Navigator 2004? - what's this all about?

fazik · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 05, 2004 Posts: 1

I just received my 2004 Friday, installed it and used it on the road yesterday and today.

First I like the new interface and icons. The tracking is much smoother and seems more accurate when driving on parallel roads that are close like frontage roads along an interstate. It has me driving on the correct road. Routing seem better. When setting a route while in a large parking lot it no longer waits until you get close to a road to calculate. It now displays a dotted line to where you left the road and calculates from that point, I like this feature. I live very close to 2 major interstates and most of my routes on Nav2 would usually take me to one of the interstates right away. It may have been "faster" but not necessarily more convenient, more testing would be prove or disprove this. The keyboards are better and finding POIs are easier with your finger when not using the stylus. The best part of the upgrade is street names and city names. Sizing and placement is good.

Things I don’t like. I don't use the routing feature a whole lot but I do have the GPS running whenever I drive. Some times, turning on the GPS log to overlay on Streets. The new GPS driver does not have the log feature. The navigator screen does not have speed, Using this I found out the speedometer on you SantaFe was off by 5 miles and hour when going over 40 miles and hour. There is not an option to have the compass displayed on the screen or any where else. The GPS setup screen does display the direction that I am traveling but only in degrees, not in a convent spot.

Nav2 allowed me change my menus to suit my needs but no longer. The menus are as they are. Not a major disappointment for me, I did not change them very much but it seems Tom Tom has removed many options that may have been useful to people.

Maps for my area seem to have the same missing streets and unnamed roads as the last maps update I installed. My area is growing and changing very fast so missing roads is not uncommon.

The have only encountered 1 technical problem. Twice after exiting out of Navigator back to the today screen and then opening Navigator again caused the error no maps found to be displayed. it took a soft reset for Navigator to see the maps again. Using the explorer I could read the SD card and view the map files on the card so my PocketPc could still see the card.

I will try some of the new maps next week. When I travel to Nevada. I will try the Major us cities maps and the major roads map.

Overall the things I do not like are little and not necessary but I really miss them. The new changes to Navigator 2004 are great but the stuff that has been removed from NAV 2 is sadly missed.

Creation · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:45 pm Post subject:

"Things I don’t like. I don't use the routing feature a whole lot but I do have the GPS running whenever I drive. Some times, turning on the GPS log to overlay on Streets. The new GPS driver does not have the log feature."

Fazik- I never knew the function of the GPS log and have never used it. What do you mean by overlay on streets? I have yet to find a use for the log screen Rolling Eyes

jts0308 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 06, 2004 Posts: 1

I already received TomTom 2004. I like the new interfance, but the major and big problem is the whole system will no respond after exit Tomtom it is runing couple mins. I need to soft reset every time I used it. Do anyone has this problem? Please help !!

Thank you

mikev_co · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 16, 2004 Posts: 6

I received the Navigator 2004 upgrade in the mail a few days ago. Installed it tonight on my HP 2215 and so far I like the new features like custom POI and custom Favorites. The one thing I wish was included is a shortest or fastest route option. I did a calculation of a 30 mile route to a friends home and it just guided me the longer way to the major hwy and interstate rather than using shortcut streets that would save time. Other than that, so far it looks like an excellent easy to use product. I had the Navigator 2 USA version before and it would freeze up once in a rare while on me. Hopefully they have corrected that. Once in a while the GPS would lose visability as well, but for the most part it worked good.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this upgrade can do now.

I'll post impressions later. Would love to read others people thoughts on the Bluetooth GPS setup and 2004 software.

tblich · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 27, 2004 Posts: 1

I like the new features that have been added, although the routing algorithm was better on the 2.24 version of the software. It has me taking slower routes, that might be shorter, but aren't faster. I don't think it's a map problem, although it might be if the speeds of roads are what determines which route to take.

They've dumbed down the user interface. I liked having access to the stuff that can be configured.

I miss the speed indicator both when following a route and when no route is programmed.
I miss the miles to destination display, now it just shows time to destination.
You can no longer bypass the nav disclaimer at beginning of startup

I have the problem where if I turn the PDA off, I have to restart TT in order for it to see the GPS again.

