a gift yesterday and spent over 7 hours today trying to get it to work properly. Out of the box and into the car and it turned up nicely. I entered my home data sitting in the driveway and decided to give it a test drive. I picked the post office from the POI list and let it select a route. The first thing I noticed was the voice just told me to “turn left in 100 yards”, no announcing of street names. I made sure I had a computer generated voice selected since the recorded voices don’t give street names. I did, but it didn’t work.

Second thing I noticed was that the traffic function was searching for signal and couldn’t find one. When I got to the post office (almost) it announced I had reached my destination. Not quite. I was still a good quarter of a mile away. At the post office, I entered Home as my new destination and followed the directions back. When I got within about four hundred yards of home, with still a right hand turn to make, it announced I had reached my destination. Sitting in my driveway I could see the logo of a house around the corner and down the block. It told me the house number where I sat was 180 instead of 130, which was shown as being around the corner. Bummer, zero for two on finding actual locations.

I made my first of about 8 calls to tech support. On the positive side, my wait for an agent was always short with a couple of minutes being the longest wait. All the agents were very polite and must have been located in the US based on their clear use of the English language. That was a plus. They all tried to be very helpful and seemed to understand how to proceed in solving the problems.

I then proceeded to download the latest version of the application and the latest map for North America to fix the location and the traffic reception problems. That process took several hours and it didn’t make a difference. It still thought my house was around the block and there still was no traffic data reception. Then we played games with downloading, installing, uninstalling various voices. Trying to install voices on the GPS kept resulting in error messages. I was then instructed to format the unit and reinstall everything. I followed the format instructions but Windows came back saying it was unsuccessful in performing the format. At that point, the GPS unit stopped communicating with TomTom Home and my PC no longer saw the unit on the USB port. I changed ports and that didn’t matter either.

I was offered an RMA code to send the unit back. I said not to bother. I was TAKING the unit back and getting a refund.

Oh yes, the screen touch sensitivity is really strange. I found the adjacent letter often being recognized vs the one I pressed or at least intended to press. I found I needed to be very deliberate and slow in pressing a key to get it to enter properly. And then I ran the risk of the letter being entered multiple times. So just typing a street name correctly was a chore. The same was true of changing pages. Sometimes what I thought was one touch to change a page was interpreted as two or three touches resulting me getting to a totally different page than I had intended.

This has been a real disappointing experience. I have an old TomTom (120 or 140), which doesn’t speak street names or have traffic (but neither did the 355TM) and it has an old map which accurately knows where my house is. It works fine and I think I’ll just stick with it and save my wife $170 on the gift she gave me.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

The PC software (TomTom HOME) doesn’t work correctly with this GPS out of the box. Plug in, click update, and it doesn’t have space (on the GPS to install the updates. That’s 100% stock. Activation Code (for lifetime maps, etc) also didn’t work. Phone support said mine was the first phone call he had ever received for the 335 product. Had me manually remove all the languages on the GPS other than English (great other than no so helpful if I have someone that needs another language in the car) then try the update again… Failed to write to the GPS on download. During reboot the unit switched to Dutch for a bit… Re-done manually – transfered files over, after slicking the flash space (read from a help forum), and the maps work, but it doesn’t work with the FM traffic (included, that’s the T in the model name), and the activation code for the updates still doesn’t work. Software glitches at such a fundamental level that it is clear TomTom didn’t QC the US maps with TomTom HOME in combination with this product (335TM).

