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Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:04 am Post subject:
If you need (or just want) to see upcoming turn detail well in advance of the maneuver, touch the green nav bar at the top. Detail with BIG arrow, distance and time to turn.
Yes, MSN is a "States" thing. Really hope it's extended to you guys in the future as it's a great service, especially maps.live
I don't really understand the confusion on which is the better buy tho.
Garmin is cheaper to buy in much of Europe, maps cost less, and it has many more features. Seems simple enough to me. I guess the advantages just probably came as a surprise to the TomTom owners who tend to think theirs are the only full-featured PND's. They're only missing a few features
Can't wait to see what's turned up here when I get up in the morning! Gatorguy very persuasive and joined on my birthday so maybe it's fate!
Actually, they seem to be exactly the same price at the moment and I understood that Garmin maps are about twice as expensive as tomtom. Not that I would update at every opportunity.
Both the 760 and the 720 were on display in a store this evening so I just had a quick go on them. They both looked good, and in fact I found the menus more intuitive on the Garmin 760.
However, for some weird reason, when I started a demo GPS run on the 760, it literally drove down the first street for 30 meters and then just stopped and hovered there indefinitely. It wasn't as if the entire machine locked, since I could still access the menus. I used them to try to restart the demo, with the same and then a different destination, but the demo car seemed positively rooted to the spot. I can confirm that the road in question was quite recently built and is still extremely muddy, so maybe the 760 somehow took all this into consideration during the simulation!
The TomTom on the other hand behaved very conventionally during its own demo. Anyway, will have much more time to check them out again tomorrow.
If you need (or just want) to see upcoming turn detail well in advance of the maneuver, touch the green nav bar at the top. Detail with BIG arrow, distance and time to turn.
This requires drivers attention, not a good thing in terms of driver friendliness when driving through a city. Even with those big arrows Garmin is a bit confusing when you drive through a city, 4 lanes, one lanes going somewhere up, other somwhere else, some others down to the tunnel. Garmin's graphics (differents lanes hard to spot) plus text information instead of arrows makes often hard to realize which way to go. When driving through large city I had to concentrate much with Garmin, on the other hand TomTom voice prompt and arrows were much more tied to reality and required almost none drivers attention (keep to the right, to the left etc.). This is in my opinions one of Garmins weaknesses.
The other is related with re-routing functions. Its not possible to specify what part of the route I want to skip and Garmins sometime takes you
on 20km reroute because of a short traffic jam. TomTOm much configurable here.
Also another Garmin problem is lack of configuration comparing to TomTom. For example I live near to toll highway and I can setup
my TomTom to ask me wether I want to use toll road on each
destination. Garmin requires me to go to setup and tick/untick that option each time.
Generally speaking Garmin seems simpler and cleares in first sight, but this is comes for a price of complete lack of customisation. TomTom on the other hand have a lot of options to go throught but will allow you for more customizations (what information you want to have on your display, where you want some informations to be displayed etc etc.)
Another major point worth noticing is image refresh speed, Garmin is slooow, sometime when driving through city with a lot of streets you
cannnot use Garmin graphic to orient yourself when to turn, you'd rather
need to concentrate of the "distance to turn' number. On the other hand
TomTom imagre refresh seems to be almost 'real time'.
And while talking about the Garmin and real multi-point routing with optimization. THis is indeed an interesting option, but in my humbe opinion this will rather appeal professional users (courier services etc.) than the casual private gps user. I almost dont use nor TomTom itineraries neither Garmin multi-point routes.
The Mapsource integration with Garmin is very nice indeed. I wish I have something like this for TomTom. On the other hand TomTOm remote control (option for 720, standard for 920) kicks a** as it makes satnav handling as easy as handling your radion through steering wheel buttons.
Also routing seems to me much better with TomTom here (Poland). I drove a lot in Warsaw (capital) and TomTom fastest routes were much better than Garmin ones (had both devices with me). TomTom routes despite being bit longer took less time to drive (less lights, junctions etc).
Garmin's were shortest but took more stops and time to drive.
My perfect satnav would be Garmin 760 mount + TomTom software with few Garmin style tweaks + Mapsource + TomTOm remote and TeleAtlas maps (they are much better here than navteq, which completely scre*ed
road classification, they marked some dirt roads as secondary ones and
despite avoid dirt on you might land deep in the forest
And generally speaking when watching both companies for some time in my humble opinions Garmin lack some idead for nuvi future. They release a lot of models with no or very little new features (comparing to the 760). On the other hand TomTom really seems to work on things that might make (we will see in the future) our jurneys fastest, easier etc. (Mapshare, iq routing etc.).
We see very little innovation from Garmin in my humbe opinion.
Last edited by kichu1979 on Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:41 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:41 am Post subject:
@Andy. . . as a side note, unrelated to the 720, simply responding to a comment you made under this heading.
I don't think that the 730 actually has a newer map. I think I'm correct in saying the map is the same as the current 920's, with the addition of Navcore 8 functionality.
I don't think that the 730 actually has a newer map. I think I'm correct in saying the map is the same as the current 920's, with the addition of Navcore 8 functionality.
