Comments after a 6 country trip with TT5

Bodo

I have just returned from a 2,500 mile trip to Bressanone in northern Italy and Vienna in Austria.
Fortunately my upgrade to TT5 arrived about 3 weeks before, giving me some time to install and learn the software.
My trip included overnight stays in France, Germany, Italy and Austria.
I loaded the following maps on a 1 GB SD card leaving 10Mb free:
Benelux Plus
Italy
France
Germany
Austria and Switzerland
My standard UK Plus was on a 512Kb SD card which also doubled up as memory for my camera

I planned my international journeys using the Benelux Plus maps. But the plus maps have no POI details outside the selected country, so finding a filling station or other attraction was not possible.
After calculating a route (for example from France to Germany via Belgium) was tedious.
I used the “Browse the map” feature on the Plus map to find the location where I exited France to Belgium.
Then change map to France, and navigate to the same map location.
Once I reached it, I changed to the Benelux Plus map and continued.
When I crossed the German border, I changed to the Germany map and completed my first stint
This is very tedious, but at least I get my POIs and silly details such as village names nearby.

Some positive comments:
The routing was generally excellent, and calculated times seemed to be very close to real times at my driving speed.
The map detail was very good and mostly accurate – very few missing and/or wrong roads (some minor one-way streets in city centres etc).
TT5 and speed control made the journey very easy and pleasurable – I only took one wrong turn!

Negatives:
Twice in France POIs indicated just did not exist – one was a petrol station when my tank was very nearly empty (lesson: do not rely on POIs)
The Italy map has no POIs – anybody else noticed this?
I could not plan a route on the plus map and then change to a detailed map – I expected the software to be able to handle that (there is enough memory in my PDA)
Zooming is difficult when driving – the buttons used with TT3 now control volume. The central keypad is quite difficult to use when driving
When changing the destination to a POI on your route, the original route is forgotten and must be re-entered.

Wish list for TomTom:
Route planning on my desk-to PC would be a huge advantage – I could then plan my trip, and load the relevant map sections to a memory card. Garmin offers this feature – I wish TomTom would.
POIs from other loaded maps available to the Plus map
POIs for Italy
Remember the original route when changing a route while navigating (such as a filling station), and revert back to the original route once the POI has been reached.
Change the filling station POIs on the UK maps to show the fuel type – I never know which is a BP station

Wish list for Pocket GPS World
Additional POIs for other countries than the UK. I saw many safety cameras in Germany, but was not able to find places where I could download them. Radio stations in Germany constantly advise motorist of the newest ones – I am sure that a database must exists.

Conclusion: :D
TomTom really made the trip easy – the problems were minor niggles that did not distract from a very good package.

Tommy3090 · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:15 pm Post subject:

Bodo,

Great report, going to France in 2 weeks, I was unsure as to how good TT5 was going to be.

Might even get the update before then.

Stuart
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HTC Desire S - Vodafone
Android 4.0.4
TT Ver 1.0 (1072278)
Western Europe map version v895.4453
PGPSW Camera Alert

treborvfr · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 25, 2004 Posts: 34

Good report,

Especially the bit about Italy POIs since this is the map I use the most after the UK (my family live over there). However, I have heard of this before, someone on a motorcycle forum I use mentioned it, apparently you can get round it by copying the POIs over from TT3 - but then you shouldn't need to do this.

It may be useful to add the missing Italian POIs to the bug list (sticky thread at the top of this forum) along with any others that you found during you extensive testing.

Cheers

Bob

hornist

julianbarker · Lifetime Member Joined: Apr 12, 2005 Posts: 431

I use the Travel Via option when needing POI like petrol on a route. TT5 now even indicated POIs which are on or near the current route.

Bodo · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:27 pm Post subject:

I must admit - I have never used the Travel-Via option. I will try it out - thanks for the tip

uk89camaro · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 04, 2005 Posts: 113

Excellent report, I'm sure many people will find it usefull. The "via" option is indeed a great feature.
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Tom Tom 1005 v2 World, Garmin Dakota 20, IPhone 4S

Rifleman · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 27, 2005 Posts: 19

s3dbw · Regular Visitor Joined: May 07, 2004 Posts: 203

Quote

"I saw many safety cameras in Germany, but was not able to find places where I could download them"

You can download them for Germany. Austria and Switzerland using POI Warner and subscribing on the pocketnavigation.de website. Downside of course is that like all third party software at the moment, POI Warner does not work with TT5, hence my sticking with TT3 for my forthcoming European Jaunt to Switzerland via Holland and Germany

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