That aside…

Good things on the 335TM:
-The mount is great so far, very solid
-Routing quality is very good

Bad things (some duplication vs above):
-Screen completely washes out with sunlight
-Zeros are often omitted on spoken directions. Eg, the 405 freeway would be called out as 4,5. 805 would be called out as Interstate 8,5. (coma indicating separate digits spoken)
-FM traffic not working with map on the unit
-Activation doesn’t work
-Errors on updates/transfers forcing restart
-TomTom HOME tries to install things that will not fit (by default on first click up-date)
-TomTom technical support saying future map sets would be broken up, so parts of the country could be left off to free space. This is a new GPS bought in 2010; I haven’t had to break up mapsets on Garmin GPSs since their StreetPilot III. 4GB of flash is /cheap/, and all this set takes is a bit over 2GB. Poor cost cutting on the part of TomTom.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

Got this as a Gold Box special a couple of weeks ago. My old GPS, a TomTom GO 720 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator that never quite worked completely right, was freezing up too often and I couldn’t get the data service to link up with my new Blackberry, thereby killing the benefit of the traffic subscription. I actually really liked the 720 when it worked (though that was intermittently), which is why I was willing to consider another TomTom in spite of the issues. Besides, the Magellans don’t impress me, I hate my wife’s Garmin (constant moans of “re-cal-cu-la-ting” and last-second turn instructions wear thin), and I’m not about to spend many hundreds of dollars on glorified versions of the free Google Maps app on my phone.

That said, it was a good Gold Box deal and about what I paid for the 720 just over a year ago. Considering lifetime maps and traffic were included, it was tough to pass up. I didn’t need a ton of bells and whistles, so it seemed to fit the bill of a good replacement for the old one. I didn’t pay close enough attention to the product description, so I failed to notice the lack of an SD slot, but, seeing as how I’ve never used it on my 720, that wasn’t a problem. Well, did I get a good deal?

OUT OF THE BOX

The 335 has the same size screen as the 720 and is just a smidge smaller, except when the ring mount is attached making it significantly thicker and not as portable (though I think most people wouldn’t be packing it that way). The suction cup attachment seems much more adhesive than that of the 720, which I was constantly pushing back against the window since it fell off at least once a week. The little recessed cubby for the USB power/computer connection is a bit of a pain, requiring more digging around than I’d like. Overall, its physical ergonomics are pretty pleasing and it seems quite secure when driving.

UPDATING THE MAPS

Here’s where the first issues came up. If you’ve looked at other reviews, you know I’m not alone in troubles. I already had the TomTom software installed on my XP netbook from my previous GPS, so I was as close to plug and play as one could get. I logged in, switched my account to the new device and it immediately asked me if I wanted to update the map through the Latest Map Guarantee, something that’s promised on all TomToms out-of-box (in case yours has been sitting on a shelf for a while). I did. And so began a process of downloading that took about 90 minutes on my fairly quick Internet connection. Of course, once that was all downloaded, I had another excruciating wait while it transferred the ‘latest’ map to the unit.

Fine. I put in my time and was ready to get going. But then I got to the ‘Update” screen that lets you know if there are new GPS fixes or Map Share corrections. Strangely, there was a new North America map for me to download. Didn’t I just do this? Based on my experience with the 720 (and logical programming in general) I decided to go ahead and click through, figuring the software would tell me if this new map was already on the device. Either the software is really dumb or the ‘latest’ map I got under the guarantee wasn’t in fact the most recent*, because I waited for another few hours while it went through the machinations and installed the new map on my device.

(*I supposed there’s the very slight chance that TomTom put out a new map in the time since I first hooked up the new unit, but, as you’re about to see, that probably wasn’t the case.)

OK, so two updates to get the ‘latest’ map. Things could be worse, I suppose. Right? Right. I entered my registration code for the free lifetime maps and *SHOCKER* I was told there was yet another new North America map. This time, I took note of the version numbers: The update took me from version 830.2284 to 850.2781. I’m no mathematical wizard, but that seems like a pretty big jump from one version to the next. Three hours later (and about half a day after I first connected to the system), I finally had the last of TomTom’s ‘latest’ updates installed. Not a good way to start. It makes the all the guarantees offered by the company seem just a little disingenuous.

ON THE ROAD (INCLUDING COMPARISONS TO MY GO 720)

This screen is dim. At 100% brightness on the day settings, it’s about half of my 720′s illumination. This is annoying. It’s not the worst thing in the world for me, since I have good eyesight, but I don’t like it and I think it would make the unit unusable for many people (my wife included).

