Customer Reviews
Doesn't work 
2008-05-27
I have tried to get this software to work on my PALM E2 but it will not perform. Contacting PALM technical support is very time consuming and has not been successful so far.
Great product for it's general inteneded use. 
2008-04-08
I got TomTom Nav6 for my HTC P3300 GPS PPC phone. It already came with TomTom but not the maps so I bought US/Canda maps from Amazon. There are plenty of complaints, that are valid, but for the most part, I love this software. It just does what it says it does but not much more. Granted I would probably look for a dedicated unit if I was a real road warrior who used GPS all the time, but for me it's just when I'm out of town and occasional use outside of that. When I need it, it turns on GPS, finds my address(s), and routes pretty quickly and just gets me there. However there are some issues.
No, it will not allow you to browse the maps without a GPS fix. But for me, I just use WLS or Google Maps when I just want quick or general directions.
No it doesn't announce street names, but you have the option to show you the street names on the screen. Also, when it says, "you have reached your destination" it doesn't tell you if it's on the right or the left side of the street. That can be annoying but it hasn't been a problem for me yet.
The issue with not being able to route from one region to the other is a valid problem too (have to do two routes or more), but I just bought the whole US and Canda maps to avoid this. You should do the same. There are regional maps for sections of the US which are good for just traveling extensively in that area (and they have more POI's and details) but I feel it would be a waste of money to buy a map you couldn't use for the whole US.
And the maps activation thing is annoying as well, but somewhat understandable. You have to keep a lock on software piracy some kind of way but I feel they could do a better job of it. I am somewhat ticked that I can't use my software on my multiple devices - especially after I paid for them! I feel I should be able to use the software on all MY phones since I bought it! That's the only real problem that I have with the software. I'm tempted to use a cracked version so I can use it on my other phone! I don't promote piracy but I buy something, it's MINE! And I hate protected music files too, that's why I just buy the CD and rip it so I can use them the way I want. (Off Topic)
Anyway, there are a lot of good things about this software. The user interface is just simple and easy to use. The voices are accurate, clear and on time (they don't announce after you've pasted the turn, ect). The display is simple and clear. The routing and rerouting is fast. On my maps, the POI's are not abundant but sufficient. Entering addresses is made easy by giving you scrolling choices as you type. I don't know what more you could want from a GPS software for a mobile device. It's not perfect but it's pretty darn good! I love it!
Not a reliable device 2007-05-09
Tomtom maps and application is not a reliable product that you can count on when you are traveling and do not have access to your PC and the disks. This is the second time that the application has stranded me and I am writing this review for others interested in purchasing this program not to get in a situation like I have, and Tomtom staff to read and fix the problem.
I purchased a Tomtom with an HP PDA to travel through Europe (mostly Italy). I installed the software and got an authentication code from the site they specified and started using the device. After about a month of use, and feeling confident that I did not need a paper map, we took a trip to Florence, following Tomtom's direction. After about 20 minutes, the program froze. It would not even respond to a soft reset. I had to take the battery out to get windows CE up and running. After the operating system restarted, I started Tomtom program. It asked me for an activation code. Have in mind that I am in the middle of Italian countryside and not sitting in Silicon Valley. I had to call my office and they went to my office and found the original CD's, went to the authentication site and got the activation code. I found this to be just unreasonably senseless. I appreciate copy right protection, but the people who thought of this scheme must not go out of the office much. I thought of writing a review but did not and latter forgot about it.
I recently bought a cell phone/PDA that has a built in GPS. To avoid having a phone and GPS I tried installing the European map on this phone (it already had the US maps on it). I went through the installation which took for ever and went to the website and got the activation code and tried entering it and it says that the activation code is not valid! So, I call Tomtom support in UK from Germany. The first customer service person was very nice and gave me some advice on how to get an update. I followed the advice and it still did not work. I called the support line again, this time a Mr. Rick answered. This person needs to be assigned to a different department. He basically spent 30 minutes lecturing me on software copy protection. He then asked me to do a hard reset. I told him I did not know how to do the hard reset. He spent another 10 minutes telling me that he is not an HP specialist and that I need to contact HP for support. At this point, I realized that this person was not able to help resolve the problem and asked for escalation to a supervisor. Rick (customer service rep) said that the supervisor would not take my call because I did not do what he was telling me to do (which was not exactly true, because I asked him to help me with the reset and he would not).
I got off the phone and went to the HP site and downloaded the user's manual and did a hard reset. This caused everything to be erased (including my addresses), and Tomtom program to be deleted. And guess what, I call the customer service number again, and they did not know what to do. So, they asked for more time to research the problem and to call me. In about 4 hours not having heard from them, I called again, and this time they told me to download another program that would resolve the problem. I downloaded and it did not solve the problem. I got an email a couple of hours latter telling me to use the original SD card (which is back home) to resolve the problem.
