720 Initial Impressions

uocooper · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:15 am Post subject: 720 Initial Impressions

I just got home from my first trip with my new 720 and here are some of my initial impressions.

1. No way to input an address using voice recognition unlike the European models. :confused:

2. When I was asked to set my home location it used my current GPS position to automatically bring up Oregon and Portland although you can change this if necessary.

3, The default computer voice is Susan although there are other text to speech voices on the CD. There have been changes from the TTS on the 910 since Susan no longer butchers the word Avenue. Oddly, the default speech preferences is to NOT read aloud street names. You actually have to check a box to enable the entire reason for having a computer voice for TTS in the first place. Very strange. Keep to lane warnings are also disabled by default.

4. Being able to move the status bar to the side is a welcome option. I haven't decided if I'll keep it there or not.

5. Entering addresses is made easier and so much faster now. Picking from cities in your state really makes a difference. I haven't checked yet but it seems like they keys on the onscreen keyboard are slightly larger. They've also added the option to press a button that hides the keyboard and brings up a longer list of close matches to select from than you can pick from on current TomTom models.

6. Check this page to make sure you have the latest map. If not, you can download an update for free. https://www.tomtom.com/latestmap

7. You are entitled to one year of map updates via MapShare. I'm curious to know what will happen when the year is up.

8. The CD has no Macintosh version of the HOME software but there is HOME version 2 for Mac on the 720's internal memory.

9. There's no case in the box. You'll need to buy one separately. Boo.

10. You can now see the address for a POI by selecting a POI and selecting the details button. On the main POI screen it will show you the location on a map and the cross streets for the POI.

11. The screen is nice a bright and seems slightly brighter than my 910.

12. Old schemes still work with v7.

13. The text to speech is still very good but it's clear that they had to sacrifice quality to get it to fit on the 720. For those familiar with MP3 compression it's almost like the 920 is an MP3 encoded at 160kbps and the 720 is at 96kbps. It's not that it's bad but the 920 definitely sounds better. The speaker of the 720 may also have something to do with this.

14. MapShare isn't quite working the way I thought it would at least for blocking roads. What it seems to do is just turn the road that you block in to a one way street instead of just preventing cars from driving through the point where the road is actually blocked. Once you mark it blocked, cars can't drive in the direction you set as blocked and you end up with some crazy detours to keep cars from driving on that street. Even if the address is near the end of the street where it is blocked, routes won't take you to there because it marks it as one way. This really is a huge problem. If I'm missing something, please tell me but this is not how blocking a road should work.

There is a barricade that blocks the road at the intersection of NW 29th Ave. and NW Quimby St. Here's how it looks. You can see the line of trees where the permanent barricade is located between the streets.

It starts out just fine but then instead of asking where the road should be blocked, it asks you to select the buttons to change the direction. The problem is that I don't want to change the direction, I want to block the road so it doesn't try and route cars between 29th and Quimby.

When trying to navigate to an address just one block away, you can see that it just treats the blocked road as a one way and still allows you to drive through where the road is blocked. If you block both directions, you can't drive on that road at all. I tried marking it blocked in different directions and as you can see it doesn't really block the road at all.

I'm hoping that I'm just missing something very obvious and I'd love it for someone to tell me how to just mark the road as blocked at the intersection of NW 29th and Quimby.

One other glaring omission that I hope they add to MapShare very soon is a faster way to enter turn restrictions such as left turn only from road X to road Y when driving in a certain direction. I'd be surprised if this doesn't get added soon.

Overall they have made some very welcome additions to Navcore v7. In fact, in my opinion, the changes to version 7 are even better than when they went from version 5 to 6. As they always have, I'm sure TomTom will keep making it better with future software updates. Even with some flaws, the best navigation software is now even better. TomTom has another winner.
_________________
Creator of the Bright & Vivid scheme available through HOME.

Report map errors- http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com

J_E_F_F · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:21 am Post subject:

have you noticed any routing engine differences yet?
Seems most reviews put TomTom (v6) in third place behind Garmin and Magellan. Is there anything you have seen in the short time that may show a better routing engine in Navcore 7 ?

Your images above seem to make me think no.
The trees (barricade) look pretty tall, they have been there a long time and were not planted recently. The maps should have caught that, and the routing engine should have not routed through it.

Andy_P · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:25 am Post subject:

But that's nothing to do with the "routing engine". It's purely down to the mapping. you can't blame the unit for trying to take you down a road that it's told is a perfectly good route.
At least if the sale of Teleatlas to TomTom goes through, they won't be able to deny any responsibility for it any more!

uocooper · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 4:34 am Post subject:

I have noticed a few route improvements but I think it has more to do with the new maps than an improved routing engine. The blocked road is something that should be a piece of cake to fix with MapShare but right now it's not up to the task.

A few more notes.

1. You can now control the TomTom through the HOME software on a Mac. This is particularly useful when typing in a more detailed map report since you can use your computer keyboard to type up the report.

2. The application version is shown as 7.000 OS:2614, GPS v1.21, Boot 5.0457. Map: North_America_2GB v705.1481

3. Out of the box I have 473mb's of free space on the built in memory.
_________________
Creator of the Bright & Vivid scheme available through HOME.

Report map errors- http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com

PaulB2005 · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:57 am Post subject:

With regards to (UN)Blocking a Road here's Tim Buxton's guide - CLICK HERE

Looks like you have to make a section of road "No Entry" in both directions. Can you do this with a very small section of the road concerned or just complete lengths of road?

edit - correct URL error
edit2 - guide is written by Tim Buxton not MikeB

uocooper · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 7:16 am Post subject:

Tim Buxton · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:45 am Post subject:

Tim Buxton · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:00 am Post subject: Re: 720 Initial Impressions

PaulB2005 · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:04 am Post subject:

Tim Buxton - Yes. Sorry. As you'll see above i posted the URL to the wrong page - i linked to MikeBs page that links to your guide originally. My error - i didn't update the name in my original thread.

All credit to Tim Buxton for the guide.

Darren · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:13 am Post subject:

PaulBt · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:13 am Post subject:

uocooper,

Have you tried the ideas shown here that suggest using the "cannot turn left" and "cannot turn right" options?

It looks like this might work in this case as the road block is at the end of the road. I'm not sure how it would work in the middle of a road.

The only thing that occurs to me would be to add a roundabout in the middle of the road and then set it so that you cannot turn off it. Rolling Eyes

Paul
_________________
TT720 V8.010, regular audio book user.
WestEuro v805 connected to E90 on O2
TT910 V6.525, TTN5, TTN3, TT on Psion 5mx

Andy_P · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:34 pm Post subject:

PaulBt · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:43 pm Post subject:

Andy, Thanks for correction. Embarassed

Patiently waiting for a 720 to play with...
Paul
_________________
TT720 V8.010, regular audio book user.
WestEuro v805 connected to E90 on O2
TT910 V6.525, TTN5, TTN3, TT on Psion 5mx

uocooper · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject: Re: 720 Initial Impressions

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