Hi! We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
But as we’re losing ad-revenue from this then why not make a donation towards website running costs?. Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:22 pm Post subject: Some 720 Questions
Hope someone with a 720 can answer these questions for me.
1. How good is the voice activation in general? And importantly when the car is in motion, particularly at higher speeds where there is road and wind noise?
2. How good is the FM transmitter sending voice commands to the car radio so that you can hear it through the car speakers? Does this also mean that if you chose to listen to the voice commands via the car speakers, you cannot listen to the CD player at the same time?
3. What is the latest map version? Does TomTom give you a free map upgrade to latest version within a time limit if i bought a 720 with older maps?
4. Can you amend the maps on the 720 itself or do you have to do it via TomTom Home on the computer?
5. Is route or re-routing calculation now faster and better than the x10?
6. Is the GPS receiver newer or the same as x10? If newer, does it lock on to a signal much faster than before?
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 4:32 pm Post subject: Re: Some 720 Questions
duckie008 wrote:
1. How good is the voice activation in general? And importantly when the car is in motion, particularly at higher speeds where there is road and wind noise?
You mean voice quality/volume?
If so, pretty good (I had a Go300 before and that was way above average due to the huge speaker, so I will always be disappointed). Volume is fine in my noisy Honda CRV. "Real" voices much better quality than "computer" /TTS voices, but TTS ones ARE louder.
Quote:
2. How good is the FM transmitter sending voice commands to the car radio so that you can hear it through the car speakers?
FM quality is good, but volume IS rather quiet. This means when you turn off both the radio and the Go with the ignition, if you turn just the radio back on before the Go, you get a blast of static if you've forgotten to turn the volume down.
Quote:
Does this also mean that if you chose to listen to the voice commands via the car speakers, you cannot listen to the CD player at the same time?
Same as with any car radio it is either radio or CD not both.
There are lots of options for voices through:- internal speaker/line out/FM out or also to a Bluetooth speaker.
You also have the onboard mp3 player and you can have that going to a different output. For example I have instructions on internal and music on FM. (music is paused while getting an instruction UNLESS music is on bluetooth speaker, then you get the option of pause or not).
Quote:
3. What is the latest map version? Does TomTom give you a free map upgrade to latest version within a time limit if i bought a 720 with older maps?
Map version 705.1480 on mine. Free upgrade to the latest ONLY if a new map has been released before you buy the Go. In other words they guarantee you will have the most up to date map when you buy it.
Quote:
4. Can you amend the maps on the 720 itself or do you have to do it via TomTom Home on the computer?
New "Mapshare" feature allows you to make SOME changes (block/unblock roads, make one-way, edit road names etc) that are shown on your map immediately. Other changes get reported for future updating. Browse the forum for full details on mapshare, beyond what I can write here...
Quote:
5. Is route or re-routing calculation now faster and better than the x10?
Never had an x10, but it SEEMS faster than my x00 was
Quote:
6. Is the GPS receiver newer or the same as x10? If newer, does it lock on to a signal much faster than before?
Same as x10 (SiRF Star III) They used another in some of the ONE models but have gone back to this one for the x20 range.
I get a fix very quickly with the qpsfix info downloaded once a week. I also get an amazing fix inside buildings - not just near a window, I'm looking at my unit now, in a room on the second storey of a three storey brick building with massive concrete floor slabs and NO windows and I've got 6 good satellites!
In question 1, what i meant was, does the voice input address work well when you are driving? Because there is more noise when the car is on the move than when it's stationary.
Also, is the voice input feature only used in inputting addresses. Can you navigate the menu via voice?
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:26 pm Post subject:
Ah sorry, with you now...
Voice input is just a gimmick in my opinion. It works OK-ish at the best of times. All you can do is (at the prompt) state the "city", then the road, and then the house number. You can't do postcodes or anything else. When you say the city and street, it gives you a list of possibles and you then have to say the number next to the correct one (which I'll admit is usually the first in the list. However, in this software it has a problem when it gets to the numbers. You have to say "two", "one" for 21 and then "OK" to finish, but it keeps waiting for more input from you and any noise gets interpretted as another number. Pretty useless.
Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 19638 Location: Blackpool , Lancs
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:35 pm Post subject:
The voice activation obviously doesn't like Northern accents, I have all but given up with this "feature" / "Gimmick" as I find it far quicker in use to tap the screen rather than getting it to understand what I am saying - it has given the wife and kids some entertainment when we have tried this, but I don't bother with it these days.
FM Output is very good with the option to have a number of pre assigned frequencies, so on a long trip re-tuning the FM output is much easier when on the move - sound quality is also very good, not quite up to the standards you can achieve when using Bluetooth for the audio output that option can get very costly to implement. What is missing though is the ability to route the phone audio through the FM transmitter for play back through the car deck - this would be a very nice improvement if/ when it can be made.
My 910 will re-calculate a route faster than the 720, but we are talking split second differences, I wouldn't bother about this issue at all to be honest, a few mili seconds makes no difference when you consider the state of the UK road network (2 hours sat on the M62 this evening, covering 30 miles - so a few seconds in re-route time doesn't matter one jot) - Mike
Posted: Today Post subject: Pocket GPS Advertising
We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?. Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!
Hi! We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
But as we’re losing ad-revenue from this then why not make a donation towards website running costs?. Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in for private messages
Log in
