TomTom GO 920T
As of this writing, the TomTom GO 920T is the top of the line GPS system from TomTom. No holding back, no features left out for other higher end models. And for North American users the 920T and 920 is currently the only model to offer voice prompted address entry. This model also comes with a remote control, an RDS-TMC traffic receiver, and European map coverage in addition to the North American maps. So how well does it all work?
The TomTom 920T builds on what the 720 offers. There are many new features added to the 920, so we are only going to focus on the attributes that differentiate it from the 720. We’ll have plenty to cover. 
North America & Europe Mapping
The 920T adds mapping of both North America and Europe in the internal memory. If those maps are not enough– say you are going to Australia– then you can load maps onto an SD card and put the card into the empty SD card slot. There is only about 170 MB of free space left on the internal 4GB drive. Of course there is a pond in between North America and Europe, so to access the European maps, go to [Menu -> Change Preferences -> Manage Maps -> Switch Maps] sometime as you cross the Atlantic.
Voice Assisted Address Entry
I think what most people will be interested in hearing about is voice prompted address entry, with the question “does it work?”. In a word, yes. But there are some things you should know. There are two methods you can use to enter an address using voice prompts, the way that works and the way that doesn’t.
Spoken Address
Spoken Address is the way that doesn’t work. Well, that might be too harsh. When you select Spoken Address the 920 will ask you for a city, you speak the name of a city. The 920 listens for your requested city and responds with a list of cities that sound like what you said. Then you tap (yes, with your finger) on the city you are looking for. Next you speak the name of the street, wait for the suggestions, and tap on your street. This method is a hybrid between spoken commands and a purely touch screen input method. While it does avoid having to use a keyboard to spell things out, it still requires frequent taps on the screen to enter an address. If you’re going to go for it, you might as well jump in with two feet, so I didn’t like this method that much.
Spoken Address (Dialog)
This method is what most people will think of for voice prompted address entry. After entering this command, it asks you to say a city. After listening for your city, it presents you with a numbered list of cities that sound like what you said. You can then speak the number that represents the city you were looking for. If the correct match is at the top of the list, you simply say “one”.
The same goes for entering a street. You say the name of the street and the TomTom 920T responds with a list of streets that sound like they could be good matches, and you speak the number next to the name of the correct street. Once you have the city/street, you speak the digits for the street number. So you would say “one nine zero zero” for 1900. Assuming the 920 hears you right, you then can say “done” to calculate a route to that location.
So how well does it work?
I got in the car, started it up, and safely parked on the side of a highway where I would have some good background noise of cars speeding by. I also opened the windows a bit to let in more sound to better simulate the noise environment while driving. Then, I had a list of 100 addresses printed out and went through each one to see how often the TomTom 920 would hear me right.
The results? 92% pass rate. So there were four times that for whatever reason I couldn’t complete the address through voice prompts alone and needed to resort to the keyboard. That doesn’t tell the complete story though, there were a couple of times when it didn’t hear me properly on the first try and I needed to go back (something you can still do with voice control) and say something over again. That happened 28% of the time. So overall, 72% of the time it heard the city, street, and street number without me needing to repeat myself, and 92% of the time I was able to enter the address entirely with voice prompts, without touching the touchscreen.
72% might sound low, but even with those cases I didn’t need to use the touchscreen– I just had to repeat myself. And also there seems to be a bug whereby occasionally it doesn’t listen the first time you enter a street number. For example after selecting the street, the device asks you to enter the street number, the “waiting lips” appear in the top right indicating it is waiting for you to speak, but it doesn’t hear you the first time. The “green light” does go on… but nothing happens. Then if you speak the street number again it will recognize it just fine.
Had it not been for that glitch, which I presume can be fixed with an application update, the overall success rate on the first try would have likely been about 90%. Overall, i was happy with the results, but not ecstatic. It takes me a longer amount of time on average to enter an address by voice than it does by touchscreen. The difference is that you can keep both hands on the wheel. However I suspect most people are happy to enter their destination before they leave. And you do still need to occasionally glance over at the display to see when it is listening and to pick items from the list.
I see some room for a few other improvements as well. Sometimes after speaking the name of a city or street there was only one match for me to pick from. If there is only one likely match, why not automatically select it? Also when you enter a street number that is out of range using the touch screen method, a hint will appear showing you the valid address range for that street. The same thing doesn’t happen when using voice prompting, it simply won’t accept the number leaving you to wonder why. Even if you do recognize it might be because your number is out of range you are left guessing what a number in the range might be.
You might have noticed that nowhere did I mention state names. Changing states does require use of the touch screen. It will assume you want to search in your current state or the last state you searched in, otherwise you need to tap the state you want on the touch screen.
Two other minor issues are that it occasionally cuts itself of when speaking back to you. When it tries to say “Please state street” sometimes only “Please st” comes out. Finally, when speaking street numbers if you happen to say something that gets recognized as “cross street” I found it impossible to tell it “back” like I could when other mistakes were made.
While it may sound like there are a number of issues, let’s not forget that I did achieve a 92% success rate without touching the screen, and that is an A- in most schools. Also it isn’t uncommon to make typos while typing out addresses on the touch screen so I wouldn’t compare 92% against 100% as I’m not 100% accurate with my fingers on the touchcreen.
Voice Prompt Tips
Voice entry does take a little bit of practice. After the first few minutes I wanted to throw the thing out the window. A short time later I was getting better results, but didn’t think I’d use it since I’m faster on the touch screen. After spending a little time practicing I could see myself switching and using it.
I wanted to see how much of the voice prompting I could do without touching the screen, and here are a few tips to help setup your 920T to use voice prompting with as few touch inputs as possible.
- Setup Spoken Address (dialog) as a Quick menu item. This puts a small icon on the main navigation screen that allows you to start a voice address entry with one click rather than the four it would take you otherwise. Go to Menu -> Change Preferences -> Quick Menu Preferences -> and check the box ‘Navigate to Spoken address (dialog)’. Now when you want to enter an address by voice, just tap the new icon on the main navigation screen.
- Set the Route Summary screen to automatically disable. When activated, the Route Summary screen displayed after a route is created will automatically disappear after 10 seconds. You won’t have to click ‘Done’ after entering the destination. To change this setting to go Menu -> Change Preferences -> Planning Preferences -> Done -> and then select ‘Yes’ to the question about closing the route summary screen automatically after 10 seconds.
- Wait for the lips before you speak. The 910T will ask for you to speak something like “please state city” and then a set of lips will appear in the top right of the display. The 920 isn’t listening until you see the lips, and sometimes I was a little fast (or just impatient).
- Mute your stereo. This probably goes without saying, but the 920 might have some difficulty if it needs to figure out exactly what noise to listen to. I was able to enter addresses with the radio on at a reasonable level, but the accuracy rate did go down. Mute or pause the music and your results will certainly improve. If Tommy Tutone is playing you might wind up at street number 8675309 instead of where you were trying to go.
Remote Control
I’ve never used remote controls much with GPS devices– I typically mount them within arms reach so I never saw the need. And when talking with other owners who purchased devices with remote controls, many of them said they didn’t use them much either. But I was pleasantly surprised that they were fairly useful. I’m probably not going to run out and buy a remote for each of my devices, but it did grow on me.
The remote is very iPod like– not too many buttons, the top looks like a click-wheel, and nothing is labeled. Despite having ten unlabeled buttons, everything was quite intuitive. I never needed to pull out the manual to figure out what each button was for. In fact, the thing I had the most trouble with was just getting the (included) batteries installed. I had the right idea, but boy is that thing tight. The remote also comes with a little holder with an adhesive backing for mounting somewhere in your car.
The buttons are pretty smart and change their function based on the current screen. While navigating the up and down buttons zoom the map in and out. The left and right buttons change to the previous or next track. The center button sends you to the menu, and the volume up and down buttons change the volume of the voice prompts.
I couldn’t find many tasks that couldn’t be accomplished using the remote control. You can even go so far as to enter addresses with the remote, sliding across the on-screen keyboard with the arrow buttons on the remote. Address entry is not very fast at all when using the remote, but if your GPS is mounted too far away to reach, it will get the job done.
Enhanced Positioning Technology (EPT)
This feature allows the GPS to use its own “gut feel” to determine your location if the GPS signal goes away. Let’s say you are following a route and the road takes you underground through a tunnel… no GPS reception down there! So the device senses accelerations and decelerations to determine your movement and keep your position updated. Once you get a signal back the GPS location will take over and resume normal operations.
In the video link above you will see where we drive underneath a highway overpass and the GPS signal drops slightly, and you can see the EPT icon near the bottom right of the TomTom screen. Then after we come out the other side the GPS signal resumes.
