Re: TomTom GPSs are GARBAGE

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:12:34 -0500, markwalter@no-spam.com wrote:


Well, I didn't reply to the thread at the time it was more active
because I didn't have access to a TomTom, but, I did learn a bit
today. I managed to borrow a TomTom GPS and try it out!

Holy crap, what an experience.

OK, so we're headed down the road, many times it would say:

"Right turn ahead" or "Left turn ahead". Problem was that the right or
left would be two or three turns further down the road--clearly the
TomTom was not looking at the map and seeing interviening
intersections! Ouch, more than once following its instructions would
have sent us on a wild goose chase.

Then we came to an over-pass... "Keep right at the intersection" was
the intruction, which translated to take the exit. I could clearly see
that what it wanted to do was to take the exit, then immediately
re-enter the highway after crossing the (cross) road below the
overpass! WTF? Uh, did the TomTom think that maybe the over pass was

A few miles down the road, two intersections before the turn, it says
"Turn left at the end of the road". OK, I know the end of the road is
about 20 miles away, but the TomTom simply didn't even have the rest
of the road in its database... We're not talking an old out of date
TomTom, this one was only a couple of months old. And we're not
talking a road that was recently added, the road has been there many,
many years, probably 40 or more years.

And then two miles down the road, it tries to route us *through* the
downdown part of a small town, when the highway goes straight past the
town on the outskirts! Perhaps the scenic route, perhaps?

I'm going to side with the OP here, the TomTom's routing is abisimal!

A few other things I noticed:

Turn announcements varied from 1.3 miles to 500 yards from the turn.
Yards? YARDS? No one, absolutely no one, uses yards when driving a
car, no signs use yards, no speedometer uses yards, nothing uses
yards. Miles, tenths of a mile, and feet are used, but the TomTom
insisted in giving either miles (and some odd mile values, too!) or
yards (typically 500 or 600 yards).

You need to look at the little car on the screen along with the
instructions. Think about it.... would you like it to say TURN NOW, giving
you a split second to do it? Of course you wouldn't. It tells you in advance
when a turn is coming. Sometimes there's a few other possible turns before
yours. You just have to look, and it's very clear which one is yours.


--
JK Sinrod
www.MyConeyIslandMemories.com

JK Coney wrote:


Or look at the turn arrow and the distance under that in
big letters on the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

advance when a turn is coming. Sometimes

And usually it say to say turn right at the second intersection in that
situation.


And you dont normally even need to look. The format of the two
different voice instructions are quite different and you soon get used
to that and its completely automatic without looking at the screen.

wrote:


Realize I'm comparing the TomTom to a Magellen's instructions. The
Magellen gets it right every time, while the TomTom is a poor
imitation of quality!

PeterD wrote








No it doesnt, its sometimes too late with the last turn instruction.


Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you are a fool.