Initial routing is sloooooooow. I would get annoyed when my 720 was taking more than about 10-15 seconds to plan my trip. That is light speed compared to this sloth of a machine. Changing my destination means I better put aside a minute or more of my life while the new GPS goes into a state of deep reflection. If I’m already moving and want to avoid the traffic delays ahead, I better remember upcoming directions since the screen will go into a mapless ‘analyzing’ display for sixty or more seconds. Once it has analyzed alternatives, it might ask if I want to avoid toll roads or carpool lanes. No matter what my answer, it will then go through all the analyses again. Seriously? It couldn’t have accounted for the two different possibilities before asking me? Better yet, it couldn’t have asked up front so it could simply get it right the first time? I never had any kind of lag issue like this with the 720.

On the other hand, maybe all that advanced planning helps a little if you’re prone to going off course. I’ve found that when I pass on one of the directed turns with the 335, it’s much quicker to re-plot than the 720. I really don’t know what’s more bothersome: having to wait to get going or having to wait to get my course corrected when making the slightest deviation.

The RDS traffic service seems less reliable than the traffic updates I got through the phone data with my 720. Whereas I could pretty much rely on the 720′s ‘Go’ traffic being gospel, the 335′s RDS traffic accuracy was pretty spotty this past weekend on a road trip to San Diego. At one point around San Juan Capistrano, I went about 10 miles in 25 minutes, but the GPS was telling me my road was free and clear.

Voice routing is really odd. I never used the spoken street names feature with the 720, opting instead for one of the more natural-sounding voices simply telling me where to turn and such. The 335′s computer voice has some quirks. Firstly, pronunciation is really spotty. Living in Southern California, I’m obviously surrounded by streets and cities with Spanish names. All I ask is for some consistency: Either give it the authentic Spanish treatment or completely Anglocize it. You can’t say ‘Loss Ahnheles.’ It’s either ‘LOHS Ahnheles’ or ‘Loss Anjelez.’ Don’t split the difference. Hearing ‘San Joaquin’ is even more painful. On the other hand, the computer lady does say ‘San Diego’ as if she’s Ron Burgundy explaining the city’s rich German roots, so that’s pretty funny.

Someone else mentioned that the computer voice doesn’t pronounce the ’0′ for highways such as 101 or 405. Mine doesn’t ignore the ’0,’ she just has some kind of reading disorder. When she wants me to take I-405, for example, she says “four-WEST-five.” Highway 101 becomes “one-WEST-one.” The only way I can begin to make any sense of why this happens is that the computer reads the ’0′ not as ‘zero,’ but as the letter ‘O.’ Since ‘O’ would be the indicator for ‘west’ in the Frenchier parts of Canada, maybe the 335 is trying to show off its worldliness. Of course, that’s just a theory, though I can’t think of any other remotely plausible reason the GPS would be doing something so dumb.

THE VERDICT
As I said in the title, I’m not sure if I’m keeping this thing. It’s got some quirks I find very bothersome and much of it does not live up to my good experiences with 720 when it was working its best. On the other hand, I’m not going to find similar amenities at a comparable price and, more than not, the 335 does the basic job for which I need it. I think the question comes down to whether I feel good about rewarding TomTom for regressing their technology, not to mention they lost a lot of credibility as a company with the repeated map downloads despite their ‘latest map guarantee.’

Frankly, if I could get the 720 to link up to my new phone, I’d be keeping that one even with all its issues. The 335 is working well enough to keep me considering it, but it’s far from giving me the warm fuzzies. The next couple of days will find me doing some serious research to see if there’s a better unit to be had without making a huge financial leap. If not, I’ll probably keep it, but I don’t think I’ll ever be too excited about it.

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UPDATE AUGUST 27, 2010
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OK, so I ended up keeping it. I’m still not going to endorse it as a fantastic unit, but I think it’s good enough for most needs if you’re not comfortable crossing the $125 (or thereabouts) barrier on a GPS.