I’ve gotten the chance to test this feature out in some of Boston’s best tunnels. The verdict? It isn’t as good as having GPS, but if it was why would we need GPS?
At the time I had three GPS devices on my dash. A Garmin Nuvi, a TomTom ONE, and this TomTom 920T. Soon after getting into the tunnel, the Nuvi would pretty much give up. It would say “Lost Satellite reception” and offer no assistance. Worse, the “error message” covered the screen so I couldn’t see what the next instruction was hiding behind the error message. I wouldn’t want to tap “OK” to that error message while in that kind of traffic, so a passenger did it for me.
The TomTom ONE didn’t perform much better, as would be expected. It seemed to try to estimate my position by just assuming I would continue on my route at the same speed. It too obviously lost my position, but tried to make some guesses about where I was.
So how did the 920T perform? Quite well! It continued to track my position quite well. Out of all the trips in and out of tunnels it correctly kept up with my position each time except for once. That time it seemed to think I had surfaced and was on a parallel street not far offset from my current location. So it didn’t work perfectly all of the time, but most of the time it was able to keep up with my position accurately and properly notify me of turns and intersections while underground.
While it didn’t perform perfectly, if I was going to be doing a ton of tunnel driving, I’d want something like the 920T with me.
Traffic Receiver
Since most all of the RDS-TMC traffic receivers on the market today are using the same underlying service (Clear Channel Total Traffic Network) I’m not going to spend too much time talking about the traffic service itself, but rather the design of the receiver and how traffic information is displayed and used on the 920T.
The traffic receiver is basically a long antenna with three suction cup mounts. It is, unfortunately, a rather ugly solution. The Garmin solution of an integrated antenna/power cable is much more elegant. Not many people go far without their power cable and the Garmin solution makes hiding away all GPS components much easier when leaving your car. Unfortunately you can’t use the Garmin receiver with your TomTom.
The TomTom RDS-TMC receiver connects to the bottom of the device, and sticks out a good inch. So if you have your GPS mounted with the suction cup mount to a horizontal surface (such as using the adhesive disc or with a third party friction mount) the screen doesn’t have enough clearance to be mounted 90° vertical. It will need to be at more like 60° which might make it more difficult to see the screen.
I also don’t see many people removing the receiver often when they leave their car. You would need to disconnect the three suction cups to pull everything down and that will just get too annoying. So instead you are left to give thieves a possible signal that there is a nice GPS in your car.
On the plus side though, it does put the antenna in a more optimal position to receive the traffic signal. In my testing it performed slightly better at finding a traffic signal than other antennas on other models connected to the same service on the same frequency. Despite having a better signal than most other receivers, my tests showed that I still didn’t get anywhere close to the range that the Clear Channel Total Traffic Network maps suggested I would get.
Once you are connected up and have a signal, the traffic information is downloaded into your device. On the right side of the screen a “traffic bar” will appear. At the top your signal status is displayed, and this location represents the end of your route. At the bottom, the beginning of your route is represented. If there are incidents along the way, those will be displayed along the traffic bar proportional to how far ahead on the route they are. If there is estimated to be a delay in your arrival time based on that incident, the number of minutes of delay will be shown. Also at the bottom is a number showing the distance ahead on your route where the next incident is.
If you are familiar with the “Browse Map” view on TomTom devices, you can also view traffic information on a screen like that. Road colors change based on the current conditions. We will have another article on the traffic service in the future, but wanted to give you a taste for now.
Purchasing Advice
If you are trying to decide between the 920 and 920T, the only difference is the traffic receiver. Regardless if you purchase the receiver with the 920T, or as an accessory to the 920, it will come with a 12 month trial subscription. However you will pay about $30 more for it as an accessory.
If you are debating about the 720 versus 920 or 920T there are more considerations. Many people will look at the 920/T due to the included European mapping. You will certainly save money by purchasing the maps this way, and will get a host of other features (remote, voice address entry) along with it. The maps of Western Europe are about $170, the remote is about $60 if purchased as an accessory. It is difficult to put a price tag on what voice prompted address entry is worth.
So if you are looking for European maps, certainly go with the 920/920T. If you want the remote or the voice address entry, you will need to decide if it is worth the additional cost. And if you frequently get lost driving underground– then a 920 or 920T is most likely in your future.
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Tim, great review, thanks. And nice video. I have no clue about the artist/song.
About the 920, quite honestly, I wonder how many people will really need *both* maps of USA and Europe on a regular basis. For me, I don’t want/need to pay extra $$$ for this.
Also, what puts me off about off about the 720/920 is the extra cable for the TMC receiver. Spaghetti dashboard! Throw in the extra 920 remote, and now I’m starting to feel my driver’s compartment get a bit cluttered…TMC cable…Cig lighter power cable…remote control…cell phone and coffee mug already in place. It is getting crowded in here!
Still…the techie in me does want to play with this feature-rich 920, and thus I can see this product being very attractive to some.
Thanks for the comments, PhillyChip. I agree, this device is for the person that wants the whole enchilada! Most people won’t need something this sophisticated for their navigation needs. But if you want all of the bells and whistles, this is it.
Tim, yesterday I’ve ordered TT 720 for my wife that will arrive soon. We live in NYC metro area and there are plenty of underpasses and tunnels in here. Is the TT720 will be so useless while driving underground? Should I cancel the TT 720 order and buy TT 920 instead?
Simon, many of the tunnels around where I live don’t have any intersections or exits underground. So once you enter the tunnel there is most often only one way out. Thus when the GPS in something like a 720 blanks out it isn’t much of a big deal as it will just pickup again on the other side.
However if you do frequently need to make exits or intersections underground and those roads are unfamiliar, having EPT in the GPS will come in handy.
Driving on the surface under an overpass really isn’t a problem as it will take more than that to drop your signal. However if you are driving downtown NYC around all of the tall buildings there could be times when EPT comes in handy there too.
Thank you very much for a timely and comprehensive response.
While driving inside a tunnel, my wife has to choose the correct lane between I-95 N, I-78 N and I-78 S (there are also exits on local streets).
I think TT 720 will not tell her in advance (before entering a tunnel what direction she should stick to) Am I right?
BR
The 720/920/920T all have a setting where you can tell it to list the “next street” in the upper right corner of the map view. So theoretically if you only need to make one turn in the tunnel then even with the 720 that “next street” indicator will still appear when you are in the tunnel. However the 920 should provide better guidance as to how far ahead that turn is and track your progress to the turn.
Tim, thank you so much.
Hi Tim,
Great report as usual. I think that i will stay with the 720. In Europe the 720 has voice recog and I don’t very often need US maps. If I bought it it would oly be for the latest gimmick factor. I will be interested however, in seeing if the 920 has as many software problems as the initial 720/Home.
Thanks again for all the good work.
Peebs24, the 920 uses so much of the same software as the 720 that I suspect issues with HOME on the 720 will be the same with the 920. However once they get fixed that too would apply to both models.
HI Tim,
Thanks for the excellent reviews. I have been looking out for a new GPS lately & have bene comparing quite a few. Can you really give some evaulation between Garmin Nuvi700 series, Magellan 4250 (voice to text) as compared to Tomtom 920T ( Voice recognition) and which one would be the best or better option.
Thanks a lot in advance , you surely are a $$ saver.
SKumar
The Nuvi 700 series doesn’t have any voice recognition capabilities. The Magellan voice recognition is used for specific commands like “go home” or “nearest hotel”, but not for address entry. Voice recognition on the TomTom is used for address entry, but no other commands.
Tim, I share others’ opinion here: excellent review. I am in the market for a GPS, and am torn between the TomTom 920T and the Garmin Nuvi 680. I have one question for you. A lot of reviews that I have read elsewhere have really trashed the routing engine of TomTom. Could you please comment on that?
Kausik - Put 10 people in a room at a party and ask them the best way to drive from your home to the next major city… You will likely get multiple answers. People argue over routes all the time so you won’t always agree with the route a computer generates for you. I can take any GPS I’ve ever used and find dozens of routes that it poorly creates. It would be easy to bash certain devices because it didn’t pick what I thought was the best device– but it could have picked what someone else might think is the best route.
With that said, I haven’t seen the 720/920 create routes that are significantly better or worse than most any other GPS on the market. The one thing that does sometimes become evident is that in rural areas it seems to be very, very conservative in time estimates.
You might find this article interesting as a result of my attempt to look at route quality with a good sample size and trying not to introduce any personal or regional bias.
Dear Tim, you are amazing. Thank you for the reply. I went through the article following that link, and I agree about the subjectivity. However, my question was not general in nature, it was specifically to you, to ask if you have had such an experience.
