I am sorry if I am gaining a reputation for asking vague questions.
TomTom is trying to persuade me to buy a new satnav. Leaving aside the questions of whether a smartphone would be better, and the real time data, would a new device offer me a better experience? I assume it would be much faster in its calculations. However, would it show more sophistication in calculating routes and providing guidance, or would it essentially be the same algorithms and same outcomes?
I had a perfectly good TomTom, but a few years back the company decided they weren't going to support it any more, so I can't get updates or new maps. They offered a discount on a new one, but I was pissed-off with their behaviour and so did not take this up. (Our current car has a built-in satnav anyway, so I was only using it for hired cars on holiday trips.)
I have a TomTom Start 50 (standalone, no wifi or sim etc), which is ancient, but still gets map updates, and increasingly infrequent OS updates, but it does the job (mainly on local journeys reminding me of speed alerts etc). I've stopped paying for camera updates a couple of years ago. Tomtom are always trying to get me to update to a newer model, but I'm not going to pay for another TomTom unit when the likes of Waze etc are free. I've largely transitioned to Waze (which doesn't require another SIM which probably a new TomTom unit would for live updates) for long/challenging journeys where I need traffic updates, and it benefits from the community aspect of other Wazer reporting events (other providers do exist). I don't bother with the onboard (Peugeot) satnav: too clunky.
Back in 2011, I had an issue with TomTom, lorry drivers would follow their routes, and would land up trying to make a 130 deg. turn in front of my house. When asked why they wee following a clearly wrong route, they always replied "I was only following the TomTom". Never Garmin, or any other device, always TomTom. I managed to create a TomTom account, and found a forum on their server dedicated to people complaining about TomTom, and there were many, many of them. A very common complaint was the continuous updating of hardware without any compatibility with earlier devices, requiring the purchase of a new device if you wanted to keep up. Followed by the cessation of support of "old" devices. Then one day the forum disappeared, due, according to TomTom, to lack of interest. More like lack of interest on their part in tackling any of the issues raised.
Could it be they were using 'TomTom' as a generic term, as in 'Hoover the bedroom' or 'Sellotape' (instead of sticky backed plastic)?
No. TomTom has never been commonly used as a generic term for satellite navigation.
BTW Sellotape i not what Blue Peter called 'sticky back plastic' - that was Fablon
Is 'decrotive' the new 'nukular'?
You know that you'll be here again in a couple of years or so asking the same question of your new satnav.
The problem is that the smartphone will go through the same cycle, but with less frequency, more flexbility, multiple choices of on-line and off-line navigation. Once you've bought a dedicated satnav you have but one choice.
My old Garmin got no further use once I found myself "driving in a field" as a new roundabout hadn't appeared.
If you really want the TomTom Experience, you could buy a TomTom app:
Theo
In message snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org>, AnthonyL snipped-for-privacy@please.invalid writes
Garmin horror stories, in no particular order.
Heading up the M4 to visit someone. It told me to turn left in x hundred yards. The problem was that there was no junction there, but there was a bridge over the motorway, which carried a road to my destination.
In the middle of North Wales, having started to tell me how to get home, it announced that it couldn't work out how to complete the journey (I was on a long standing A road at the time).
I found my self "driving across fields" on a number of occasions, even though the A roads I was on had been there since at least the 19th century.
I concluded that it made a good paper weight, although it has since been retired to the council's small electronic device recycling skip..
Adrian
My TomTom died - battery won't hold charge, and the sticker for the windscreen broke. The battery thing might not have been a real issue, except that it didn't hibernate it turned off. Requiring a cold boot at the start of every journey.
I now use my 'phone instead. Waze isn't quite as good as the TomTom app, and I can't work out how to tell it to shut up about level crossings, but it's free and it's good enough.
Andy
Subscribe to TomTom GO mobile app
Thank you for the clarification. I hate to think for how many years I have been mistaken.
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