So, to make a long story short, this is not a reliable device and for anyone who has traveled in unknown places, it is a nightmare.
Waste of Money! 2007-03-20
TomTom Software Review!
Pros: Being able to have it integrated on the Smart Phone or PDA.
Cons: Inaccurate Maps (we are talking miles not feet!), Difficult of use, cumbersome menus, lack of POI's, Wrong POI locations, crashes often and the list goes on....
Review:
This software should be labeled a beta software until the company works out all its problems, it should be never compared to Garmin or Magellan, I owned both and it does not even come close.
I will start with the pros since it will take the least time to mention.
Pros: Convenience of having a Navigation loaded on your phone, the GPS receiver can be left in the vehicle except when you are hiking for example.
Cons:
Maps:
The inaccuracy of the Maps are incredible and can lead you to a wrong place or miss a free way exit.
Maps are out dated; it did not show streets that have been updated on all map search engines 18 month prior.
You can not click and pan the maps to see the route ahead while on route.
Crashes often, about once every 2~3 days.
You would expect to be able to easily access your address book or contacts to navigate to a saved address; right? Not with TomTom, you have to exit the application and open another application called tomtom contacts there you can select a name and from the pull down click on navigate to address, it would then open the main navi software and show you the route, Oh but if for some reason you did not have your satellite locked yet, then you will have to exit out and do the same thing all over again! I think you agree that this is a bit cumbersome.
Sync
It gives data base errors of "WARNING: Possible database overwrite problem....", after contacting the customer service they said that it is a known problem! And nothing can be done???!!! So now every time I sync I have to ignore the warning message so other problems might go unnoticed thanks to the smart developers at TomTom.
POI (Points of Interest):
Again incomplete, inaccurate and difficult to use. For example if you are looking for a certain store and the search returns 6 and let us say the first 3 are approximately 3mi from where you are, you will not be able to select each one to further know more info - all you can do is pick one to get the directions to.
SD card:
Every time you insert the SD card into your PDA, the TomTom application will have start, and No, this is not an option you can turn off.
Customer Service:
Not very helpful, not knowledgeable about their products or offers and take long time to answer questions or concerns.
I am disappointed at the product which could have been an incredible for the convenience, I hope that the people involved in making decisions for the company go out and buy some different Navigation units and see how they can improve their product.
Thanks for your time reading my review!
ABSOLUTELY NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT 2007-02-03
would give this company zero starts but it is not a choice. ABSOLUTELY NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Not worth it 
2006-09-20
TomTom Navigator 5 Software Only US MANUFACTURER WARRANTY: 1 YEAR
Great Despite Minor Flaws 
2006-08-01
There are a few excellent and detailed reviews already posted here, so I'll keep it short.
My GPS setup includes PalmOne Treo 650, TomTom Navigator 5 and Holux GPSlim 236 Bluetooth receiver. I live in a big city (Toronto), so I often had to use Google Maps to plan my trips from point A to point B.
TomTom calculates most routes in a matter of seconds and gets me where I want fast. If I miss a turn (and this happened a lot during the first week of use), it would either find an alternative route or ask me to make a U-turn when possible.
I've been using it for about a month now and, overall, I'm very happy. One issue I had with it is that it asked me to make a left turn at a few intersections with "No Left Turn" signs. I was actually signalling and getting ready to turn then noticing the sign at the last minute, so keep your head up and don't put all your faith into the software.
And of course, it doesn't take the traffic into consideration when figuring out your trip (unless you signed up for the optional TomTom traffic reports), so the TomTom-recommended route is not always the best one.
Despite these minor flaws, it is a great product. I am impressed with the detailed maps, application speed and the ability to get wherever I want fast, without getting lost in a big city. Navigator 5 is a good investment. You won't be disappointed.
