Farewell to my iCN550+TMC - I've gon to Tom Tom

[paulfnavman]

I just wanted to let users know of my experience with the iCN550+TMC.

I've had the unit since mid July, so have been using it for 5 months now. I'm glad that I purchased it from Costco, as they don't quibble about justifiable returns.

At first, the unit behaved (almost) as expected, and took me where I wanted with little or no problem. The TMC did guide me around a number of jams and kept me on the move more often than not. I say almost, as I had to remove a number of the maps before the unit would boot up. If I had wanted to travel through Europe in the past few months - it wouldn't have been up to it. In the UK though, once half of Europe had been trashed, it was fine. For a short while.

But then, the niggles started. The unit wouldn't allow me to set up a route without it being reset - not just switched off and on, but inserting a pin into the reset button recess - every time I wanted to set up a new route. The only thing that made this just about bearable was the fact that with most of the European maps removed, the boot up time was slightly reduced. Still, I was getting a bid fed up.

Then, on a number of journeys through Herts, Beds & London, the unit suddenly decided I was flying across Wales.

Travelling on the A5 in Beds, next to fields, the map showing a straight road ahead, the unit insisted around 20 to 30 times that I turn sharp left.
Similarly, when driving down a local road on a regular journey, the unit insisted I turn left, ignoring a high curb, fences and trees and go into a field. Ignoring this, it told me to make a U turn, despite the map showing only one road, and my destination straight ahead. These are busy routes that haven't changed in 20+ years, so there's no excuse for not having the correct mapping.

Then the straw that broke the Navmans back. The unit, after being reset numerous times, refused to take me anywhere in or around Westminster which resulted in my being late for a function I didn't want to miss.

I called Navman - no luck there, so I tried the web site given on the product box. The url didn't work, so I just looked at Navman.co.uk/.com and tried to get English customer support - this didn't work either. I emailed them, then a few days later emailed again. This time I had a response, asking me to detail what was wrong with the unit. I replied to this is detail and I'm still waiting for the response more than two weeks later!

Having given Navman more than enough time to address problems, I put maps back into the car, dug out all of the packaging, cables and manuals and got my money back from Costco.

This afternoon, I picked up a TomTom 910 with 5 years product cover from Currys. All I need to do is order the TMC cable from Amazon and it will still have saved me over £40.

First impressions are that it is neater, easier to see and hear, much faster, highly intuitive and does what it says on the box. Within 10 minutes, I was driving home from the store and talking to my partner via the built in blue tooth hands free. There is no comparison - the 910 is streets ahead and exactly what the 550 should have been.

I was upset at having to return the NavMan unit. I gave Navman every opportunity to put things right, and even put up with much of what was wrong, but in the end, they simply didn't even have the courtesy to respond to their customers complaints. It is simple to see why TomToms are selling so well.

[robertn]

I suspect from your reported problems the GPS was reporting incorrect positions to the software. It is not clear from what you have said if you looked at the screen at any time to determine if the position Navman displayed was accurate compared to where you were.

I advise you against blind faith in the TomTom. They are good products however, as with the Navman, they are not faultless, and you already have experiance of what happens when you blindly follow the devices directions.

As for the price difference - thats what 6 months in this industry gives you. Look back over time at the initial price, and how quickly they fall. Comparing you TomTom price of today against what you paid 6 months ago for the 550 is wrong. You got lucky when they took back the 550 at what you paid for it. A new one is worth much less today.
What was the top of the line TomTom worth in July?

[buckrogers]

[robertn]

Many people ask for a Linux (aka free) variant. Problem is the not the software, thats easy - whats a few tens of man years of work. What the problem is the maps.

If you want free software, someone will need to go and drive every road in the civilaised world in a vehcile with $100'000 equipment. Once finsihed, they need to start again to fix up errors and get updated changes. Then they need to give it away, AND they need to all this monthly to keep the customers happy. I don't see you offering :D , I for one, am happy to pay for it.

Once every few months someone tries to kick off an open source mapping project as described above - it does not work. The open source movment is just not mature enough and egoless enough...

[buckrogers]

[TerryWalsh]

My understanding is that Tom Tom already runs under a Linux kernel. I am ready to be corrected on that though.

[robertn]

Yes - the Go is Linux based, BUT not open source. There is a hell of a lot of confusion over open souce and Linux. Linux is open source, as are many appliactions that run on it. The evangalists never talk about the commercial software that runs on Linux. They also fail to mention the amount of open source/free software that is just crap. In fact, there is not so much out there that open source is generally a waste of time unless you have some way to get told which software to download and which to ignore.

If you are a geek or professional with a specific need, Linux and free software has much to offer. If you just want to get a job done, pay some cash and stick to commercial appliactions. Opensource is just too time consuming and confusing for an "average" user wanting turn key solutions.

I can imagine the open souce in car nav solution:
Down load, seperately, the geo searching, routing and guidence programs. Write a Perl script to link them together, complie them for you particular variation of linux. Not you find you want POI's, favourites, speed cams and warnings, but the modules you find on the net don't work togther. The ones that do work together are not reliable on your particular version of Linux.
After serveal months you give up on the idea, delete the 20gig of downloads and buy a TomTom or Navman solution.

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