Tomtom 530 - advice and what next for a new user

jonbunk · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 28, 2008 Posts: 13

Hi, following advice on here I bought a 530 at Dixons for £157. V. happy with the price and the SatNav arrived yesterday so first day on the road today.

Appreciate some guidance on some questions for a new user which will hopefully be useful for other new users to Tomtom too:

Bluetooth.
When talking to people I can only have the volume at 80% otherwise it cracks and distorts from the speaker. Is this right? Spoke to Tomtom and they said no so after I day I have Dixons sending out a replacement on Tuesday. I'm assuming I should be able to have it at 100% if I wish but definitely more than 80%?

I want to be able to drive and talk to people without having to lean forward all the time to hear what people are saying!

Set-up.
What should I be doing having taken it out if the box before I go on to Home to register it and get the latest map and software?

How do I back the current software/maps up? Can I save them to a sd card so I can switch between the installed software and maps (FM transmitter active) as well as downloading new software and maps on the harddrive? How?

Traffic Updates
I'd like to have traffic updates via my phone (GPS??) what / how do I do this, is there a cost?

Speed camera updates
Tomtom or here and what's the cost?

Addresses
I've noticed that it does not recognise my house number 51 (post code TW11 9LJ) any reason why the house has been here for 90 years. Same for a friends house too?

Bluetooth
Can you have two phones connected at the same time so the phone which rings piucks up?

Tomtom Home
What should I do on home and what should I not? It looks like you advise minimial use? Register and just regular updates?

Anything else which you can advise greatly appreciated as I want to ensure I use the main things it's capable of.

Keep up the good work on the forum it's great!

As I said having used the system today I think it is excellent so looking forward to the replacement next week and can wholeheartedly recommend the system!

Jonathan

jonbunk · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 28, 2008 Posts: 13

Anyone? Dennis?

DennisN · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:50 am Post subject:

I'm supposed to be relaxing at CenterParcs!

Backup - using Windows Explorer - looks like you've already twigged this.

Bluetooth volume. I have mine at 100%, not just phone but also nav instructions. Note there are two settings. Sorry, start again, Whatever volume you select for the device is not included for phone calls. Whilst in a phone call, set the volume preferences again. To avoid behaving like a plonker to somebody you're calling or hearing, simply phone your own landline and without answering, on the TomTom tap bottom left corner and the volume slider should appear to allow you to slide it to your preferred volume. It's sometimes a bit difficult to get the slider that way, so the long winded but sure method (still during a phone call is Change Preferences, Volume preferences.

I have exactly what you're considering, namely SD card with newest software and older stuff on internal memory. That's a bit odd as most people would expect to copy old software to SD card then download new to (and replace) internal. But I used a 8GB SDHC card which my older software wouldn't recognise. Took a bit of achieving - copy old software to backup, download updates, copy updates to backup, copy old software back to device internal memory. Whatever - yes, by all means copy old software to SD card for use when you want old software features. Note - the device boots by default from the SD card if it is carrying the application software.

Traffic. There is so much talk about this, with a lot of agreement and disagreement. The GPRS method is often considered better than RDS-TMC (antenna) owing to quality of data transmission/reception and greater coverage - it shows traffic countrywide, whereas RDS-TMC shows a radius (for me in Bristol say to Birmingham, perhaps). GPRS costs an annual subscription to TomTom plus whatever it costs from your phone network supplier to get data. I found that data downloading was quite cheap, but it does vary between networks and contracts. RDS-TMC costs the price of the antenna and that's the end of it. But some people find RTDS-TMC reception patchy.

Personally, I have RDS-TMC because I bought a GO920T - complete with RDS-TMC antenna. Once I got the antenna positioned satisfactorily, I found decent reception countrywide.

However, the method of getting Traffic information is only one part of the deal. The real meat of it is whether you get useful data. In recent months, the service has improved greatly, to the extent that I personally think it has got about as far as it is going. As such you are now getting information which is subject to the same qualifications as any other information. Somebody has to gather the info, somebody has to interpret it (good, bad or indifferent effect on traffic), somebody has to transmit it to you. This means that for top quality, 100% data to get to you will probably take at least half an hour, maybe an hour. That is, the start of a traffic problem broadcast half an hour after it happens and equally the end of the problem half an hour after it ends. I personally consider half an hour the minimum reporting delay.