I’ve not yet followed the instructions for improving the voiced directions someone posted in a comment to this review, so I can’t speak to whether the problems I complained about are fixable. Just as a further example of how schizophrenic the voice is, however, I’ve noticed that she can do an admirable job with the street name ‘Cahuenga’ but ‘Sacramento’ is mangled beyond belief to become something that roughly sounds like ‘sah-ka-la-mah-kis.’ It’s actually impressive how many consonants are omitted and replaced by others to make California’s capital sound like a Greek shipping company. I now have to mute it when my wife is in the car because she’s not amused with my fascination at how ridiculous most of the spoken names are.

Nagging issues continue to be the dim screen, the ’4-west-5′ thing, and the points of interest lacking completeness sometimes. An example of the latter was when I was across town and had a sudden hankering for Del Taco (don’t judge me!). I thought I was near one I knew from when I lived near there, so I put ‘Del Taco’ into the search. A half-dozen within a few miles came up quickly, but the one I was thinking of wasn’t listed. I remembered where it should be and drove the eight blocks or so to get there. Right where I thought it would be, but the GPS didn’t know about it. Same thing’s happened with a couple of other chain stores, like Lowe’s. Very odd to me.

I should mention that the biggest nagging issue might be the multi-step, analysis mode of replanning routes. It gets ridiculous. Whether replotting to avoid traffic or part of a route, it’s a waste of time and patience for the unit to spend a minute or so analyzing alternatives, present a list of said alternatives with the travel time and distance of each, have the user select which alternative, then go through further analysis on the route allegedly just analyzed. Basically, it’s the equivalent of asking your navigator to plot out three courses, calculating the distance of each, selecting one of the options, then having the navigator re-plot what was already done to create the options in the first place. Silly.

Another note I forgot to include initially, despite the ‘quick fix’ updates, it takes a minute or so for the unit to pick up satellites when leaving my garage. Also, in one of the first outings with it, I actually lost all satellite signal for a couple of minutes on a stretch of open highway between Burbank and Sherman Oaks. I feel like it might have happened one other time, but, since I can’t speak to it with specificity, I won’t ding it too badly here. It’s just odd.

AMENDED VERDICT: A decent stopgap for those looking for basic-plus (maps and traffic) options who don’t want to drop a bunch of cheddar while waiting for the industry to get it right and put out better systems. Don’t expect too much and you won’t be too disappointed.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

I want to start by saying that I have never written a review of a product in my life. I felt like I had to on this item to make sure nobody else fell into the same trap and purchased this gps. I cannot imagine a worse product.

When the device first comes in you have to use an activation code on the software. To do this you have to have the latest set of maps, which apparently is not preloaded. This is where my problems began. I updated the maps on the gps, which takes three hours to download. Now when I tried to use the gps it said No Maps Found! This was my first call into tech support. Its possible that I called at a busy time, but I was on hold waiting for an agent for 30 minutes. They walked me through multiple steps to remove the maps and redownload, which takes three hours to download. So they gave me a number and asked me to call back if I had any issues. It still didn’t work so I had to call back. Again I waited on hold for 30 minutes. I spoke to a tech who was able to walk me through some items to get the maps to show up. Finally, a working gps unit that only took me 8-10 hours to get working out of the box.

But, when I went out to plug into the car the traffic would not work. This is on of the features that made the purchase attractive. The antenna did work because it looked to find the traffic and the machine said that traffic was not compatible with the map. So I proceeded to call the tech line again and open a new support call number. I waited on hold for 30 minutes. I spoke to someone who asked me to reformat the drive. They had me copy the map file to my desktop which took an hour. Then I reformatted the drive and it cleared everything off. I copied the map file back onto the TomTom drive, which also took an hour. The machine was back to No Maps Found! So then I called back, 30 minutes on hold. The next person I spoke with said that the previous person should not have told me to reload the old maps. So she had me delete the maps and redownload the maps again, which takes three hours.