I was actively considering the Garmin 680, but I must say that after reading your review, I am leaning towards the 920T…
Kausik, overall I’m quite happy with the majority of the routes the 720/920 take. I certainly run into routes that I wouldn’t have picked myself from time to time, but not remarkably more or less often than other devices on the market.
Hi Tim!
I am an Au Pair from Austria and as I got lost on American highways several times already I was thinking about buying the TomTom 920. But, will it understand my spoken adresses when I speak German? Or do I have to speak English even when I go back to Austria next year? And can I even recharge it in Austria (we have 220 volt)? Thank you very much for your answer! Sabrina
Sabrina, I’m not certain, you would need to check with TomTom to be sure. I think it might because the German version of the 720T says “Spracheingabefunktion für Adressen”. But you would want to check with TomTom to be certain.
HI Tim,
Thanks for the clarification between the Magellan 4250 Vs TomTom920T (Voice commands). I just wanted to ask one more thing, Would it be possible that if the TomTom as a company wants they can put the functionality in the S/w to cover what Magellan s/w does (include more spoken commands)? Or is it h/w based.
I am asking this bcoz most companies start with a little and later cover up with all the functionalities the competitor has. Again, I know this is more of a Company strategy , but just wanted to know your opinion and some clarification whether this function is h/w based or s/w based.
Another question is what is the Max SD card size that TomTom920T can take (4GB or 8GB)
I am sure with the latest GPS coming out in the market this fall we all are keeping you pretty busy.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts as SME on this.
SKumar
Skumar, I believe it would be possible for them to provide such a software update and it likely wouldn’t require any hardware changes. However I wouldn’t bet too much on it happening.
Mr. Kumar, at the website, the blurb for 920T says that it can take in upto 8GB in SD/MMC cards. I had a similar question; 4GB upwards, the SD cards come in an High Capacity format (SDHC), but in order for them to work, they need HC compatible devices. I am not sure if 920T is one such. I have written to them, but have not heard from them yet.
Tim, based solely on your recommendations,
I took a jump last night, and ordered a 920T. I am looking forward to using it, and I shall get back with my experience.
Thanks for the review - very helpful.
I too have my new 920T coming in a couple days! It is my FIRST ever GPS and I know I may have gone over-the-top, but I wanted a unit I could speak to and have it respond back with specific turn-by-turn directions. I’ll be anxious to try out this feature and report back to the group.
Hi Tim,
I’ve got two questions:
1. About the Traffic antenna, do you think it would be posible to remove the suction cups and run the antenna up into the top of the vehicle… IE hide it out of sight? How long is the cord? Could we get a second antenna for a second vehicle?
My husband ran the Sirius radio antenna up into the top of his vehicle and he would want to do the same thing with this one. Being able to do this might be the deciding factor on which GPS my husband will be getting. (shhhh… It’s going to be a Christmas/Birthday present for him!!!!)
2. Has any one had any problems with having both a GPS unit and a satellite radio in the same vehicle? We can’t use the FM transmitter with the Sirius radio, so that would not be an issue. We live near a big city and couldn’t find a clear channel to use with the radio, so I am assuming that we would have the same problem with a GPS.
Thanks for all your help!!!!
1) You could remove two of the suction cups, but not the third which contains a controller chip. I’m not sure if you would get good reception from it in such a position. It is generally recommended to run them vertical on the windshield.
2) GPS doesn’t need to transmit FM. GPS itself doesn’t transmit anything, only receives. The RDS-TMC receiver just listens in for transmissions. It also doesn’t transmit any signals.
Can you comment on the 920’s estimated time of arrival calculation. Many 720 users have complained on the forums that the 720’s don’t display an accurate time estimate.
Certainly, Daniel. On an hour long trip I can almost always count on a TomTom getting me there about 10 minutes early. So it often seems too conservative and I’m not a fast driver.
Most Garmin devices I can count on being 5 minutes late no matter where I go or how much I drive past the speed limit.
So the Garmin is more accurate in the sense that the percentage it is “off by” is less… but personally I’d rather be 10 minutes early than 5 minutes late.
Hi Tim,
Just how useful is the Traffic version of 720/920? I ask because if, for security sake, you have to unbutton and hide the antenna every time you leave the car, then it seems like a lot of fiddling around. Is it worth it? Are there any other ways to get the radio info?
Peter, that is a tough call. Of course I don’t think most people will take it out of their car each time they use it. You will have to weigh the annoyance vs risk factor. It also depends where you live (if traffic is even available in your area) and your driving habits. Last night I was using it and it all of a sudden alerted me to slow traffic 3 miles ahead and I would be delayed about 4 minutes. Knowing I would be 4 minutes behind wasn’t a big deal, but at 65 mph on a busy interstate in the rain made me better prepared to slow down as we came around the corner quickly upon the slow traffic. If the jam is enough that another route is faster, it will do that for you.
Compare Tomtom 920 & Garmin 770. why Garmin always more expensive than tomtom. Is Garmoin a better unit in quality or some better fetures
Hi, Tom
IMHO Garmin is more expensive because you are paying extra for a lullaby Garmin performs for you on TV
Hi Tim,
“I don’t think most people will take it out of their car each time they use it.”
If we worry about the tea leaves looking for the tell tale rings on the screen how do we hide an antenna? Seems to me that if they see the traffic antenna they will really know that they are looking for a high end system. It will surely keep the replacement window industry busy!!
I didn’t say that I think they should leave it in their car. I just said that I don’t think most people will. If you are going to take it in and out of the car every time then you will need to device if that type of a receiver is worth the hassle. I likewise recommend that people remove the GPS from their car, but most people probably won’t.
Just as a follow up, in case anyone is interested about the 4GB/8GB SD card capability of the TomTom Go 920/920T; I had asked them if it would support the SD High Capacity specification that these cards seem to come with nowadays. This is their reply: Thank you for contacting TomTom Customer Support. It is our goal to provide you with an exceptional customer experience. We are more than happy to assist you in finding the correct SD card for your TomTom GO 920T. The TomTom GO 920T, will not function with the high capacity SD cards. You will need just the standard 4 GB to 8 GB SD card. Just to give you a small tip you will be able to find these SD cards anywhere where you are able to purchase digital cameras.
On a related note, I can’t seem to find the TomTom Go 920T anywhere, and even the 920 is back-ordered in most online stores. I need to purchase a GPS device urgently, and may have to go with Garmin (against my original wishes) because of their much wider availability.
I didn’t see anything about the 920T having Multi Destination Routing. Is this missing from the 920T?
It has it Alan.
Hi Tim,
Your spec sheet bar says that the 920 does not come with a case and does not have an electronic compass.
In Europe it is being advertised as coming with a case??
Re the compass. Have they dropped the compass that was in the 720 etc?
Best regards,
Peter - An “electronic compass” in a GPS uses additional internal hardware to determine what direction you are facing without needing movement. Most auto GPS devices don’t have that. The 920 still has a compass you can display on the screen however. In North America it doesn’t come with a case, I don’t know about other locations.
“The 920 still has a compass you can display on the screen however.” That is the one I meant. They still advertise it with the bag but we will have to wait to see what happens when they actually arrive. Meanwhile, the price of the 720T continues to fall over here in anticipation of the 920t. I the past week it has dropped around €50.
Hi Tim,
Have spent past hour reading all your answers to questions etc. I just have a TomTom Go and would like to know the advantages of me changing to the 920 and if advantageous to do so have you any idea to when I am likely to purchase one in Newbury, Berkshire.
Martin - The original GO models were not sold in high volume in North America and I never spent much time with them so I don’t have much of a reference. However I suspect you would see many differences/improvements. I don’t know when they will be more widely available, sorry.
Is the trafic information so important?
I live in Miami and travel in US
I am first time buyer and confuse about buying Navigon 7100, TT 920 or Nuvi 760
Can you recommend it witch one to buy and why?
Did u ever get a chance to measure any slowness in the GPS functionality when the unit is playing MP3, also how good is the Fm transmiter.
Also, there are a few other intersting factors that would be good to know if you an make comments on these :-
1.If we know a phone number, and we know it’s there in the units DB, would it be able to search with that.
2. Also can we call out phone number the unit can recognize and search with that.
3. Also what happens if a call comes whiel the unit is speaking the direction, what gets precedence.
4.Are the songs sortable based on the artist, name etc
5.Does the phone book gets shared/ acessible by the GPS unit, I mean can we browse and make call using the bluetooth on the tomtom 920T, while using phone book from my bluetooth enabled phone
6.Lastly, is there a s/w that comes along with the Unit that is used to store the songs on the external SD cards, or just drag and drop on an external card would be good enough.