Not true, Poland 930 map is 99% coverage, comparint to 76% in current 7.15 maps. I saw the map and it is safe to say that 930 maps are based on Teleatlas 2008.1 material.
99% Poland coverage was confirmed in Teleatlas datasheets for 2008.1, which I received from a local TA representative.
BY looking and the past TomTOm map updates it is safe to say that they really stick to their new map every three months policy. And this is a good information.
Wether it is worth to buy a new map every 3 months is another issue, as I think that the casual satnav users does not need map update that often.
Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:58 am Post subject:
Kichu, thanks for map date clarification. Yours is the first definative statement I've seen in that regard. I can't answer for Poland mapping as I have no reference. I can say that if you visit Florida in the US, you will likely be more pleased with a Navteq-equipped PND. Much more reliable estimated travel times than the TA map in this area. Over time (several more map updates), IQ routes may make the TT the most reliable of all in travel time estimations. Remains to be seen. Unfortunately, you will need to buy new maps each time to get updated IQRoutes data. (Well, unfortunate for you, quite fortunate for TomTom)
Anyway, lets's try to not wander from the subject, lest we incur the wrath of "management"
My pleasure. Actually this issue is/was beaten to death on our local forums, mostly because each new TomTom map release meant quite an increase of coverage percentage 46% (earlier maps) then 60 something (2007.7) then 76 (2007.10) and the latest 99% (2008.1).
Generally speaking TomTom map updates do fit the TeleAtlas datasheet information and coverage maps and basing on collected data I think it is rather safe to assume that each new TomTom map release is base on TeleAtlas release from previous quarter.
2007.7 maps released Sep/Oct 2007
2007.10 maps released in Feb 2008
2008.1 maps released Apr/May 2008
Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 1:27 am Post subject:
I'm probably a bit behind in catching up on some of the earlier subject posts. I usually spend most of my time in one of the "other" forums, but can't log in tonight. I do find quite a lot of useful info here as well. Perhaps I need to "hang out" here more often. Just always seemed a little Garmin-negative. Perhaps I can change a few minds.
Joined: Mar 15, 2006 Posts: 3219 Location: Windlesham, Surrey
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 1:41 am Post subject:
As someone who went from the Garmin i3 to the TT 720 last year there were two really noticeable improvements in basic navigation.
I always found the final turn instruction on the i3 to be way too early when not in a town, and consequently took the wrong turn at times, especially at busy, complex roundabouts when you can't take your eyes from the road and other traffic to look at the screen.
Even with fastest route selected the i3 routing favoured the back roads and country lanes, whereas the 720 routes via main roads on fastest and back roads/lanes on shortest.
I know you can't really compare the i3 with the 720, but these criticisms were made by others here across the Garmin range.
I love my 720 and wouldn't swap for anything - except the 730! _________________ Anita
TomTom VIA 135 - App 12.075
UK map 1130.12368
Samsung Galaxy S21
Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:02 am Post subject:
I'm at a disadvantage in commenting on UK/Continental routing. No experience there. Here in the States, Garmin routing seems to be more efficient, particularly in my area. BTW, don't go by "estimated" travel time. TT has one of the least reliable travel time estimates. It's not necessarily the fault of TT, more an issue with the Teleatlas maps.
I think the general consensus is that in the States Garmin is King most reviews from there USA websites tend to favour Garmin and if you look at the forums out there is very much a Garmin v Tomtom thing.
In Europe its the other way round Tomtom is king .
I do not think you can read to much into the posts on here as you see people do have there preferences its a bit like Marmite you either like it or hate it.
I telephoned Garmin UK up to see what there customer services was like and they answered the phone very quickly and provided a sensible answer to my questions .
Tomtom support can be patchy even on a good day but to be honest Tomtom is very well supported on this website and you can be pretty sure to get the correct answer on here very quickly .
One last point what does the future of mapping for these devices hold ???
With Navteq (Garmins supplier)being bought by Nokia and Teleatlas being in the process of being purchased by Tomtom will this give Tomtom any advantage in the future over the quality of the mapping???
Maybe it's worth worth waiting for the TT730. Does anybody have experience of how IQ works? If it's based on data from users I can't see it being a lot of use outside London but maybe that's wrong. Alternatively the none traffic version of the 720 I've seen for £180. If Traffic is rubbish maybe that's the one. Wish I could afford both!
Maybe it's worth worth waiting for the TT730. Does anybody have experience of how IQ works? If it's based on data from users I can't see it being a lot of use outside London but maybe that's wrong. Alternatively the none traffic version of the 720 I've seen for £180. If Traffic is rubbish maybe that's the one. Wish I could afford both!
This explains how IQ routing is supposed to work My guess it may become available at a later date through software updates on older devices as Tomtom have introduced improvements to some there older devices as they have become available on the newer devices
Thanks John. Yes I've read this and it seems to me that IQ is going to be much better informed in some areas than others. I wonder if it could actually be a bit irritating in practise. Can it be turned off? I like the look of the lane guidance but also wonder how often it will actually work. There are some very odd junctions around here that it can be very difficult to know which lane to be in until it's too late! Interesting to see if it can cope with some of them.
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Gatorguy very persuasive and joined on my birthday 
so maybe it's fate!