The upshot for me is that I don't believe it as a matter of principal! I have three traffic scans going all the time - TomTom RDS-TMC, Trafficmaster Freeway and Radio five live. And I treat them all with caution. I wouldn't personally go for GPRS through my phone, simply because I have enough
trouble with handsfree without adding yet another burden to the system!

Traffic is a very personal opinion, so I don't doubt someone will come along amd shoot me down in flames, or at least point out where I'm missing something important.

Speed cameras. I am unashamedly biased in favour of the ones here. To be frank, there's not a lot to choose between the prices. We have a special offer at the moment of £16.99, but full price is £19, compared with TT's normal £20 (technically, ours isn't for cameras, it's for subscribed membership to full access of the website including free downloads of the camera database). So the choice is down to quality and service. Forgive me that I can't provide a link to GPS_Fan's article on Why choose the pgpsw database - Vera did put her foot down over just how much gear I was allowed to carry to CenterParcs, so I'm very lightweight with a laptop. But it's so good (the article) we made it a sticky to find more easily. And our support is in a different league from TomTom - the other day a guy came up with a horrid problem which members sorted for him in 27 hours, completely different planet from TomTom. Browse around the forum and you'll soon see how good it is. Quite when I'll get round to loading up the Russian cameras, I don't know!

Addresses. Postcodes are notorious for giving some odd results and we have to live with them until they are updated. I don't know if I have downloaded the latest postcode file, but number 51 isn't recognised by (one of) my device - I've only got one with me. Other people will no doubt see this and check theirs too.

Two phones on one device. I don't know, but I suspect not. Certainly you cannot have two TomToms on one phone, I've tried it. The first TT to be switched on will grab the connection and deny it to the other.

TT Home. I treat it worse than my dentist, which is to say I go there only when it's unavoidable. I keep an eye open on this forum and eventually somebody will say there's an update, so I keep watch and wait to hear whether it does them a mischief and if /when it gets good (or no bad) reviews, I'll go download it. This is one of my reasons for not going for MapShare corrections (I'm not the only person who more regularly names them Mapshare corruptions). Some people go for the download of QuickGPSFix which TT claim makes your device get satellite lock better, but some of us say it is a nasty little thing which can wreke havoc. I haven't downloaded it since February 2008.

Goodnight - I'm supposed to be going swimming in below zero temperatures tomorrow (no today!), so even with heated outdoor pools I'll need a good dose of sleep first.
_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

GPS_fan

mikealder · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:33 am Post subject:

The device can support up to five phones but will only use one at any given time - Mike

jonbunk · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 28, 2008 Posts: 13

Thanks for all the advice.

Dennis, if I buy an SD card what size will I need (for the news software, maps and some music) and which make - obviously don't want to buy one and it does not work! You mentioned an 8GB SDHC?

mikealder · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:19 pm Post subject:

I use a Peak 8GB SDHC in my devices, the exact one is Here they can be found for around £20 on the internet, the class 6 denotes the speed of the card, the higher the number the faster the card at read/ write a list of stockists can be found Here - Mike

DennisN · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:40 pm Post subject:

I think your 530 runs happily at present on half a GB, so unless you have great plans, you'd find (like me) that moving to a 8GB SDHC card would have your stuff rattling round like peas in a dustbin. Note there are two types of card - SD and SDHC. Until the version 8 software, the device has limited support for SDHC. I have comfortably used 2GB and the 530 will be happy with 4GB SD cards. That would easily take everything you've already got on the device plus quite a lot of music and/or photos. Moving to higher capacity SDHC cards needs the sort of consideration I mention previously and if you care about pennies, there is a price difference. At the time Mike first gave us the link to the Peak 8GB SDHC card I think we got it quite cheaply and as I'm "a fool and his money", it didn't make much difference to me anyway. What I did find a pain in the derriere was having to buy a new USB card reader/writer as the one in my PC couldn't handle it.
_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

DennisN · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:46 pm Post subject:

mikealder · Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:55 pm Post subject:

No you cannot use multiple phones on the device at the same time, what you can do is pair up to 5 phones with the device and it will remember their settings, numbers etc.
To use a specific phone you use the Mobile Phone/ Manage Phones where each handset paired will appear, you need to select which one you want to use.
Only the one phone that is actually selected on the TomTom will be the phone that is hooked up for handsfree/ data etc - Mike

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