Wow… that was a lot of questions.. but you see , the more you elp us, give us an insight, the more we try to know .. But everytime you seem to excel / do better than expected..
Aleks - I guess that depends how often you are in traffic. I think it is helpful. You can compare those three devices here.
Skumar - (1) No. (2) I’m not sure what you are asking. It can call POIs that you have searched for by name. (3) Directions. (4) Yes. (5) Yes, if your phone is supported for that feature. (6) Either way.
Hi Tim. Can you comment on the accuracy of the 920T v. the Nuvi 760 or 660?
Accuracy of what aspect of the device?
Just received my new 920T yeaterday and I thought I’d share some very honest comments from the perspective of an admittedly very new GPS owner…
1. FWIW, TomTom does an incredible job of packaging. I am a Quality Assurance Manager by trade and someone put some design thought into this!
2. After getting it up and running (software installation om my PC went fine) one big issue has come to mind: While the horizontal format of the 920T may be “sexy”, I’ve quickly come to realize it may not be for me…and here’s why: while the diagonal screen measures 4.3″, the vertical height is just a shade over 2″. Then, when you realize the Status Bar measures a non-adjustable and non-removable 5/8″, the remaining vertical space available to dispaly the map is 1 1/2″. This is very dissapointing as a 1.5″ usable vertical map field is, IMHO, inadequate. Now, this may affect me more because I choose orient the screen so that the top is always my destination direction. If one were to choose top as North, then it would only be an issue 50% of the time. Actually, I considered this fact before I bought the 920T as I had used my friend’s Magellan 2200, with the more “square” format that provides considerably more “North bound” real estate. To check it out, I took it out to my car and mounted it on the center console. As suspected, the “viewable mapping” field is just too small for me when in a driving position. This one issue may make the 920T not for me. FYI, there is an option to move the Status Bar to a vertical position, which adds back the 5/8″, but even then the vertical field is less than the the “square” formats.
3. OK - the good news: the voice command address prompting is fabulous! Yes, you can actually speak directions and get routed to new destinations! It is almost, but not entirely hands free. To begin with, you need to touch the screen to select “Navigate to spoken address”. This command cannot be spoken, so there is “touch #1. Beyond that, you speak the city, the street and the address. Once selected, you must touch “Done” on the screen. After that, it’s all hands-free. In terms of speech recognition quality, I’ve only run three tests and they all went reasonably well. When I spoke the name of my city (Santa Barbara), it always came up on the top of the list. When I spoke the street name, it didn’t always appear at the top of the list, but it did appear on the list. FYI, once you enter a name, the verbal response is a spoken acknowledgement of the name at the top of the list only. If this is correct, you repky with “Done” or OK. If incorrect, you need to glance at the screen to see where the correct selection is listed. If the correct selection is, say, number three on the list, you speak “Three”. Then a voice-prompt will acknowledge, to which you again respond OK”.
4. The FW transmitter function works fine. I located an empty FM frequency, entered same in to the 920T and spoken propmts then came clearly over my FM radio. Nice, but it necessitates you having no access to your radio while in this mode. A trade-off of sorts.
5. (Ignorance showing). I need to get a compatible Bluetooth phone before I can check out this feature. But, again a Newbie here, for the life of me I can’t figure out the advantage of the Bluetooth Phone/GPS connection. If my phone has a Bluetooth coupled wireless earpiece, what additional feature do I gain by using the GPS in a wireless conversation? Is it merely the fact that I hear the person I’m speaking with through the GPS (or my FM radio) as opposed to a wireless earpiece? To me, wireless conversation is all about just that - wireless. Whether I hear my party through an earpiece or an external speaker is, I guess neat but by no means a “killer app”, as they say. Unless of course, I am completely missing the Bluetooth functionality of the GPS interface. Hopefully some of you seasoned veterans can set me straight on this one.
6. I looked on the on-line manual to see how to load photos on the unit (just to see if I could). But if I can, it’s very unclear how to do it. There are half a dozen stock scenery photos, which can be selected, but I’d still like to know if you can transfer photos from your PC to the 920T.
7. SD Card. Ther is an SD card slot at the bottom of the unit, but it is taped over with a note reading: “No SD required”. OK, but can I utilize an SD card if I’d like too? Again, checking the manual I saw no reference to this. Hard to believe there is no reference to an SD card whotsoever in the 87 page manual, but again maybe I missed something key here.
8. When a routing is displayed, the “next turn” street” is prominently displayed in the Status Bar. However the street you are currently on is displayed in very small (again, non-adjustable sized) font. I know on the Magellan unit this was in a much larger font. Again, no deal breaker but just an observation.
So that’s it for now - until I do some more real-life testing (later today). All in all, I’m not sure the “novelty” of voice address entry is worth giving up a larger usable screen. But too early to make this decision yet. As I said, I just got the thing yesterday and I want to play with it some more before I make any final decisions. Meanwhile, I hope I haven’t lulled everyone to sleep in the process! Thanks very much for your patience. This feedback on this forum has really helped me so far!
Steve, thanks for sharing your extensive thoughts.
1) I agree. (2) When moving the status bar over to vertical you get 2&1/8 inches vertical and 3 inches horizontal. That is the same vertical as I get with a Magellan 200 series. (3) See my Voice Prompt Tips 1 and 2 above, you can actually speak the “Done” at the end, you don’t need to tap anything once you begin the process. (4) Good to hear as people can have varying degrees of success based on their car and location. (5) The advantage is that you can tell your GPS to navigate to a POI and then call that POI. You can also see the caller ID information of incoming calls on the GPS screen rather than the phone that might be in your pocket. (6) You do that through the TomTom HOME software. (7) It is really only necessary if you want to store additional maps, photos, or music files and don’t have enough room left in the internal memory. Most people will never use it. (8) I think that you will find that when navigating in unfamiliar areas that you don’t really care what street you are currently on, but the “next street” is more important. I turn off the current street field to make more room for the map.
I managed to get my 920T in the ONE single store when one single piece was available, in all of five boroughs of New York, and New Jersey!!
I agree with Steve’s extensive review. Setting up of the device was not quite easy. There seems to be some conflict between the Home software and the account settings in My TomTom at their website. I could not enter my device code into their system. Though, with the 920T, I am supposed to get a year’s subscription of TomTom Plus, but there was no way to activate it; it asked for a product code which was nowhere to be found. I am going to play with it in a day or two, and shall post back.
Tim, thanks a million for the quick and complete feedback! I now better understand the Blutooth function & you’ve convinced me that the vertical screen space may be adequate if I just move the status bar to vertical orientation.
More on Bluetooth…is there a list of compatible cell phones I should consider that will (for sure) pair with the 920T? If I’m going to keep it (and it looks as though I may) I now need to know what phone to get. FWIW, my Verizon contract has now expired so I’m a “free phone agent” once again! Thanks again, Tim.
Kausik, as far as I know you don’t get a PLUS account for their paid PLUS services with the 920. I think there might be a trial coupon for a month or so. What you do get is a 1 year subscription to their traffic service (not PLUS service). That is activated once you first use the receiver.
Steve, you can check compatibility here. They don’t have the 920 chart posted but you are pretty safe to use the 720 chart.
Tim and Steve: Actually, bluetooth compatibility for 920 isn’t identical to 720. I have a Sprint Treo 700p and bluetooth works fine on the 920, but it doesn’t work on the 720.
DennisMisc, that is interesting because both my 720 and my 920 have the exact same Bluetooth application, byte for byte.
TomTom has finally posted definitive Bluetooth compatibility for the 920 on their website. It does not show up under the “Phone Compatability” tab, rather you need to go to the product section and call up the 920. FYI, here is the URL for the direct link:
http://www.tomtom.com/products/features.php?ID=423&Category=0&Lid=4
Sorry - don’t know if I can directly hyperlink! Also, I don’t know if this list is by any means complete. My sense is it consists of all those phones TomTom has been able to test and verify compatability to date. I’m particularly anxious as I now have my 920T, but am waiting to get a new phone based om B;uetooth compatability (and the ability to sync with MS Outlook).
Tim, I tried using the hands-free feature on the 720 for my Treo 700p at a BestBuy on one of the floor samples. I was able to get as far as pairing my phone to the 720, but I wasn’t able to make or receive calls through it.
Of course, I could have done something incorrectly, but I tried numerous times.
Since BestBuy didn’t have a floor sample of a 920, I went to a CircuitCity nearby and tried the pairing and the hands-free calls on their floor sample of a 920. It worked on my first try.
