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TomTom make it soooo easy to hate them!
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DennisN
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:00 am    Post subject: TomTom make it soooo easy to hate them! Reply with quote

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! Evil or Very Mad 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?



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mikealder
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dennis, Take it back to the shop as unsatisfactory for the intended purpose and get a full refund, its simply not worth bothering with
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DennisN
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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!
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MrT
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 7:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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spook51
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 9:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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MrT
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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spook51
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrT wrote:
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.


PM sent so Dennis can get back to his favourite topic Wink


Last edited by spook51 on Wed May 26, 2010 12:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Robin2
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 9:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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Daggers
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:03 pm    Post subject: Re: TomTom make it soooo easy to hate them! Reply with quote

DennisN wrote:
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?


Without actually using the new layout and deciding whether it's easier or harder to work with, the new design seems more logical to me. They have put everything that is happening now in one box (current time, current speed, current speed limit) and everything to do with your destination in another box (distance to destination, ETA at destination).

While it may take a couple of days to get used to, surely this is better than the relatively random distribution of information that they had previously?

Now, do they use the same concepts when you use a vertical status bar?
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layingback
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 1:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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! Very Happy

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.
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Darren
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

FWIW, I prefer the new status bar layout Very Happy
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Antoeknee
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 3:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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?
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Andy_P
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 3:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DennisN wrote:
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,


Or you might find it different yet again... Wink

Also, like we've seen with the changes from x30 to x40 to x50, you might find the 1000 (or whatever the next model might be called) has even less features than its predecessors....

Going back to the status bar layout, it's actually quite sensible -

Everything to do with what's happening NOW is in the left section - time, speed, max speed

Everything about your destination is in the right panel - time of arrival, distance etc.

And everything about the next decision is in the middle.

You'll also find what happens when you tap those sections has changed too. For example tapping the middle section quickly changes from 2D to 3D mode now, but that might change yet again to be something more logical, but different from what we're used to!

If the layout had been like that from the start, I'd have been perfectly happy, but like you, I'm so used to the old way that it confuses the hell out of me.

I suppose we are in a tiny minority having more than one of the little darlings on the windscreen at any one time, though.
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Trevor1234
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 4:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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AndyVaughan
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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