my experience wayfinder vs tomtom 5

ramzez · Regular Visitor Joined: Mar 10, 2005 Posts: 98

hi,

Just wanted to share my experience of using wayfinder trial version and tomtom mobile 5.

The setup:

SonyEricsson P910i using Wayfinder Trial
Nokia 6630 using TomTom mobile 5 (borrowed from a friend)
BT77 GPS from ebay

The trip:
Cambridge->Oxford->London->Cambridge

I have started from home using Tomtom:
I didn't get the voice that i need to turn right on the roundabout. The route chosen avoided to go all the way m11 and to m25 instead i went as directed through boldock - it was a very bad choice, because the round about which i need to turn is not there anymore.

when i got back onto m25, the tomtom lost signal and although i was in traffic all my tries to make it work failed. therefore i switched to wayfinder.

wayfinder connected straight away, i gave it a postcode and it found it ok, although i needed to confirm that it is oxford again, until i reached oxford all was excellent. but on one of the roundabouts i got confused what was meant by 5th exist, so need it to turn around.

apparently the postcode i have got me to the incorrect street, but not far from the destination.

From oxford to London, the wayfinder worked excellent, however in london the signal of gps is very low, i guess maybe it is gps receiver...

on Sunday i went back to cambridge using tomtom missed a couple of turn which were too late, however got to m11 fine and got back in just 1.30 hours.

Conclussion:
Wayfinder:
+The instruction are more precise and excellent, i had never missed any.
+very quick in calculating routes
+very quick in recalculating routes if you off track
-Using uiq version it is very hard to do anything with menu on the go.
-i never seen any safety cameras on the map
-the trip used 0.8 mb

Tomtom:
+Exellent interface
+showed all of the safety cameras (thanks to pocketgpsworld db)
-most of the postcodes said no name for the street
-it is very easy to miss instruction - sometimes it says 4th exit, but means 3rd (especially if you screen goes standby)
-rerouting some time takes too long, although never more then 30 seconds, but when it did it 3 times in a row, i had to just go straigth untill it new what to do.

i am looking forward to see what navicore and route 66 2006 can do!

woody67 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 03, 2004 Posts: 34

I am trialling Wayfinder and the sound is so low on max volume that it is impossible to hear - P910 in the P910 holder.

What are your comments on the sound output, and is there anyway to improve this?

woody67 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 03, 2004 Posts: 34

Some other things which I have noticed

Very slow to recalculate - even with good signal. A good few times it has 'failed to connect to the server', and it is difficult to press the cancel icon whilst driving.

It crashes when I get a phone call.

And if you need to change a setting or press the screen for any reason, then you will have to pull over.

My feelings so far with a P900/910 set up is that its good to have in emergencies (many times I have needed to travel somewhere but my PDA was at home) but I don't think it will be replacing tomtom and ipaq just yet

ramzez · Regular Visitor Joined: Mar 10, 2005 Posts: 98

the sound level is not very high, i didn't find the way to improve it.

i never had a problem connecting to a server (orange network) and recalculation was very quick and i was able to receive call with no crashing.

also i know wayfinder releases versions twice a year , and as far as i know there is going to be voice notification for safety cameras soon.

but i agree, it is impossible to manipulate the device when it is in the holder.
hope it will improve, it would be great if they did landscape view, so guide and map at the same time.

cause i was using trial version i didn't have chance to see if it is possible to download all of the uk maps on the card, anyone?

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