If the bluetooth application is identical between the 720 and the 920, then I guess I did something wrong and/or that the 720 (and/or my phone) was configured in such a way that didn’t allow me to make or receive the hands-free call.
Does the bluetooth application handle just the pairing and the data communication or does it also handle the hands-free calling part, making sure that it acts as a proper bluetooth handset for various phones, etc?
I wish I could test the hands-free feature on a 720 again, but since I don’t have one.. I’ll try it next time I go to the BestBuy. It definitely works on a 920, which I’ve been very happy with.
Where do you check the size of the bluetooth application?
I’ve started browsing the directories in the 920, and it’s pretty neat that you can edit things like contacts/contacts.txt and add phone numbers there.
“Get phone numbers from phone” only grabbed phone numbers that I’ve set as hotkeys on the 700p.
Well, I haven’t edited any files in the 920 yet, so if I somehow destroy it in the process, I’ll post it in the forums..
If you are using the 920 to play music (using the fm xmitter) do the navigation instructions take precidence over the music?
Just found the answer to my question on the tomtom site. Yes - music and navigation work together.
Another question: In the past, I have been burned by Magellan - despite online assurances that updated maps would be available annually, that only happened once in 5 years (and there was no announcement of the updated map and Magellan NEVER responds to email questions) The update was very expensive ($150). I am aware of Tomtom’s new Map update software (sounds kind of like doityourself corrections), but does Tomtom release whole new map updates periodically?
Dennis, I think there have been some Bluetooth updates as well so it is possible one floor model had the updates and another didn’t.
John, yes TomTom does release periodic “official” updates. They have been happening more than annually recently.
Tim,
I would like to use the 920 as the MP3 player, and it would be nice to use high capacity SD cards.
Do you have a link or the card brand/model to the 4 Gbyte (or larger) SD card that works with the TomTom devices? It is hard to find non high speed cards in stores anymore. I could order online, but I need to know for sure the compatible card. Thank you very much for your help.
To John Jones’ comment regarding music taking precidence over voice commands. What I understand from his response is that if you are playing music resident on your 920 that verbal commands will take precidence even when using the fm transmitter function. However, I can I listen to my car’s FM radio and then still have verbal commands come through the FM application (taking precidence when they occur)? I thought I actually read something about this but can no longer find the reference.
Leo, I don’t know what cards are compatible, but I think there is currently a discussion going on about that in the forums you might want to jump into.
Steve, no. When the FM transmitter it turned on it will constantly broadcast, even if no music nor voice prompts are “playing”. Thus you can’t use the FM transmitter and your car’s FM radio at the same time.
Taking up the matter of bluetooth compatibility again. If the bluetooth is the same on the 720 & the 920, why are the TT compatibility lists on their site so different. I use a Nokia 6111 phone which is listed on the 720 but not on the 920!!
HI Tim,
Can you please elaborate and expalin more on these features.
“includes Recording your own driving instructions, view documents, exchange positions via SMS and Bluetoothâ„¢ wireless technology”
So does this means we can record with our voice, but how many commands we have to record to meet the requirements. Also “View Documents” Does that means we will be able to read MSWord and Pdf files ??? And lastly, exchange Position by SMS, does it means that it can automatically or manually initiated respond to others about our location… is this doe ny the GPS unit or using our cell phone.
One last thing to confirm, is the Chipset SirFIIIDirect ??
Any insight would be very helpful
Thanks in advance
SKumar
Tim,
How is the color combination of the TT920T.? And is it any better than earlier model regarding the visibilty in direct sunlight. Also is there a feature for automatically switching to night mode (backlit) or switching back to day mode.
Thanks
SKumar
Again on 920 BT compatibility: The TomTom 920 specs only list phones by carrier, e.g. ATT/Cingular, T-Mobile & Sprint/Nextel. Verizon is not listed. However, some of the phones offered by Verizon ARE listed, but under the ATT/Cingular listing, i.e. the RAZR V3. Tim, given this, would you expect the RAZR V3 with the Verizon carrier to also be compatible with the 920? Also, as an sfterthought, I see no LG phones on the list whatsoever. Since I was considering the new LG Voyager, this is a bot of a dissapointment. Thanks!
Steve,
To talk to your point, I was thinking about getting an iPhone. It also is not listed. And because I thought i can use the inbuild feature to play songs from iphone as well ( in addition to the gps external storage songs) , that would too be a disappointment.
SKumar
SKumar, back to you! What’s a bit frustrating is not knowing if the BT phone compatibility list currently published by TomTom is intended to be an all-inclusive listing - or - just a listing of phones/carriers that have been tested to date! In my case, I went ahead and bought the 920T because of the advertised features & figured I’d find a BT compatible phone after the fact. Again, my main issue now is that Verizon is not at all listed and they are by far the most effective wireless provider in my area (Santa Barbara). Maybe Tim can weigh in in this one later…
Re phone compatibility on the 920.
TT support just sent me the following:-
Dear Peter,
Thank you for taking the time to contact TomTom Support regarding the Bluetooth Compatability of your device . My name is Harvey and it is our goal to provide you with an exceptional customer experience. We are always happy to help. Due to hardware and/or software issues we regret to inform you that your Nokia 6111 is not compatible with the Go 920T. We are constantly testing new phones, however, if one or more features are not functional we must deem the device incompatible. Please rest assured that TomTom is committed to making our services compatible with as many cellular phone models as possible. We regret any frustration this may cause. All of the compatability lists are available for your use on the Web Site. To view this go to http://www.tomtom.com, then clisk on the products tab, on the left side of the screen click all in one navigation and choose your device, then under the functionality tab you should see the Bluetooth compatability.
We hope this information helps! If you have any further questions or comments, please email or call us at 866-486-6866 Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM until 7:00 PM EST. Thanks again for writing. At TomTom we believe in showing you the way the easy way.
With Best Regards,
Harvey,
and
The TomTom Customer Support Team
Can anyone please explain why the Nokia 611 IS compatible with the 720T (it is on the list) and NOT compatible with the 920T? I thought that the Bluetooth circuitry was the same???
I am sorry that I waited for the 920 now.
Does anyone know if the phonebook transfer works with the Blackberry curve?
Its crazy its not there. Alot of people use blackberries
I can’t speak for Verizon and the TomTom, but I have seen this issue come up elsewhere with Bluetooth compatibility. Verizon has been know to cripple features, such as Bluetooth, in the phones that it sells. My Razr through Cingular connected perfectly to my car via Bluetooth. A Verizon Razr would not. I suspect that’s why TomTom lists both the phone and the carrier.
For bluetooth compatibility, if your phone is not on the compatibility list, the best thing to do is to take your phone to the electronic stores and test it for yourself on the GPS receivers on display. That approach worked for me.
I really wanted the hands-free functionality, but I was willing to live with not being able to use the TomTom PLUS service.
I only tested for the hands-free calling/receiving on the display model.
Luckily, both works well.
Btw, if you have the GPS receiver and you are looking for a phone, take your receiver to the phone store so you can test for yourself.
Dennis, we shouldn’t have to go to all that trouble. Why can’t TT simply follow the phone approval procedures that they have used on other models? Until the 920T life was simple - you just looked on a list that was easily available o see if your phone was there. With the 920t life is different. Firstly, you have to find the b****y list, then you have to go through all the mickey mouse listing showing specific phones against specific US networks - ridiculous!! I am having a SERIOUS rethink.
Peter, it seems to get worse…if that’s possible.
Here’s the question I emailed and the answer I received:
Subject
Verizon Bluetooth Compatibility
Discussion Thread
Response (TT James) 11/21/2007 02:57 PM
Dear Mr Sidwell,
We do not list your phone as compatible for the your TomTom unit, it does not mean it won’t work it means we have not tested the unit ourselves. Your phone may work but we can not gaurentee the your phone will work 100% with the unit and all options.
If you have any further questions or comments, please email or call us at 866-486-6866 Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM until 7:00 PM EST. Thanks again for writing. At TomTom we believe in showing you the way the easy way.
With Best Regards,
The TomTom Customer Support Team
Customer (Steve Sidwell) 11/21/2007 01:22 PM
You list no Verizon phones as having Bluetooth compatibility with the 920T. However, you list the RAZR 3v under the ATT/Cingular compatibility list. So would a RAZR V3 from Verizon also be compatible? Thanks!
So - I just got off the phone with TomTom TS (with a native English speaker, no less [their stock just went up big time in my eorld]). They indicated that no Verizon phones have been tested as being “fully compatible” with the 920T. Adding, of course, that other phones (including Verizon’s} may work, but they may not be “fully” compatible. Makes me wish I had half a dozen phones to test myself before I dump Verizon as my carrier.
