upgrade to tomtom 3 a waste of money!!

jasb

I have upgraded to tomtom 3 and now wish i hadnt!! there is a major problem with trying to find an address if you dont know the postcode.

In tomtom 2 if you entered an area and then a road eg wednesbury , high st it gave you the high street(s) in wednesbury. Tomtom 3 gives you all the high streets in the west midlands!!!

If you dont know the postcode (and a lot of the time Im not given it) tomtom 3 is a complete waste of money

How could this stupid error be missed?

and more to the point what are tomtom going to do about it? Evil or Very Mad

Has anybody contacted them and had a reply?

Jasb

jasb · Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 1:24 am Post subject:

A better example would be harborne,high st.......which brings up all the high streets in the WEST MIDLANDS!!!......so unless you happen to know the postcode, good luck seaching through the pages of choices.

DavidW · Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 3:04 pm Post subject:

I haven't contacted TomTom - I've better things to do with my time. However, there's more detailed analysis of this problem and my conclusions in this thread.

My personal feeling is that this is a serious enough problem to warrant a map re-issue - but as we see in this thread, at least part of the fault may be with TeleAtlas.

David

jasb · Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 4:04 pm Post subject:

I haven't contacted TomTom - I've better things to do with my time.

good for you

Conor · Regular Visitor Joined: May 01, 2004 Posts: 73

I contacted TomTom. Apparently it would appear it is my fault for not knowing the full address including county and postcode.

Read my correspondence in this thread:
http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=7448&start=30&sid=dd415644e75e1ad0674b639dba1f6e20

jasb · Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 11:01 pm Post subject:

Just read your link!

Its actually worse than i thought then....

I cant get over how bad this upgrade is.....and the fact that they had the gall to charge for this piece of crap!!

How could somebody test this program and miss such obvious errors?

It only took me a few minutes to realise the postcode problem and I havnt even been out the door with it yet.

Good job ive got co pilot 4 as back up

tom9851 · Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 8:32 am Post subject:

Having spent the last hour or so reading all the various threads and posts about the routing problems people are experiencing with TTN3 - I have to say what a sorry state of affairs it is. I feel particularly sorry for anyone who has paid the full retail price for this software. I am fortunate that I only paid the postage for my upgrade to TTN3 but I have reverted back to TTN2 which, in my humble opinion, I now believe to be better (i.e. more user friendly and less confusing) that it's successor! The posts regarding the inability of users to input a town (and expect that town to be found, especially when that town has a huge population) and a street in that town/city is a basic fundamental requirement. I suspect that many people will be returning their retail versions of TTN3 back to the shops and perhaps TomTom will then realise they have made a major cock-up with this upgrade and will take steps to rectify it - but I don't hold my breath on the likelihood of that happening! It is a shame because I believe TTN2 to be a good package (albeit not perfect, but what package is?) and this upgrade (which I assumed was to make the existing package even better!) is a backward step and will do enormous damage to their reputation. I, in common with many others on this excellent site, was eagerly (almost like children waiting for xmas morning in some cases!) awaiting the brown UPS delivery van to come up my street with my TTN3 - now that it is here the balloon has well and truly burst!

Disappointedly yours,

Tom

Conor · Regular Visitor Joined: May 01, 2004 Posts: 73

Tim Buxton · Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 12:56 pm Post subject:

But isn't TomTom a Dutch company? Why then would they design they lookuo features the American way?
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Tim

DavidW · Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 11:03 pm Post subject:

TomTom are Dutch, so Lutz's explanation tells you how the Americans do things, but not why TomTom got things wrong in the Navigator 3 GB maps. Note further that US Zip codes (assuming it's just the 5 digit code, not the 5+4) is more like a German post code - it doesn't get you anywhere near an individual street. You need the (in my experience) much more rarely seen 5+4 code, which looks like 12345-1234, to get that kind of detail - I think that might be individual street level or pretty near.

My surprise is that the Navigator 3 GB maps got through beta testing with the address lookup as it is.

Would it help if I tried to write a concise email that everyone who wishes to complain could send to TomTom Support explaining clearly why this is a problem? We're already having quite a problem on the forums with this issue - discussion of it is now in something like four or five separate threads! There's mention of Bluetooth problems (particularly with the iPAQ 2210) not always being solved by Navigator 3.01 / GPS 3.02 in quite a few threads, too.

I think the database issue is pretty clear. TomTom either don't understand why it is a problem, or seem to think it's OK because the postcodes there are will allow you to go to the right option. The problem is that quite a few people don't appear to know their own postcodes, a lot of paperwork lacks postcodes and you can only look up something like 8 postcodes in a 24 hour period on royalmail.com now.

Even if you know the postcode, it's still messy without add-on software, as you get all street names in the county of the postcode. That really is inexcusable.

Enter the postcode minus the last two letters, then the street name, then hunt for that variant of the street name. Try my High Street, Stalham (Norfolk) example - it's NR12 9. Enter NR12 9, then some letters of High Street - then search a long way down before you find the right entry - High Street NR12 9. The first results you get are Ipswich area postcodes.

David

Conor · Regular Visitor Joined: May 01, 2004 Posts: 73

I think the idea of a letter is an excellent one. Better make sure that the forum administrators make it a "Sticky" though.

tom9851 · Posted: Tue May 04, 2004 6:22 am Post subject:

I also agree that is an excellent idea - I guess at the end of the day complaining and venting our frustrations on this forum alone will not change anything.

DavidW · Posted: Tue May 04, 2004 11:09 am Post subject:

I'll see what I can do about a letter then, though it might take me a day or two as I'm pretty busy.

David

icsys · Posted: Tue May 04, 2004 11:19 am Post subject:

Don't want to create problems but could it be made generic... so as to be used for Navman too Not Worthy

As you rightly said elsewere, Navman's software is not without its share of problems.

AlfieB · Posted: Tue May 04, 2004 1:01 pm Post subject:

David

I noted your reply over my comments posted on the Navman (Software) Forum, and yes I agree their software is certainly not without problems. How they eventually reconcile those problems though really is a matter for speculation. If enough of us make enough noise then hopefully they will do something about it. Soon

You are correct that it is very difficult to try to pull all of the threads together, I've been sat here for a while now trying to see the common ground between the Navman & TomTom postings and I'm going cross eyed.

I believe your suggestion about putting an e-mail together has to be welcomed. Thumbs Up

Although I've never used TomTom, like Icsys I think that a lot of the problems are common to both systems because they both use TeleAtlas. I would like to think that a map reissue would be on the cards but I really can't see that happening, but stranger things happen Exclamation

Regards

alfieB
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