TOMTOM 3 Full of bugs

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

I purchased tomtom 3 from navcity in Tottenham Court Road last thursday - I already had tomtom2 but I wanted to get a bluetooth gps as my wired gps was broken. At under £200 this seemed like a good deal.

However, I'm very unhappy with the whole thing.
The software is much the same as before - the icons look different, I can route via stopovers and that's about it. Yes, the roads are updated in my area (but towns are missing!). There is more functionality in the MAP view (I can get alternate routes - not sure if I could do that before).

I use an IPAQ 3870 pocket pc.

1. On install, I had to manually delete the old maps on my SD card in order to install the new maps. I thought this was meant to be automatic?

2. After install, navigator would not run - application fault occurred. I reinstalled and it still didn't work. I then did a hard reset and cleared the memory of the pocket pc and it seemed to work.

3. The application ran VERY slowly. I thought initially it was the IPAQ reorganising its RAM, but I left it for 15 minutes and it was still slow. I tried only installing a 32Mb map in RAM rather than the SD CARD (I removed the SD Card) and it was still slow. I think the slowness is caused by bluetooth - it seemed to speed up when switching off the "com8" setting in the gps application. I tried it later and it seems now fast, if it has made a bluetooth connection, but slow if I've turned the machine off then back on. By slow, I mean unusable.

4. If I turn the pocket pc off, and then back on it usually fails to find the bluetooth GPS. I need to either reset the pocket pc, or go into the gps application and disable then re-enable the serial port (sometimes).

5. Some of my local towns are missing! Billericay (my home town) and Chelmsford (a larger town nearby) are not listed (in tomtom2 they were). I can type the name of a smaller nearby village, or a medium sized town nearby to find streets but it's very annoying.

6. No documentation was in the box concerning the gps unit - how long is the battery supposed to last?

7. After leaving the bluetooth gps receiver on and connected to the power in the car, the blue LED turned red and the unit just refused to respond. I had to open it up and disconnect the battery a number of times whilst pressing and holding down the button to persuade it to reset and start working again.

I don't think this product is anywhere near ready for release. If bluetooth isn't as easy as using a wired connection, then they shouldn't sell a bluetooth solution. WHen I used a wired connection, I could just plug in my pocket pc and 5 seconds later it worked. Now it's a little game of "switch off the gps, switch it on, reset the pocket pc, wait, start the application, hope it connects, maybe switch off and on, then wait a bit"!
I am in particular curious about the best way to turn off the pocket pc and/or the bluetooth gps when I have arrived at a destination so as to ensure that when I get back in the car I can quickly start to use it.

Does anyone else have problems like this?

Anthony

lbendlin · Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 1:48 pm Post subject:

oh dear... Have you already installed the update 3.01 ?
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Lutz

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Carll · Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 9:04 pm Post subject: TT3; my opinion

I have to say that having had TT2, and now TT3 for a week, I like what they have done. The system works as it should, even before the first upgrade to 3.01.
The free major roads of Europe is great, and the itinery works just fine.
The maps are now quite up to date (I have not fouind an error yet) and runs just as quickly.
With both the European and UK detailed maps installed, I do use most of my SD card, so I am not yet sure if I shall leave the European maps on, once I have been to Amsterdam next month.
I liked TT2, it did what it said on the tin. I have traditionally had a boot full of those OS detailed maps by county. Now I have got my boot back!
TT3 is a good next version, if you disagree, have alook at a new release of a microsoft porduct, and see how quickly updates start to appear, oh, and the cost of either the upgrade or the full version. I think TT3 is priced correctly, and a free upgrade is great, Microsoft, Etal; are you all listening???
Checkpoint works just fine with it, and the postcode system developed by Niels Thomsen works just fine with it as well, on this note I think TT could have put alittle more effort into getting a proper postcode system, I go to lots of business addresses that do not have a propper address other than so and so, on so and so road, with Niels's program I can navigate straight to the location, well done Niels.
Anyway I'll get off my soap box now and go play some more with my pocket PC, oh well done for speeding the site back up, keep up the great work guys.
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iPAQ 5550; 400MHZ - 256 SD Card - TT wired GPS - TTN3 UK - PPC 2003

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

Darren · Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 9:53 pm Post subject:

That normally ocurrs if you haven't exited the app before switching off. It's primarily a BT issue and not a TT issue.
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Darren Griffin

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

lbendlin · Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:15 pm Post subject:

Yes, PocketPC 2002 machines normally don't have these issues. They patiently wait until the device comes back online....
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Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

Lost1 · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 1:51 am Post subject:

I haven't got TTN3 yet but I had lots of the same problems with my Blue Tooth TTN2 when I first started to use it.