Hi Steve,
Just imagine how much use you can get from the 920 phone compatibility list if you don’t live in the US!! As far as I can see there are no European phone that work with the 920T. Most probably, the phone approved for the 720T would work with the 920T (Tim has looked at the Bluetooth code on both models and says they they are identical)but TT could have handled this matter in a much more professional way.
Hi, I am trying to decide between Tom Tom 920 and the Nuvi 660. Is it true that I will be able to manipluate my ipod through the Tom Tom and will play it thorugh the car speakers? I understand the Nuvi has bluetooth and will play my phone calls over the car speakers, will the Tom Tom? Do you have a preference?
Thanks, Kate
Decisions,decisions,decisions…. Actually I need advice on which device will be best for me. I live in Nebraska which does not have that many large cities and traffic is not that big of a problem except on Saturdays in Lincoln when the Huskers play. Weather can be more of factor. The devices I am considering are the TomTom 720,920,920t and Garmin 7200 which is probably overkill but I like the big screen. I have just started my own business and will be driving and traveling more in the state and the surrounding states. While the car I currently have is not bluetooth equiped, I plan on changing this in the near future my cell phone as well. I plan on getting a new Ford Tarus and a Blackberry. My concern is that they will all work together. I have my cell service with U.S. Cellular. I considered adding the gps option but was discouraged by the dealer since this is not portable and is a $1,200 option. The dealer said that I can find a portable unit just as good. I plan trying to find one of the devices at a reasonable price on Friday during the after Thankgiving sales. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Kate, you can purchase an optional iPod connection kit to connect to your iPod. The audio will go through your car stereo for music and voice prompts. Bluetooth audio does not go through your car stereo, it goes through the internal speaker only.
A couple of questions:
1) How much in $$ do map updates - or just maps -cost from TomTom? Both official TT maps and from user mapshare?
2) Re POI. Both models have some 5 or 6 million I believe, but is there any knowledge of the geographic distribution of those 5 Million POIs? 5 M sounds like a lot but there are also a lot of places to cover. Sprinkling the POI over Canada and the USA could leave some locales bereft, relatively speaking.
For example, how many POIs might there be for Eastern Ontario (Canada) and Western Quebec (Canada)?
Tim, great review! I have narrowed my GPS search to the 920T and the Nuvi 680. My question has to do with updates and pay services. The dealer at my local brick and mortar couldn’t tell me much about how much the updates cost or about fees for the pay service. Do you or anyone else have any feel for costs associated with these services?
Dear Tim, I used a 2GB SD card into my new 920T. The SD card has some MP3 files. But I could not get the device to recognize the SD card. If I connect the device to my computer, the TomTom Home application recognizes the card and asks me which one I would like to mount. But even it does not recognize the music files on the card. Would you have any idea why this is? Thanks in advance for your help.
Steve,
I was successful getting my 720 to pair with 2 different Verizon phones. My observations:
1) If you have a Smartphone (i.e. Moto Q, Treo, etc.), you will need to order tethering which should add about $15 to your VZW data plan that you already purchased with your Smartphone.
2) If you have an EV-DO compatible phone, you will need to order VCAST — again about $15 per month. Please note that although this may be able to be done, it may not be kosher with Verizon. I had an LG VX-8600 that I was able to pair this way.
3) Since it has been a while, I cannot recall which features were supported, but I do know that the TomTom Plus Traffic did work for me.
4) You will have to change some settings on the TomTom to get this to work. Don’t bother calling TomTom Support; they will just say that Verizon phones are unsupported. I cannot recall the exact settings…but I will say that one screen comes up and defaults to *99# (presumably for the AT&T network). Put in #777 instead. Leave the Access Point screen blank. On the screen requesting user name and password, put your user name in as
yourmobilenumber@vzw3g.com
The password in all cases is vzw.
5) There may be other settings, but I cannot recall them. You may find more information by searching Google.
Best of luck to you!
Steve G
P.S. I recently switched to AT&T and the setup for phone on that network was much easier.
John - (1) Official map updates are typically $75 - $150 depending on the map. MapShare updates are free. (2) No, there is not.
Fletch - See paragraph above to John. There are no fees for GPS itself. The optional traffic service comes with a 12 month subscription and after that it is $60 annually.
Kausik - I’ve seen this with some types of SD cards, so if you have a different brand card you might want to try that. Otherwise make sure they are actually MP3 encoded files and not music files in other formats. If neither of those, give a call to support or ask for help in the forums where someone might know better than me.
Dear Tim, thank you for your reply. I contacted the TomTom support, and am happy to report that they were pretty prompt and effective. Apparently, the 720/920T recognizes some specific root folder names; all I needed to do was to create a folder called ‘mp3′ in the SD card, and put all the songs and song folders into it. Thereafter, when I tried to access the Music, the 920T immediately recognized and played everything.
The only gripe I have about the music is that once the music starts playing, you need at least 3 screen touches to make it pause or stop. I wish there were some kind of hotkey on the screen that would toggle play/pause.
The sound of 920T itself is quite powerful, even on the road (with window panes closed). I tried the function of sound transmission through an FM channel. I selected an empty FM channel, and tuned the 920T through it. Initially it worked just fine; but later on, while on road, the sound quality kept degrading, and instructions became inaudible (I looped on the same set of streets to hear the instructions with and without the FM). I am not sure if the problem was with the FM channel or something to do with the 920T.
I tried out my 920T in a real-world driving test, covering a pretty large area through three NYC boroughs, Bronx, Queens, Manhattan and back. There are a few points I found.
(1) The map localization and direction recalculation are almost instantaneous. The map shows in real time the street corners and intersections as the vehicle moves.
(2) The main problem people face with the routing algorithm is because of one simple issue. The algorithm bases the calculations primarily on one of two parameters, fastest OR shortest. The route calculated, therefore, may not be the most intuitive or the most familiar. In both Manhattan and Queens, the routing software tried to push me to roads (mainly highways) outside the periphery of my destination of interest. This is useful if one is just trying to reach from point A to point B. If one wants to follow a specific route, obviously the routing software cannot account for that, but thankfully, once the route is calculated before your journey, it is easy to ask the software to take specific roads on a map by tapping the screen.
(3) I faced some trouble in Queens in areas where constructions have been going on for the past several years. The map was not a recent one (despite updates and stuff); it did not recognize the construction sites and the detours, and directed me twice into a blind alley (dead end). Unfortunately, I was not in a position to create and send a map correction, but next time I shall do that.
(4) The routing needs strict definitions in order to work. If one wants to drive through a specific landmark of interest, one has to create a POI and then route. I wanted to drive through the Brooklyn bridge. I made the mistake of trying to put in my destination as Brooklyn bridge, but it changed it to a street name of an area beyond the bridge; thereafter, it tried its best to get me off the bridge and take a different route through the Manhattan bridge (which I am sure was faster or shorter, but not what I wanted).
So to summarize, the 920T routing software requires some degree of active interaction, which is fine, but would have been easier if the functions could be accessed through a single touch on-screen, while on the move. Secondly, the maps seem to be not very (or properly) updated. Otherwise, the device itself is awesome.
On the TomTom’s website it says the Plus services require my cellphone to connect to the internet and download stuff. (See the please note on the bottom of the page)
“http://www.tomtom.com/plus/service.php?ID=3&l=1″
Are there multiple traffic services. My understanding was the antenna is to tune in to some FM station (traffic clear channel) to download information. If so then does Plus service has an additional traffic capability?
Sebe - Yes, there are two types of traffic services. One that requires a Bluetooth connected phone and another that requires the RDS-TMC (FM) traffic receiver. I’ve been told that the data provided should be nearly identical although I have heard of at least one case where someone compared and didn’t see the same data in both places. But the RDS-TMC (FM) traffic receiver does not use, nor require PLUS services.
Regarding remarks 34 and 35, is this as good as in the Garmin Nuvi 700 series?
jelang - The Garmin advantage is that the points can be “optimized” in the most efficient order automatically. The TomTom device allows slightly easier input (in my opinion) and allows for adding points as “waypoints” or “destinations” which can be handy.
Drat! Either voice recognition and Map Share Technology or optimized routing but not “the whole enchilada.”
I just returned today from a quick trip to Disneyworld in Florida. Just before I had to leave to catch the plane, a TomTom commercial on TV advertised a $100 rebate for anyone buying one of their GPS systems as a Christmas present. The commercial showed a couple stuck in a traffic jam. The girlfriend runs into a Bestbuy and buys a TomTom, which then reroutes them to bypass the traffic jam. The commercial ends with stating to check out http://www.tomtom.com for details, but I don’t see it on their website. Is this deal possibly just for the Southeast United States?
