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10 Years of TomToms GO SatNavs
Article by: Mike Barrett
Date: 8 May 2014
Ten years ago at CeBIT TomTom took the World by storm breaking the mould of GPS Navigation when they announced the TomTom GO. The TomTom GO Classic as it is now known was not the first dedicated GPS system, both Garmin and Navman had devices out there, but the TomTom GO was the breakthrough that took GPS from the realms of geeks into the mass market.
We knew something special was going to happen the day before CeBIT as we walked around the exhibition floor and met Mark Gretton, TomTom's technical guru, by a covered TomTom stand. We were expecting some new software for our PDAs, but no way were we ready for the GO. Mark swore us to secrecy and gave us a preview of the GO with the promise of a full hands on session the next day.
The TomTom GO was the first touch screen Personal Navigation Device (or PND as they became known) it had a completely different styling, and mounting arrangement, and best of all it was 'only' £499, about half the price of the competition. This would equate to about £670 in todays money. Compare that to the latest entry level GO models announced this week priced at £150 with far better specifications.
The TomTom GO really caught the imagination of the World, and changed the way we get around. I guess TomTom themselves were blown away by the response and were totally unprepared for the huge demand for the new SatNav. It took them a long time to get production up to demand levels.
Four years later and a few upgrades of the GO saw more accessories and features added, including TMC Traffic, but the next big breakthrough in the GO series came in 2008 with the release of the TomTom GO 940 Live. The 940 Live was the first of the GO devices to feature a SIM card embedded in the device to provide real time communications to TomTom servers.
The TomTom GO 940 introduced Live Traffic, by far the most important of the TomTom Live services, along with Google Local and a few other lesser used features. The Live Traffic has formed the basis for the innovative traffic service the TomTom provides today to both its own SatNav users, and a number of other providers.
In my view the GO 940 Live was the pinnacle of the GO devices to date. This was a fully featured system allowing lots of configuration, customisation, and most importantly retained and improved the Third Party POI system that TomTom had introduced into the very early SatNav software on PDAs. In fact despite the fact that it is now 6 years old it is still my PND of choice when I use a dedicated device, although unfortunately my live services no longer work.
Around about the time of the GO 940 TomTom had become so popular that they had become a victim of their own success. The devices were no longer in the realm of the techno geeks, and had become mass-market consumer products. This in turn meant that with all the options available on the devices they generated a huge amount of support calls swamping the very rapidly expanding support department.
TomTom addressed this issue in two ways: My TomTom and Dumbing Down. The concept of My TomTom was that some software was installed on your computer that recognised the SatNav and updated it with the appropriate software and maps. It also provided you with the opportunity to buy add-ons from TomTom. This was all well and good but it started to erode the uniqueness of the TomTom GOs. This was then further compounded by the gradual removal of functionality from the new devices. If a particular feature generated a lot of support calls then it seemed to magically disappear in the next release of a GO SatNav.
Whilst I can understand the dumbing down of the devices to make them more accessible to the mass market of non-technical users it greatly diminished the value of the devices to the more advanced users. Over the years this has been further compounded by not providing support for third party POIs in some devices until nearly a year after the introduction. Clearly we at PocketGPSWorld.com have an interest in 3rd party POIs so this upset our user base dramatically.
As the years have progressed the once mighty PND has declined with the saturation of the market and rise of SmartPhones. Although there is still a good market out there for a dedicated SatNav as proven by the latest TomTom GO releases the SmartPhone market is now the dominant force in navigation. TomTom, of course, still have a firm foothold in this market, but the enhanced functionality of the GO 940 era is sadly missing.
“With the launch of TomTom GO, we made navigation technology accessible to everyone for the very first time,” said Corinne Vigreux, Founder and Managing Director, TomTom Consumer. “At first, we helped people to find their way, the easy way, when travelling to unknown destinations. Now, TomTom routing combined with our unparalleled traffic information, helps drivers to get to known and unknown destinations faster, every day.”
Ten years ago TomTom took the navigation market and turned it upside down. Transforming a highly specialised hobby market with a limited coverage into a truly everyday consumer service. The TomTom GO is a device that should stand alongside the IBM PC as one of the innovative items of technology that has shaped the World we live in today. I am proud that PocketGPSWorld.com has been around to share in that journey.
Congratulations to Harold, Corinne, Pieter, Peter-Frans, Mark Gretton and the rest of the TomTom Team!
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| Comments
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 Posted by DennisN on Thu May 08, 2014 5:49 pm |
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| MikeB Wrote: | | the latest entry level GO models announced this week ..... with far better specifications. |
I bow to your greater experience Mike, but I find this just a bit of an oxymoron. Still, maybe you're right - at least you didn't say "with far better performance". 
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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| Posted by Redeye on Fri May 09, 2014 7:08 am |
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...... And still we have no native OS X version of Tyre! We have around 70 GPS users in our IAM motorcycle group and 50% use OS X and none use TomTom!
Would love to try a TomTom but will have to stick with Garmin Zumo.
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| Posted by DennisN on Fri May 09, 2014 7:40 am |
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In 13 days' time, it will be the 9th anniversary of me getting my first satnav, a GO300 which cost me £369.99 in Comet. I had been looking at satnavs for some time, but whenever I asked for a demo, they didn't have one charged up, or they didn't have a demo model available. That day, the Comet lad said "Sure", went and got one and took me outside to demo. I bought one there and then. The next day I rang TomTom to ask why the heck it wouldn't navigate to postcode and they told me to look in the manual where I would find how it's done. The next day, it took me to the very front door of the factory I had a delivery to, amazing! I looked at the address on my A-Z and struggled to think how I might have found it (round the back of the railway station, through the other side of a traveller's camp). At the time I was carrying a box full of A-Z maps for everywhere I'd been, worth a few hundred pounds. I never used them after getting that GO300.
