Buy TTN2 or Wait for TTN3?

[keithmdw]

Hi All



Forum and GPS newbie here.



I am considering buying TTN2 Bluetooth to go with my Dell Axim but after reading this forum I see that v2 is far from perfect (no postcode search for example and bad facility for avoiding areas or adding via places).



It is not imperative I buy GPS at this moment in time so was thinking it may be worth waiting for v3 to come out before paying out my hard earned.



What are everyone elses view on this? Is the next version a long way off? And if I buy now is it likely to cost a fortune to upgrade in future?



Regards



Keith

[DavidW]

Version 2 launched around April 2003. These products seem to be upgraded on something like an annual basis - though as we're only to TomTom Navigator 2 at the moment, it's hard to predict the future! I doubt we'll see a major new version much before April 2004, particularly if TomTom again decide to use 'year end' map data (the map data in version 2 is from December 2002).



The upgrade from Navigator 1 to Navigator 2 was a very reasonable 39 Euros per copy.





Software upgrades are still happening for version 2 - for example, the roadblock facility has been enhanced so you can now specify how far ahead the road is blocked. These are free - you just download the upgrade from the TomTom web site.



What won't happen until a new version is new map data - so the flaws in the current maps have to be lived with until then (and we have to hope they're fixed in version 3, otherwise we'll have to wait until version 4).







Full postcode routing is a difficult problem. It does work in some of the European versions but, like a US zip code (I'm talking here about five digits, not a US 5 plus 4), those codes go nowhere near identifying a single street.





In TomTom Navigator 2, you search by 'city' then by 'street' - and the streets are marked with the first part of their postcode - for example "Praed Street W2".



This is imperfect - for example, in the Forest of Dean, searching for High Street in one of the villages that surrounds Coleford will probably lead you to the wrong village completely! However, in many cases it works just fine. Certainly I find it works perfectly well in London, where I tend to search on London, then by street name, and use the first part of the postcode to sort out precisely which street I want.





To supply full UK postcode support - even just as much as the central location for each postcode rather than the location of each house number / postcode combination (which is really needed for true accuracy in remote areas) would require a large chunk of extra data to be supplied which has to be licensed and therefore paid for. Obviously this will increase the memory footprint of the maps - and hence possibly the size of storage card required.



The house number plus postcode location data is getting really expensive - multimap.com is now charged per use on that data, and they pass those charges on to end-users.





Remember that you can get locations from multimap.com and other systems and feed them into Navigator 2. You've also got the POI facilities in Navigator 2 to mark locations you've visited before. With all this available, I find that the lack of postcode routing is a shame, but far from a disaster for my use.





You can always hang on for the next version. Right now, if you do so, I wouldn't be surprised if you wait for something like nine months. Navigator 2 is imperfect - but overall is still one of the top, if not the top, Pocket PC based navigation program for use in Europe. There are other great choices available as well - though they have their drawbacks too.







David

[iancjc]

I'd second what David says - I had TTN1 and then upgraded to TTN2 - I think the next major enhancement will be more regular map upgrades via download - something that tomtom have just introduced on a (very) limited basis.



As for not needing gps yet - you wiill be surprised how useful it is once you are using it everyday.



To be honest for day to day use the best compliment I can give it is that in 10 months I have not looked at a paper map once - I how never plan how to get anywhere - I just let tomtom do the work.



Its like life before mobile fones and the hassles that, trying to meet up for a beer with a group of mates on a friday, used to involve - all the planning and what if's that were involved - are done away with by the mobile.



One last point re the axim and the bluetooth kit - I thought the dell didn't have BT - you may be better off with a wired solution.



Cheers



Ian

[keithmdw]

Dell doesn't have Bluetooth but I was going to buy a CF Bluetooth card for it because I like the wireless idea.



I am leaning towards getting it now rather than later.



Have a few questions about it's capabilities but when I have decided what they are I will repost.

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