I use it every day to travel to various sites around my home county and have no problems turning it off and on again 5 or 6 times a day now.

I always leave it in navigator and it is ready for use as soon as I have powered up and made the connection to the GPS (this usually only takes seconds). However, I did find that I needed to turn the Pocket PC (iPAQ 1945) off first and then the GPS. Although it is a blue tooth set up I do tend to use it in the car cradle and attach the charging wire to the GPS to keep it all fully charged.

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

Nick412 · Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:11 am Post subject:

would you normally turn your desktop pc running windows off, without exiting programs>???? Confused

best to exit all running programs on a ppc before turning it of.

This way the programe shuts down as it should, and low risk of losing data.

Cheers
Nick
_________________
Dell Axim X5 400MHZ - 128 CF Card - 256 SD Card - Rikaline 6010 TTNV2 (UK+Europe) - Checkpoint 2.02 - PPC 2002
www.mobilephonegames.ws

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

That question doesn't make for a fair comparison. Windows on the pocket PC doesn't actually need to be restarted and started the whole time like windows for desktop PCs. Do you exit all the applications on your pocketpc, every single one, before switching off?

Besides, it used to work fine with the wired GPS. And I've found that exitting the program doesn't always work. Sometimes the GPS app is still running in the background.

Why can't bluetooth actually be made to ever work properly? For example, every so often, the bluetooth hardware goes wrong and I need to reset the pocketpc anyway.

Carll · Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:04 pm Post subject:

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

FastLaneJB · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 01, 2004 Posts: 17

OK I've been reading this forum for a week or so but have yet to register but this post has forced me to register so I can throw my opinion into the mix.

I got an XDA 2 recently along with a Bluetooth GPS and Tom Tom 2. For the most part I have no issues but on occasions I have to reset the XDA 2 to get it all working again.

It's my first experience with the Pocket PC OS and my opinion is that it is really quite poor. Sure there is a great wealth of apps which are available which brings me to the platform but if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have got the XDA 2. It's really just for running Tom Tom for the most part.

I run Windows XP on the various machines in my house and most of them stay on all the time with no problems or crashing. My work machine for instance has been running for 42 days without a reboot. It only gets rebooted for updates. My game machine gets turned off but when it's on I also have no problems with it.

My laptop also running Windows XP goes into standby or hibernation with no problems at all with or without bluetooth turned on.

My Sony P900 (Symbian OS) which is my phone never needs rebooting and never crashes and despite not syncing as well with Outlook as the XDA 2 I believe it to have much better PDA functions and intergration with the OS. It's also got way more programs installed on it than my XDA 2 does, it also multitasks better and seems quicker for some tasks despite having a much slower CPU. It's a shame Tom Tom for the P900 isn't out yet.

So to sum up, the Pocket PC OS isn't stable in my opinion or overly good. Maybe without a bluetooth GPS it would be better but my XDA 2 is also a phone, bluetooth should be working without all of these issues. It doesn't even support a serial port profile using the Microsoft bluetooth stack that ships with the XDA 2 as basic. I've had to add a third party solution to fix that, as I'm sure any other Pocket PC's with serial bluetooth support have had to do. I'm normally quite a big MS fan so I'm quite disappointed by this. I do love Tom Tom however Smile

Devilin · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 09, 2004 Posts: 9

I might be mistaken but with smart ST 2 and a BT 4410 my 2210 wouldn't start if I turned it off with the app running. Since installing the 2210 bios upgrade last week I think the problem has been fixed.

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