London Cabbie and TomTom Go

Egor · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 12, 2004 Posts: 7

Ok I bought one of these at the weekend and here are my thoughts

1. Great portability.

2. Easy to use the wife should have no trouble Rolling Eyes

3. Love the fact that you can add POI's aka speed cams.

4. GPS signal in Lonodn is OK but not brilliant especially around the City and West end. I guess GPS just don't like multi storey buildings. BUT a London taxi has a very slight slope on the wind screen and so the edge of the roof is close to the top of the TT's field of view maybe this is a factor, although more open space it's fine. Do any of you London car users have signal probs ?

5. Routing Ah. This is where it gets let down in my opinion. Did a basic route From Shoe lane EC4 to Cabbell St W2 and for some reason the TTG just would not go down the Marylebone Rd no matter how many times I told it to recalculate. Instead I got a route via the top of Regents Park and routes cris- crossing the Marylebone Rd. Strange.

Now I know that as a cabbie I'm not going to follow TTG advice. As the idea of GPS is to help peeps in unfamiliar territory. So why did I buy one after all I did the knowledge. Well I find the POI's great ie speed cams. Plus on the odd occasion I go out of the London area then the GPS comes into it's own, and £420 it was worth a punt as opposed in car systems at £1500. I find it particularly useful at 1am when your in the middle of no where and need a petrol station asap, or want to get routed home without get the maps out of the boot.

I would have maybe got the Navman ICN510 as I understand that you can adjust the routing a little eg preferred roads but I use an Apple mac and I know from the helpful peeps on here that the TTG can work with a mac. Plus TT may update to this feature you never know.

Egor

(Let me throw the switch master ! No. Leave the bloody light switch alone for once)

Tim Buxton · Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:02 pm Post subject:

Regarding loss of signal, perhaps you can get an external antenna for your GO. They are usually magnetic and can be stuck to the roof, and do give a better signal. Don't worry, the antenna is very unobtrusive so you won't look like an illegal minicab Gun Shoot Out

.

Just for a comparison, I put your Start and End into my device running SmartST V3 (it's not an iCN510, but I'm sure the data is the same and I'm guessing that the software is very similar in terms of routing) and it sent me along the A40 through Holborn, then up Tott. Court Rd, along Marylebone Road and down Old M. Road and finally right into Cabbell Street. As a cabbie, how would you do this in reality, or does it depend on time of day, traffic density, what your missus put in your lunchbox, etcetera?
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Tim

Egor · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 12, 2004 Posts: 7

DavidW · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:04 am Post subject:

I don't have a Go, but am using TomTom Navigator 3 on the Pocket PC. These two programs have different routing engines and map versions (Navigator 3 is older than either of the two Go map releases). That said, I'm getting more sensible results for some of the routes you've mentioned than you clearly are; I'm not unfamiliar with much of Central London north of the river myself, though I've hardly got "the Knowledge".

Are there any routing preferences in Go - particularly a 'strict' option? Choosing this makes Navigator 3 take rather more care over its routes, though the cost is that route calculation takes rather longer.

Further, it sounds as if Go may be preferring major roads a little too much for your needs - if you have tunable speeds for different roads types, it may be worth a bit of experimentation.

David

MikeB · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 10:00 am Post subject:

Egor · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 12, 2004 Posts: 7

Tim Buxton · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:12 pm Post subject:

According to Navman's iCN510 Support page here, you can't use the 510 with Virtual PC, but according to users' comments in this thread which you've probably already read, it is! I've emailed Navman for clarification.
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Tim

rob-bob · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 7:06 pm Post subject: routing

egor

i have always said how bad the routing is on the tomtom go....it is much better on tt2 on the pda......dont know why tomtom have got it so wrong this time.....
dont go on this forum much now as i was sick and tired of all the tom tom go lovers keep having a go.....
ive always said its a good piece of kit for getting you to your destination if you have no idea where you are but once you know the area abit you then find out that it takes you all around the houses to get you there
Cheers
Rob

rob-bob · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 7:11 pm Post subject: navman icn510

would love to try the navman 510 just to compare......also if you stick with the tomtom go you will also have to put up with some of the worst customer services i have ever dealt with......promises after promises but never delivered.......
just look at the people still waiting for cases after three months
Cheers
Rob

Rexy · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 23, 2004 Posts: 2

DavidW · Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 11:37 am Post subject:

That's the way Sprite have gone with recent versions of Sprite Backup - it starts up by default in a Basic mode, but you have the option of switching to Advanced mode.

A simple mode selected by default, together with a button to reset any advanced options to their defaults, should lead to the best of both worlds. It would be a shame if people changing the settings from the defaults then contacting TomTom with stupid questions led to NavCore based systems never getting the same configurability as Navigator 2 / Navigator 3.

David

wildcard · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 13, 2004 Posts: 44

Egor · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 12, 2004 Posts: 7

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