Six months later I bought the better GO700 for £439.99, and I still say that was the best they ever made. I bought an external mic for handsfree and an external aerial for improved satellite lock. I am currently trying my utmost to persuade somebody who still has one to sell it to me!
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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| Posted by MikeB on Fri May 09, 2014 7:52 am |
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| DennisN Wrote: | | ... I am currently trying my utmost to persuade somebody who still has one to sell it to me! |
I have one and you can't have it 
Mike Barrett |
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| Posted by baldy1 on Fri May 09, 2014 8:30 am |
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| MikeB Wrote: | | DennisN Wrote: | | ... I am currently trying my utmost to persuade somebody who still has one to sell it to me! |
I have one and you can't have it |
I have an original Tom Tom Go bought September 2004 and has just been retired due to minor malfunctions been a fantastic asset over the years and been replaced by a Tom Tom Smart 25, better vision but not as good for camera alerts warning sounds and trying to find my way around downloading Pocket GPS cameras without having to enable sounds to every weekly update, it appears to not want to overwrite the previous cameras.
Regards
Gary
gary |
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| Posted by Anita on Fri May 09, 2014 9:21 am |
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| baldy1 Wrote: | | ... not as good for camera alerts warning sounds and trying to find my way around downloading Pocket GPS cameras without having to enable sounds to every weekly update, it appears to not want to overwrite the previous cameras. |
I've just bought a VIA 135 M (I believe it's the same as the Start 25 but with hands-free) to replace my ageing GO 720, and have had no problem updating the PGPSW speed zoned cameras. Having installed all the files (including the ogg sound files) last week and setting up the warnings, this week I just selected the ov2 files to copy, answered 'yes' to overwriting the existing files, and all appeared to go OK.
I grabbed the VIA while it's still available as it's one of the last TT models that can accept user POIs and it was a very good price at £99.99 including lifetime maps.
I'm quite impressed with it, although I would like to be able to back it up to my pc. It doesn't have Live Traffic, but neither did my 720, and time is seldom so critical to me that RDS-TMC isn't adequate.
Anita
TomTom VIA 135 - App 12.075
UK map 1125.12264
Samsung Galaxy S21 |
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| Posted by Birdman on Fri May 09, 2014 10:11 am |
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I'm still using my GO300 bought several years ago 2nd hand off eBay. A couple of years ago I bought another and keep it for a spare. I would like a slightly bigger screen and I would like it it to be not as fat and bulky BUT it works and map updates still available.
I'm not interested in LIVE traffic info or all the other gizmos (yes I do subscribe to PGPS cameras as I value my clean licence) - I just want something to tell me how to get somewhere I've never been before. The free public toilets POIs are useful at my age too! I have a built in satnav on my 6 year old jag but never use it because of the horrendous costs of map updates.
If they (TT) brought out a flat 5" GO300 with free map updates and none of the other **** I would buy one tomorrow.
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| Posted by Bob_W on Fri May 09, 2014 9:10 pm |
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I still have my GO300 bought from Maplins in April 2005 it cost me £399.99, I also got a certificate for being one of the first people to own one of these. Some years later as my GO 300 had a faulty connector that connects to the external aerial on the mount, I got a faulty unit off someone in this forum I think and all I had to pay was the postage, I used the faulty one to replace the broken connector. I have kept the faulty unit for spares just in case. My GO 300 has all the updates and maps so is better than it was when I purchased it! I no longer use my GO300 but keep it charged up, my new car has a satnav built in and has a bigger screen, but I still think my GO 300 is still a far better unit. 
Bob
TTGO 6000 World maps, Free Lifetime maps and speed camera updates. |
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| Posted by Guivre46 on Fri May 09, 2014 10:25 pm |
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I bought my One XL [£189] in September 2007 after a particularly acrimonious journey where the final part of the route involved counting five roundabouts and turning right at final roundabout with 5 access roads. It was version 6 software that locked up every 3/4 letters of the navigation address and would lose the gps signal frequently. It was not until the following May that a Home version compatible with Mac was available and I got version 7 - still quite unstable. Then finally version 8 fixed everything moreorless. Rather miss those days with everyone mucking in to help sort out the glitches. Not much we can do for each other nowadays......
Mike R [aka Wyvern46]
Go 530T - unsupported
Go550 Live [not renewed]
Kia In-dash Tomtom |
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| Posted by DennisN on Sat May 10, 2014 6:11 am |
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Yesterday I came home (near Bristol) from London (Regent Street). On the A4 after Harrods, my built in Renault R-Link TomTom dropped satellite link and went off to one side. All the way to Chiswick it was urging me to turn left/right etc from the parallel road on either my right or left to get back to the A4. My GO1005 decided to join it, so they were both at it (only the R-Link had sound turned on). There's modern for you. At the same time, my GO520 stayed on track perfectly.
Next time I meet MikeB's wife, I shall kidnap her and ransom her for his GO700. When I had that, it was the only satnav I used. These days I run three modern ones beside each other in the hope I'll get there (and back!).
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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