Ken -
http://www.tomtom.com/page/givegive2007/
One issue i am experiancing is that when i try to change the brightness with the slider, it keeps returning to the default bright. its like something is screwy with the unit, unless its some default setting im missing. any help would be appreciated. thanks and btw, i really like this unit over my nuvi 760!
Which chipset does the 920T use ? Is is faster than the one on the 720 ?
SS, the 920 uses the SiRFstarIII chipset.
FInally I am a proud owner of a TT 920T. I bought it on 21st december from [snip, see comment policy] I do not know if anyone else got the deal , I got an additional 12% off and costed me just [snip].
Anyway , Tim I have a question. I tried to play a couple of MP3 songs, it did play, but a wired thing is there is no STOP button on the player. I mean once you play a song it will keep playing , there is only a pause option but you can’t stop it unless you power down the unit. Am I missing anything??? Please let me know how it works, or else if there is another s/w that I can install on the GPS to play my MP3’s. I had been a user of Garmin for so many years, but this one surely is a better option.
How would a stop button differ in functionality than the pause button? If you click pause, the music will stop playing.
WORTHLESS!!! Right from the box the 920 contains maps that are least two years old. TomTom says they are from 11/2007…I would say BS is this best way to describe this. The unit has repeatedly failed in both navigational errors as well as stored POI’s. After only the fourth use, the unit is now unable to receive any GPS signals. Customer service? What a joke!!! After two and a half hours of apathy, I had to send the unit to TomTom at my exspense and it can take up to three weeks for return. Save your money. I borrowed a Garmin 780 for the last two days…and WOW is my best reaction at this point. If the 920 comes back working, I’ll have it listed on eBay 5 minutes later.
I agree…The pause button for MP3 or audio books is terrible. Once you start it . It won’t stop. Funny thing is…every time a call would come in, it re-starts on its own. How annoying is that?
Tim,
I am having trouble with TT 920 re-routing. When I intentionally miss a turn because of traffic, 920 will try to get me back to the original planned route, even where there is a faster and route. Route preference is selected to “fastest” by default. Is there anything I need to do to tweak it to understand the fastest route? My Garmin 660 automatically re-routed me to the next best route instead of trying to take me to the original route.
Chachi - That is a complaint I hear frequently about Nuvi devices but almost never about the TomTom. While I don’t have access to the algorithm, in most cases it just seems like it is programed to try to get you back to your original route. However most evidence suggests that the GPS isn’t actually programed to work that way and that it just feels the original way is still the best way even though you don’t agree. In either case there isn’t anything you can do about it.
Chachi - you should have to post your problem on TT GO forum here - GPS review.
I remember recently there was a thread about how to make TomTom to come back to a planned trip if traffic has happened and one has to deviate from pre-planned rout
have the reported customer support issues improved at all with the tom tom company? and have they fixed the issue with the mounting bracket of prior models? thanx.
Tim - TomTom changed how they do support about a year or so ago and it is significantly improved. Also about a year ago they did have a mount issue which was fixed with a redesign and recall.
Tim are you aware of any of the popular GPS units that provide tracking so I can download for my mileage for taxes. I also need multi-stops optim. This would be a great feature for us business people that hate keeping a written log book. Thanks for all your help on this site. If anyone else has a suggestion I would love to hear it.
Paul - The NAVIGON devices like the 7100 offers that.
Hi Tim, a local sales rep suggested that the TomTom address location logic is more literal & limited than Garmin. IOW, you must know the exact city/village - even if it is part of a larger named area or older unused name - whereas Garmin will “look around more” to try to find your address. There was no opportunity for me to test this on site. What is your experience with this? Does this behaviour vary by country (i.e. non-US)?
Charles - indeed the Garmin devices do allow a “fuzzy” search in the sense that you can ask it to find every “Elm St” in California. It will then present a list of all “Elm Street” locations in the state and allow you to pick which one. However you do need to deliberately perform that type of search (street first, then city).
The TomTom devices on the other hand are much more forgiving when it comes to spelling errors, while the Garmin wants everything to be spelled correct.
How that plays into your choice might come down to where you get your destinations from. If somehow you often get a street name and number, but no city/town name then the Garmin might be the way to go. Otherwise if you know the street name and city/town I don’t think you will have much trouble finding the locations on a TomTom.
Hi Tim,
I wanted to know about the POIs of the TOMTOM 920. It seems that the comparison charts “Millions” for the 920T, Navigon 7100 and Nuvi 760 (6,000,000 POIs). But, how many POIs for the 920?
Thanks
Like many manufacturers, TomTom doesn’t typically confirm exactly how many POIs are installed. Estimates are around 5-7 million.
Tim,
I gave up on my TT 920 for its weird routing and went for Magellan 4250. So, far the Magellan is performing well when its comes to basic navigation. The POI on the Magellan are a little outdated and not as comprehensive as TT. Is there any way to transfer the POI from 920 to 4250?
No Chachi.
I just wanted to know that If i can add phone number to the addresses I put on my 920T. I have seen that the business locations have a phone number attched to them which i can call by just clicking the call icon on the screen. Can I make a seperate POI file for my addresses along with the phone numbers which can show up on the side so that I can call them.
Yes. Menu -> Change Preferences -> Manage POIs. You can then add a POI category, and then add a POI to your category with a number.
I’m just about to go for a 920T and have a quention about voice commands.
I live at the moment in Portugal and de device will be purchased there. I’m going to live in Denmark at the end of year. I speak portuguese and danish as well. Now:
1- while living in Portugal I want to set de device to portuguese language.
2- while living in Denmark I wish to talk and to ear danish.
3- does the device recognize portuguese names in portuguese and danish names in danish? And if travel in Germany?
Lusodana….read on…
Right from the box the 920 contains maps that are least two years old. TomTom says they are from 11/2007…I would say BS is this best way to describe this. The unit has repeatedly failed in both navigational errors as well as stored POI’s. After only the fourth use, the unit is now unable to receive any GPS signals. Customer service? What a joke!!! After two and a half hours of apathy, I had to send the unit to TomTom at my exspense and it can take up to three weeks for return. Save your money. I borrowed a Garmin 780 for the last two days…and WOW is my best reaction at this point. If the 920 comes back working, I’ll have it listed on eBay 5 minutes later.
Hi Tim,
I had 910 and upgraded to 920 and love it, but I’m having a problem searching for POI, in 910 you can search POI in specific radius,let say if your looking for a specific restaurant it does have the option of searching outside your locations like 25 miles radius or more. Instead, I’m limited to
“near home” “near destination” etc. Thank you.
a - The new software doesn’t require you to type in a radius to search. It will find the 25 closest locations. If you can’t find what you are looking for in the first 25 you have two options. (1) You can use the ‘Find’ button in the list to only show the 25 closest using name search. In that manner you can even find locations several hundred miles from your current position. Or (2) Use the ‘POI in city’, ‘POI along route’, or ‘POI near destination’ functions to search for the 25 closest to a different point.
In your case if you are looking for a particular restaurant, after being presented with the initial list click the ‘Find’ button and type the first few characters of the name of the restaurant. I’ve used that method to find restaurants ‘near me’ that were several hundred miles away.
On my SP3 I’m able to choose a rout as if I drive a BUS (this because I also drive a motor home which is about 3 m high and I have to avoide viaducts where I cann’t drive thru - there many in Europe). Can I do this with a TT920?
With Garmin SP3 I can also choose “avoid paying motorways”. Can TT920 do it?
I have the 920 and use it in Switzerland (but bought it from Costco online, shipped to California). Everything seems generally OK, although it receives its signal very poorly. Maybe the Audi has too much heat-shield or other “protection” in the windshield that interferes w. the GPS signal. All is moot, however, since the 920, every few minutes, tries to shut itself off. It says “turning off in 10 seconds.” No settings change this (battery settings, etc.). What a major nightmare. It makes the 920 completely useless. I contacted Tom Tom and they said it was defective (i.e., no software patch will fix this) and to return/exchange it. I am considering exchanging it for another 920, but am worried about this defect. Will the new one do the same thing? I was surprised by how apathetic Tom Tom customer service was about the defect–they did not seem at all concerned about its possible presence in other units. Has anyone else had this problem?
Lusodana - You can avoid motorways, but there is no bus option.
Greg - I’ve seen that sometimes when it is getting irregular power, but I’d try a return/exchange.
Thank you Greg. But in EU we have motorways where you pay and others thar are free. StreetPilot III gives me the possibility to avoid only the payable motorways
Yes, the 920T can avoid only paid/toll roads as well.