At this point the maps would not install because there was an error with the file. I called to speak with a tech again, only on hold for 15 minutes this time. She said that TomTom products are not compatible with 64-bit operating systems and that we could keep trying but it might not work. So after all this time that I spent going back and forth trying new things, the gps is might not even be compatible with my OS. The tech agreed with me that spending 10-20 hours trying to get something to work out of the box is ridiculous.

I am sending this back. I would never buy this product or another TomTom again. If you want a gps, do yourself a favor and get a Garmin.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

I was hesitant about buying the 335TM because of all the negative reviews about what happens when you hook it up to your computer. I have now had it for about two weeks, and I am delighted with it. This is my first GPS, so I have nothing to compare it to, but it has done everything I could have expected of it. It took me from North Carolina to Maine, including a trip into and out of Boston, without a hitch. When I deviate from the programmed route, it reprograms and comes up with a modified route without any difficulty whatever. I have been in Portland, Maine for the last week, and it has taken me from my home address to Sam’s Club (surprisingly, one of the many Points of Interest in its database), for example, and when I don’t know a street address it can take me to the nearest crossing. After a little initial fussing — there was a short learning curve — I found it to be extremely easy to program.

I am absolutely satisfied with what it has done for me so far. I can’t imagine expecting more of a GPS device. But here’s the one hitch: because of the negative reviews I have not tried to use my computer to download new maps. I will have to do that soon, and if it gets me into trouble I will report it here. I have also not had to deal with support.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

So, why a 5 Star rating? The TomTom XL 335TM is certainly not perfect. It in fact has notable issues. But, in comparison to other PND’s I have recently owned, Garmin, Magellan, and an another TomTom, the XL 355 delivers what I believe to be solid navigational basics. This “5″ rating then, is a “I am happy with it and have quit looking for another GPS rating.

The important navigational basics for me are accurate maps, safe directions, reliable routing, and useful POI’s. The two most evil deal breakers I lived with on other PND’s are the ever present “new” but still out of date maps and the all too frequent poor routing. The XL 355 is a substantial cut above in dealing with these evils because of its User Map Correction Tools and IQ routing: In congested city freeway driving, these two features are a deal maker for me.

Given, my bias for the above essential features, below are my comparisons and XL 335 experiences to date.

The XL 355 display: it washes out badly in strong sunlight, which could-should be a deal breaker. Both Garmin & Magellan exhibit this issue, but to a much lesser degree. I purchased a Glare-Stomper shade that successfully mitigated this problem. The XL display was described by one reviewer as cartoonish, and it is a bit yesterday. However, the display colors can be changed, with helps, and the touch and drag work fine. By comparison, Garmin & Magellan both have outstanding displays.
The TomTom Mount(award winning?),I found to be awkward in use and a bit of a pain for everyday in and out of the car use. This mounts compact design and no vertical adjustment substantially limits viewable placement options. I purchased an Akron Mount to solve this issue.
The XL 335 Menu structure is not intuitive and a bit annoying, but learnable. The Garmin & Magellan are so much more user friendly in this area.
No user manual. The XL 335 is complex with many adjustments, features, including designable menus. A manual is necessary to make effective use of this device. I printed a 5″x8″ booklet size manual to solve this issue. Garmin also had no manual but the unit’s great menu structure largely offset this issue. Magellan has a brief but very helpful manual.
The Garmin’s poor maps and faulty routing made it all but useless for me in the Seattle area and the Magellan was slow & behind actual road position by 1 to 3 seconds: this can be really scary on freeways.

Features I like on the XL 335:
IQ routing & user map corrections made it a keeper for me. I like being able to route to a point on the display when the XL cannot find the address. I also like being able to select what and how much info is on the display and being able to reduce display distraction by setting display to turn of at a set road speed: great in congested city traffic. Also like the accuracy and excellent lead time on the display & on spoken directions. I frequently use routing by voice only with video off. Traffic delay info displayed with causes for delay I find to be very helpful in the Seattle area. Timely routing estimates: on a 127 mile trip, I arrived at destination within 3 minutes of the original IQ Routing estimate.