Blasman · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 07, 2004 Posts: 2

I'm having a similar issue. After running for about 1/2 hour, my PocketPC screen locks up. It will not respond to touches. The routing still works in the background since it will still say instructions to me. If I press one of the hard coded buttons like calendar it will open it up but the screen still doesn't respond to touches. Anyone have any suggestions? If I do a soft reset I can get back in fine again for about 1/2 hour then the same thing happens. I have also tried doing a hard reset and it still happens.

I have an IPAQ HX 4700 and TomTom bluetooth GPS...

Chris

mikev_co · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 16, 2004 Posts: 6

Creation · Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:09 pm Post subject:

I have a HP2215 and TomTom bluetooth GPS setup:

Everthings been working perfect. The installation was sweet, and I like the way they integrated the bluetooth GPS. I just have to turn on the GPS receiver and turn on the program, and I'll get a fix. Back when I was using Navigator 2, I had to turn on bluetooth FIRST on my pda, then when I'm done with it, I have to manually turn bluetooth off. Navigator 2004 eliminated this hassle.

The horizontal view in Navigator mode is so cool. It actually shows more information than if you use the normal "vertical" mode. It shows the distance to destination, SPEED in mph, and also battery life. When you access the interface through this horizontal mode, everything seems to be more organized as if Navigator 2004 was meant to be run in this mode. I was thinking this is due to TomTom Go's configuration. Also, the map looks much better in horizontal mode, looks a lot like a navigation device in the car, and more of the map can be seen in my opinion.

One thing I miss in Navigator 2004 is the compass, it doesn't even show in the horizontal mode. Another things is that when I'm stopped at a traffic light, the map tends to rotate about 90 degrees even though i'm not turning the car (my gps signal was about 4 satelltes and constant when it's happening). Also, if we can configure what to put on the lower right in vertical mode, like let's say we want "distance to destination" instead of current time would be nice. One last thing, I like the fact that Navigator 2 had distance to next turn in YARDS when it's less than one mile which makes it clearer that the turn is coming up. The new 2004 would show yards only when it's under .25 miles. Wish we can change that.

On the whole, this upgrades been a great, I love the way it's so much quicker to look for a POI (less lag), and the fact that you can totally use your fingers to operate the program. Back then you would have to use the stylus to look for additional POI's other than the main 4 you have in options. Now that I know horizontal looks and functions better, I might actually put my Arkon mount back into the car so I can moung the PDA sideways. Good job TomTom Smile

Mizio · Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 4:40 am Post subject:

georgeCASE · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 17, 2004 Posts: 15

Just got the new navigator 2004 for the US.

There are a lot of changes and I haven't had the time to write them down.

I just noticed one thing that I wish they never took out of the software, the ability to block off a whole section of a map to avoid routing through that area.

I still have to play with it some more before I can figure everything out. But now I think, one is only limited to avoiding sections of the listed route, so if you want to avoid a certain section of a highway, one might end up avoiding that whole section.

but as i said, haven't played with it yet. get back to all of you soon.

DavidW · Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:38 pm Post subject:

It's a shame if there's no ability to place avoid areas. I use that facility a lot with Navigator 3 Great Britain to work round map errors, such as turns Navigator tries to take that aren't permitted.

David

georgeCASE · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 17, 2004 Posts: 15

it's almost impossible to reroute in the new tomtom release Crying or Very sad

i'm planning a 6 hour trip and I would like to not use toll highways. In the old tomtom, I can just block off a whole section of the map coinciding with the toll locations and that's it. That functionality was removed in the new release.

The only way to reroute is to either entrust your fate on its alternative route calculation (hah!) or avoid segments of your trip based on your route, which isn't as simple as it sounds. I have a 4 hour segment on one highway and tomtom wouldnt like to avoid that highway.

GRRR.

I have a route in mind (from AAA triptik, even they have an "avoid toll" option) but its a pain to let tomtom know where I want to drive through.

Any suggestions from new release owners?

On the flipside, I think tomtom's local routing got better (may be the result of updated maps than the routing software itself) as I went on a 30 min trip which tomtom usu. takes me on the freeway, this time it took me to just a small highway and it took me the same time to get there. Saves me on gas.

Still, I am disappointed in this release. I may have to downgrade to the original version. (Good thing I got the upgrade for free)

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