Thanks for your review! Big help! One thing I have not seen mentioned: use as a GPS for pedestrians. How does the 920T perform when used while exploring a city on foot? (Dumb question?)
It does have a pedestrian routing option to obey (and take advantage of) pedestrian rules.
TomTom 920 Review
• Received as a Christmas gift Dec 2007
• Likes
o Fast acquisition of the satellite signals
o Strong satellite signals even in the house
o Easy to read screen
o Bright screen
o Easy to use
o Ability to add, update POI’s
o POI’s included have been good and are accurate, excepting the placement on which side of the road. If in error, they have been shown on the wrong side of the road.
o Maps have been accurate
• Dislikes
o When I first turned on the unit it was in a foreign language. Took hours of trial and error to correct. If sold in the US the default language should be English.
o Suction cup will not hold the unit at all – max time held in-place 5 minutes. I constantly have to pick it up off the dash and “re-stick” it to the windshield.
o Can’t send the IPod through the FM Transmitter , only through the GPS speaker
o Speaker is very poor – Crackles, hard to hear
o Speed alerts do not work on I90, I94, I80 in Michigan, Indiana or Illinois. Do not work on I35, I20, I30 in Texas Do not work on I90, I95, I93 in Mass, New Hampshire. Have concluded that this feature is not installed on the unit or is badly broken.
o Can’t update software, POI’s or maps. Receive error message “missing parameter xmlinput” I was able to use this feature when first used, but can’t now. I did do a restore from a back up but it didn’t correct the issues. No response form Tomtom support.
o Response from the Tomtom support (e-mail) is very long – weeks.
o Battery lasts for less than an hour vs published expectations of close to 5 hours.
o The Ipod cable should come with this unit for the price paid
o “Safety Cameras are for Europe only and do not include the US.
• Overall Impression
o I have tried to be objective and listed both good and bad items. However, my overall impression is poor.
o My Previous GPS was a Cobra 3500. great large screen, but very old and finally died.
o Knowing what I do now, I would not purchase this unit.
Therefor I keep wayting for Nüvi 5000 to comme (shame there is no battery in it)
Hi my question is do the nuvie series 350 to 650 & and the Garmin StreetPilot series, have a traffice provider and if so is it clear channel?
Tim,
I just picked up a TT 920T this afternoon and spent about an hour personalizing it. I connected to TT Home and looked around, subscribed to MapShare, connected my BlueTooth LG VX9800, saved a couple of favorites, read the manuals, installed TT Home on my PC, etc. It was pretty straightforward. You may have noticed [or, maybe not] that I was able to connect my VX9800 even though it isn’t included on the compatibility chart. Despite that, when I for it, the 920 recognized the VX9800 and hooked right up. It is not completely compatible in that it will not allow me to use TT Traffic, but it will permit hands-free phone use. Also, I noticed several posts in earlier comments mentioning the duration of free MapShare accessibility. The coupon that was in my package specifically promises 1 year of access along with one year of free map updates. So this does not appear to be a lifetime free feature. The wording does not appear to tie MapShare access to any particular map update either as I think I’ve seen suggested.
Thanks for the great resources!
Rob - When you first take the device out of the box it asks you to set a language, perhaps you accidentally picked the wrong one. When properly installed I’ve never had the 720/920 mount fail. You can set a preference to play music through the FM transmitter.
Bob - The wording on MapShare updates and map updates isn’t very clear. You will get official map updates that match the duration shown on your certificate. MapShare updates mention one year because that is about how long they will continue to support MapShare for older maps. However MapShare will always be free so long as you have a fairly recent map update. TomTom has clarified that with us as it isn’t as clear as it could be on the certificate.
Hi Tim,
I appreciate the feedback and who wouldn’t like free access to something like MapShare for life? Not to be argumentative, but who did you talk to at TomTom and how dependable do you believe is the information that they gave you? I guess the skeptic in me is having trouble getting past the wording on the certificate.
By the way, there isn’t another website reviewing any other product that I’ve visited that does as thorough and efficient a job as GPSReview does for GPS’s (IMHO).
I’ve talked to several people at TomTom (admin people, not support) and they have all been consistent in their responses when we have asked for clarification. I’ve always been told that MapShare will always be free, however they will limit participation to those who have a recent “official” map.
I think the certificate says something like “receive map improvements for the duration of 1 year”. I asked specifically about that time reference and they said they wanted to make sure users understood that if years from now someone is still using a 2007 map that they won’t be able to use MapShare. Thus since they need to have a fairly recent map it isn’t “free” in the sense that they will eventually need to pay for an official map update in order to continue participating in the (free) MapShare.
The more people that participate in MapShare the better it will work for them so it only makes sense for them not to charge for user participation.
I’ll try to see if I can get something official to post.
We used our 920T yesterday to drive to Milan. It worked great! Received a notification of, and guided us around, a traffic jam. Pinged us with AutoVelox locations. Helped us when we missed a turn while leaving Milan.
One missing feature that would have been extremely useful: Indication of ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitato) boundaries. If one enters certain areas of cities in Italy, without a permit, it’s a large fine. Does anyone provide an add-on for this kind of thing?
Thanks for the clarification about MapShare participation.
After reading on the TomTom website about the motivation behind the MapShare concept in conjunction with company developments TomTom would prefer we not discuss in public forums, I feel better than ever about selecting the 920T.
I give credit to your website for helping me overcome reservations that arose out of my earlier experience with a TomTom product that I installed on my PalmTX PDA.
During past attempts to resolve issues I wasn’t at all impressed with customer service or user friendliness of their website or the slow satellite acquisition times.
But thanks to GPSReview I learned that TomTom has made a measurable improvement in their customer service over the course of the past year. And I learned that the 920T has a very fast processor which comes in handy in heavy, fast-moving city traffic.
There is virtually no comparison between the 920T and the earlier GPS product I have been using on my PalmTX other than a lot of the icons look similar and they are layed out in a similar fashion.
I’m very pleased with my 920T so far.
Thanks again.
Your review of the 920/920T led me to purchase a 920 which came 2 days ago. After a half a dozen calls to TomTom, I’m sending it back ASAP.
The GPS has not worked properly since it came out of the box. It got hung up updating software and it’s been all downhill since.
Documentation is terrible. I dowloaded the manual and what a waste of 85 pages. No table of contents, no index. Support says, that’s true, I”m better to search support on the web. Right! I would think that searching for “remote” would get me information on how to operate the remote. No, it’s right there in searching for “manual” though the file wouldn’t download.
After turning the GPS off, it would mysteriously start up again. Support had me download an applicatio file that didn’t work and then another file that at least got the 920 going, but didn’t fix the problem.
Today, it wouldn’t even turn on in the car, but came on in the cradle.
There are a number of features that don’t seem to be working, but it’s hard to be sure as there is so little that says how it should work. The manual, suupport, and the web site often don’t seem to know, or dont’ agree. For example, should it turn on when the car power is turned on? I got two opinions on that.
The clincher is that they want me to send the 2 day old unit to some repair place and I’ll get it back in a month.
I’ve had a Garmin 296 and 396 for a number of years and purchased a Streepilot 7200 and c550 for relatives, and they have been great machines. Flawless operation and excellent support.
With my tail between my legs, I hope they’ll have me back.
Finally! Someone telling the truth about this practically worthless GPS instaed of this paid Schmoe that keeps hyping it. Almost the very same thing happened to mine. Fail after Fail after Fail. TomTom service…HA! What a joke. Pure apathy. As it turns out, I lucked out. I got it from Crutchfield and they took it back without question and exchanged it for a Garmin 760…which Rocks! (at there cost entirely) But..if you prefer a headache and being stranded in the middle of nowhere when your GPS crashes..get the TT 920
Hi Mark,
You won’t be unhappy with the 760. Garmin have now foxed the long lock on time with 2.6 and it now works really well. I took it out of the box and made a 4000 km, 4 country trip without a hitch. It doesn’t have voice rec - but who really needs it? I t is not as “customisable” as the 920, but again, who needs it? It is just a damned good navigator and that is what you paid for.
Regards,
My 920 worked perfectly out of the box and has run perfectly for two months now. I got mine from Costco knowing they would take it back if there was a problem. Any product produces a few lemons - anyone checked the Magellan or Garmin forums?
ttyl
After struggling a little with suction cup mounts for the 920 (Tomtom’s and a couple of 2nd party mounts). Wipe the suction cup and the destination surface with an alcohol pad. Then attach the mount while the alcohol is still wet. The mount in my truck has been in place for 5 days now.
There may be some dud units that shipped out there.
I have seen NONE of the issues that some people complain about. I am not