So, I had to accept some menu confusion and spend an additional $30 to correct mounting and display washout problems, but still a “5 Star deal for me.”

The unit arrived in perfect working order. Maps and other files updated without issue. (1.5 hours for first update.). Traffic info and Traffic Camera options needed to be downloaded but were free. There are many online complaints about TomTom map updating failings. My experience suggests you connect the XL 335 to a computer and let it scan for updates and then handle the map update on its own. Most problems reports I have reviewed occurred when users chose to select and mange map updates from within the TomTom Home application.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

Let me start with the fact that I will be the last one to badmouth TomTom GPS. I have gone through five TomTom GPS in 8 years, some lower end, a couple of higher end, and this one is an outlier worst one. For example, I had searched my home with probably close to a hundred different electronic maps, including dozens of GPS and cell phone maps, this is the first and only one that put it a few blocks away. The community was built in the 90s, so it’s not a new address. Tomtom must be using an absurd map different from anyone else and different from all it had on other devices. What is happening? Searched a few places I know and all of them were placed on a few blocks away from their real location on the map. This never happened before and I had a hard time to comprehend its happening.

I still wanted to give it a chance, so I installed the TomTom Home software, and tried to update the map. After almost an hour of waiting, it finally told me ‘an error while writing files’. Reading other customer feedback posted here, it was likely a result of insufficient disk space. Well, my guess was wrong. After an automatic reboot of the GPS after the installation, it displayed a bloody-red warning on the screen: “You cannot use this map on this device: North_America_P-165″. The only allowable action is a big ‘OK’ button. The GPS had been bricked.

As a programmer, I take it granted that all software come with bugs, but this one is broken beyond repair.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

I’ll preface this by saying I have had a Mio Moov200 3.5″ PND for a couple years and this year received a Magellan 1440 4.3″ PND. I sold the Magellan for a few reasons: It had screen lag where the pointer was off about 100 feet on the move and there was little customization.

The Tomtom 335TM has just about everything I want in a PND. The lifetime maps and traffic were big selling points. I like the fact that there are quarterly map updates and the FM traffic doesn not have pop up ads like Garmin. Garmin does have a brighter screen.

The IQ routes works great. It seems to pick roads that I would pick if I did not have a GPS. The magellan would somtimes pick wierd ways which I guess it thought was “fastest”. The tomttom just seems more intelligent picking a route although it is a tad slower than garmin/magellan.

The map graphics are not as nice as Garmin or Magellan but are functional and informative. I love the lower dashboard showing distance to next turn in BIG numbers for easy viewing. I like the distance-to-go, arrival time and speed display there as well.

I really like adding new POI categories using [...] and other sites. Super easy with tomtom. Magellan has a bit easier interface for finding POI’s but Tomtom gets the job done and the more I use it the easier it is.

Customization: You can select pre-defined or custom map colors, voices, etc. Tons of stuff on tomtom HOME community.

The fold-n-go mount is ok and I use it as backup in truck. I bought a better mount off ebay for around $[...] that is more adjsutable and rigid.

I highly reccomend this GPS. It just works really great and is fun to play with.

This review is from: TomTom XL 335TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition) (Electronics)

I got my TomTom XL335TM as soon as they were available in April 2010. The traffic update feature is fantastic. On a trip to Philadelphia it warned me of a traffic jam and asked me if I would like to routed around it, I pressed yes and it took me on a road I never knew about saving me time. I was very impressed. You do have to be plugged into your power outlet for the traffic receiver to work, since the receiver is part of the power cord that is shipped with the unit. I also hooked my XL335TM up to my laptop and used the activation key to download the latest map. It takes a while to download and install so leave yourself enough time before you start. This is my second TomTom, I bought an early edition of the One in 2006. If this unit is as rugged and reliable as my last TomTom that I still use on my motorcycle, the lifetime map update will be very handy to have years down the road. I see that a few reviewers here have had difficulty using theirs but I can recommend this unit without reservation. I paid $169 w/free 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime. Good deal on a great GPS!

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