TomTom make it soooo easy to hate them!

[DennisN]

After seventeen TT devices over the last five years (includes faulty ones returned for refunds) and still with four, I have just bought my eighteenth, a GO550.

They've changed the layout of the Status bar. With all my previous devices, I have become a Top Gun (like Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise?). I am trained to perfection, skilled beyond belief. With four devices across the base of the windscreen, I can flick the slightest glance/scan across them to compare where and how I'm going - I like to select the shortest fastest route in the belief it gives me the edge over fuel consumption. Whilst doing the quick scan it's so quick I'm safe from every black car on the road, even the VW Golfs with boomy boomy music and drivers wearing baseball caps backwards. The information registers virtually subconsciously.

Not any longer! In the picture below, the top layout is what I've been pushing around the UK for the last five years. The bottom one is what I'm given today. There's no way to swap the things around and removing any one or two doesn't make it any easier. Why they've introduced an arrow and a chequered flag taking space, together with cute 3D simulation borders I don't know. Taking a ruler to it I can't see any difference in font size, but I'll swear the new one is harder to read. And I LIKE to see remaining distance and current speed together, current time and ETA together - TT could hardly have put them further apart.

What gink in TT comes up with crackpot redesigns like this instead of looking to resolve the outstanding issues? How many years have we all been getting familiar with the status bar layout only for this idiot to chuck the details up in the air to land where they will?



_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[mikealder]

Dennis, Take it back to the shop as unsatisfactory for the intended purpose and get a full refund, its simply not worth bothering with

[DennisN]

I've got to give it a couple more days to go wrong properly, Mike. Then I can go back to the Halfords spotty and teach him not to tell me the warranty's with TT and not to bring it back to him. I so missed the TTS when I took the dodgy version off the XL Live, I bit the bullet and decided to try a 550 - couldn't wait for the 1000 and anyway, who knows, that'll probably have the same layout, with more bells not ringing and more whistles not playing Pedro the Fisherman!
_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[MrT]

I don't know about you but I as I have aged I can no longer read the distance to the incident on the traffic bar. It is not a case of wearing glasses as my eyes still focus perfectly at a distance but short range focus is now down to about 3-4ft minimum. With glasses I can read the TomTom but not focus clearly ahead.
_________________
Drivelux

[spook51]

MrT, the answer is simple - varifocal lenses. I've had them for years, they're the only way I can see long distance and my TomTom clearly.

[MrT]

Do they work well?

I have tried using my glasses low so when I look down I can see the TomTom throught them and when I look up I look over the top of them, but when I do this I feel disorientated for a fraction of a second as everything jumps distance slightly in my vision.
_________________
Drivelux

[spook51]

[Robin2]

I've been wearing varifocals for years. When I first got them I found shapes to be distorted, but the brain soon learns to compensate and within weeks I had forgotten I was wearing glasses.
Robin
_________________
TomTom One v3 Europe, Navcore 7.903, Western Europe 835.2420
TomTom Go 720 Europe, Navcore 8.351, Western Europe 855.2884
Satmap Active 10
Plus a lot of other PDA GPS kit, seldom used

[Daggers]

[layingback]

Dennis, Thank you SO MUCH for posting those screen shots of the A329 M) !!!

I'm in the middle of trying to get the UK road numbers to be spoken correctly, and discovered that odd A329 M) display (missing a '(' ) while testing the spoken version of A-3-2-9-M. As my edits are affecting road numbers I was for a minute thinking my changes had zapped the (. Now I know that it was just TT service as normal!

BTW, I agree that new layout makes less efficient use of space. Blank areas, noise (unnecessary symbols) and less space for the lane indicators at junctions, which is not so good. And losing the (mid-blue) backing colour to the status bars is just sloppy.
_________________
Go Premium X / Go 1005

[Darren]

FWIW, I prefer the new status bar layout
_________________
Darren Griffin

[Antoeknee]

Whilst I've my TT setup like your top version I could live with the lower one.

Only thing I notice is there appears to be no indication of signal strength. Is is assumed you'll always have a good signal?

[Andy_P]

[Trevor1234]

Hi Dennis N
I think I’m in the same age group as you and I am continually being told to ‘move with the times’. I have no doubt that is what the man at Tomtom will be thinking when he hears of your complaint about the layout. Look at it as a challenge.

One day in the future our government will tell us all to ‘move with the times’ and drive on the Right instead of the Left. Now that day will be fun.

PS My wife drives in the middle, so it wont bother her.
_________________
Tomtom Go 720.
Navcore 9.510
Central and Western Europe v855.2884
GPS World Traffic cameras
Home 2.7
iPhone 3G

[AndyVaughan]

Interesting difference in the traffic info on HD and RDS-TMC Dennis!!!

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!