TomTom just not into PNDs now?

matthewj · Frequent Visitor Joined: Apr 03, 2006 Posts: 751

The other weekend I was in PC World and had a play on the new 6000 PND. I was surprised at how poor the response was to touch. I can understand that my old 740 is slow because the processor is of an age, but I actually feel it is more responsive than the 6000 because it is predictable - you tap a button, there's a pause of a second, the next screen appears. But the 6000 just seemed to either take ages, or not do anything. I felt I was unable to tell if I was trying to do something like pinch to zoom and it wasn't supported, or it was just taking ages. I couldn't work out the basics of the interface at all. Just idle look, but not going to make me buy anything anytime soon.

Unrelated, I am going on a trip soon, and due to the unreliable 740 native traffic, I paid for traffic on my iPhone. I thus gave it a quick test yesterday, and I got into the car, pushed the button to turn on the 740, and then started the TomTom app. I'd set both up ready with the route, and the app was telling where to go next and fetching traffic info before the 740 had even finished its startup and asked me for the security code. The 740 takes about 5 mins to even think about traffic data.

And that lead me to this post - if the modern replacement for the 740 is a disaster in use, and the iPhone is a lot better, could it be that TomTom aren't interested in PNDs really? The 6000 is about two years old yes? If I'd been in charge of "rebooting the TomTom", then I'd have stuck in the best processor I could at the time. But it doesn't seem to be able to do what it needs to. And can't be helping to sell many.

I suspect my 740 and car mount are not long for this world. When I move the phone mount to the "prime position", the 740 won't be coming back.

mccririck · Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 4:17 pm Post subject:

Universal mounts killed the PND:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TomTom-Universal-In-Car-Phone-Holder/dp/B00LK17DP8

matthewj · Frequent Visitor Joined: Apr 03, 2006 Posts: 751

spook51 · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:03 pm Post subject:

My experience is much the same - from PDA to PND to phone app. My 940 continues to serve me well but on Saturday evening, away from home in a hotel and having endured my Audi's very much less than perfect navigation system to get there, I downloaded the TomTom app and Western European map + Live Services. They all fitted onto the memory card in my Samsung smart phone so yesterday I enjoyed a familiar voice telling me how to find my way home.

I'll continue to use the 940 in two of our three cars but the phone version was very impressive in use so it's hardly surprising that's where TomTom may be focussing their efforts.

matthewj · Frequent Visitor Joined: Apr 03, 2006 Posts: 751

Ironically, given my "iphone is faster to update traffic" original, I set off yesterday and it was one of those days the 740 decides traffic straight away would be nice. It took a minute or two and had traffic. The iPhone on the other hand sat spinning for the entire 15 min journey, and never got traffic.

Oh dear. Crying or Very sad

Privateer · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:52 pm Post subject:

My first TomTom product was TomTom Navigator 2 on an iPAQ H3970 PDA, which I bought in May 2003, so over 11 years ago now! Shocked

TomTom and other software must have helped sales of PDA. However when TomTom produced its first PND the PDA days were numbered.

Now it seems that TomTom prefers the smart phones. My favourite PND the TomTom 950 Live has every feature that I want but it's starting to reboot itself too much so I've recently started to use TomTom for iPhone (with traffic) which is much faster for route planning (although the iPhone version is UK only where the 950 is Europe) but the iPhone TomTom is much quicker at rotating for difficult roundabouts and road junctions.

My problem with TomTom for iPhone is the same as the TomTom PNDs that came after the 950 Live which is lack of features! The main one is lack of third party POIs. Whilst I can add POI categories using DiskAid, I am annoyed that I cannot create new POI categories nor add POIs to a category.

Regards,
_________________
Robert.
iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 14.0.1: iOS CamerAlert v2.0.7
TomTom GO Mobile iOS 2.3.1; TomTom (UK & ROI and Europe) iOS apps v1.29
Garmin Camper 770 LMT-D

DennisN · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 1:55 pm Post subject:

The third party POIs thing is unbelievable. How on earth could TT decide we shouldn't have them? How many genuine business users have been scuppered by it? Not to mention all the private users.

No matter how good is TT Places (and I've found it in my experience to be rubbish!), it cannot possibly replace my POIs of all my customers, not least because mine are all done by positioning at the entrance gate/door/road.
_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

mccririck · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 5:19 pm Post subject:

You can uplad POIs in MyDrive.

DennisN · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 5:24 pm Post subject:

mccririck · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:19 pm Post subject:

No, on the Via 135 Laughing

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