( 91 reviews )
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Posted: 07-28-2009
This was my first car-type GPS and I've used it for both long distance and local directions. It has been exceptionally helpful in driving thru large cities on the free-ways by anticipating what lane you need to be in ... particularly helpful when pulling a trailer. But it has some weakness in cities as it will tell you to exit one street too soon where streets are close together. Its major weakness is that it can give you seriously wrong routing choices. For example, it got me "lost" in Washington DC going in both directions, north and south on I-95, lost in the sense that I ended up on city streets when all I wanted to do was by-pass the city. Routing in remote rural areas is worthless ... maybe even dangerously wrong .... adding 100 miles to a 160 mile trip, for example. Routing between Kansas City and Lincoln, NE .... it chose to go up thru Omaha when there is a VASTLY better route. I've found it best, on long distance trips, to use Mapquest and then manually enter segments of the trip onto the TomTom using their "navigate to" option. Even then, I sometimes have to refer to my printed Mapquest directions rather than follow the TomTom.
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Posted: 07-26-2009
When you buy this update it right away for 2 reasons . First after a few weeks or months it will stop receiving satelite signals and it will probably happen in the middle of a trip when you need it to work the most, Second you will loose your chance to get the free map updates included in the cost which are needed if you live or travel through big city's where road construction and new roads can throw things off. I made these mistakes and actually thought the product was defective even after I updated it. I was freaking out because it would not get a signal afer the update but it worked when I took it out to the car. Update was a success and it was me not the product. Me and my husband are new to the Illinois and the Chicago area and once we got this we started going all over the place not to mention no more arguments because we got lost. Now I can sit back and enjoy the ride.