Works great on the Treo 650 with a Holux GPSlim 236 but NO updates... 2006-07-24
I spent about a month online reading reviews, talking to friends and browsing websites researching routing software. Originally I was going to start out with an AAA map guides that I saw in Staples until I read the fine print which stated it would not work on the Treo 650 with Bluetooth. After research Delorme and a few others I decided on Mapopolis. Mapopolis gives you a 9 day trial period. The maps where dead on every time I used them and the POI's (Points of Interest) where up to date and extremely easy to use. The Mapopolis POI's just give you a dot on the moving maps while Tomtom uses a 24X24 BMP file so you can get a companies logo such as Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds. Mapopolis initially gave me trouble as they suggested loading as much as you can into the main memory. I drive all over Massachusetts on a daily basis so I needed a lot of maps. Mapopolis maps are set up on a county basis and you download them for each county. This insures you will also be using the latest most up to date POI's and streets. One of the reasons I had planned to go with Mapopolis over Tomtom was the price was cheaper and Tomtom limits you to two installs and then you need to buy everything over again to re-activate it. The initial activation is not too difficult, at least in my case it wasn't. Once you install the maps on your device you are asked to go on the Internet. The site listed never seemed to work so I merely went to www.ttcode.com and entered the number from my CD, then the number from my copy of Tomtom on my Treo and it gave me a third number which I entered on the device to activate it. This took all of about five minutes. Once I had Tomtom running it took seconds to configure for my Holux GPS and I loved the product instantly! The maps and displays give exactly what you need to know and are very readable even on a small screen. The prompts are easy to hear even in a noisy car. One of my most loved features is the near instant auto re-routes on even across state trips. I have my maps and most of the program loaded on the SD card and was concerned with speed. Mapopolis seemed to take a good while to calculate routes especially once I moved them to my SD card. Mapopolis was very stable and quick and if I had to complain about anything it would be the maps are slightly dated and the POI's only seem to cover about 15-20% of the places Mapopolis came with. The one saving grace here is that they allow you to add in categories of POI's and it is fairly easy to add a `single' POI at a time from Tomtom's interface. Unfortunately if you wanted to add all the Hess gas stations or all the Staples in your state you are going to be clicking and typing a lot on your Palm. Another fault with the POI's is Mapopolis allowed you to bring up information on POI simply by tapping the POI on the screen, when you tap Tomtom's screen you get to the configuration menu's. After having this almost two years I have yet to see a single update from Tomtom. It is plagued with problems about "not enough dbcache" to run once in a while and requires removing the battery after running cleanup software. Tomtom acknowledged this in a few emails but never addressed it. Also, the maps have not had a single update either. On the Massachusetts Turnpike it trys to use several maintenance area's as entrance ways which are blocked to the public.
Expensive, but you get what you pay for 2006-05-03
I purchased Navigator 5 after a miserable experience with DeLorme Street Atlas 2005. Although Navigator cost me about three times what I paid for Street Atlas, I'm about 10 times happier. This is an excellent product, and you can really tell that the designers put a lot of thought and effort into it. It's fast, the 3D view is wonderful, the directions have been accurate, and there are lots of extra features like being able to avoid toll roads, integration with the Palm's address book, and other nice bonuses like that.
Of course, there are a few things I don't like. The voice prompts can be a little repetitive, for example. It often tells me three times times that I need to turn right ahead, and then it will tell me again to turn right AS I'M TURNING. Also, the address locator has to know the city. This can cause problems if you're in an urban location where all the towns run into each other and you know you're trying to get to an intersection nearby but you just don't know the town it's in. Also, installation on the Mac is buggy. I tried many times and read all the tips on the net, but eventually I had to find a Windows machine to install Navigator on my Palm. After that, everything was working fine and I was able to upload maps to the Palm from my Mac.
In short, it's an excellent piece of software, so don't get turned off by the price. It's more expensive than Mapopolis or Street Atlas, but you get what you pay for.
Okay product. Contemptuous product support. 2006-04-02
Essentially once TomTom has your money they're finished with you . . . until you want to spend more money with them.
The product is okay. The map data is from TeleAtlas, a vendor to many of the map software producers. What makes TomTom different is its GUI (Graphic User Interface) that the user interacts with. It really is a work of art most of the time. The map presentations are rich and may be viewed as 3D or 2D. The planning interface is icon driven and easy-to-use. Unfortunately TomTom really didn't think it all the way through.
There are several irritants, all of which vie for first place. One is that TomTom doesn't give you the option of using its maps without a GPS. There are many instances where I know where I am begining from and going to and I don't need a GPS fix. TomTom ignores such desires and annoyingly keeps prompting for you to start your Bluetooth connection. There is one mode that you can use to plan a route without a GPS and it simply doesn't work very well, often informing you that TomTom can't route you from a point beginning on an interstate to another point further along the same highway. That's just plain dumb. This is a mapping application. If I want to use these expensive maps for walking directions without a GPS, I should be able to. TomTom certainly doesn't think so.
Another irritant is the documentation. Probably in an effort to make TomTom appealing to the casual user, the documentation is dog simple . . . and often wrong. It appears that they didn't update the documentation to the newest version.
Although you can load maps by region, TomTom makes no allowance for travelling from one region to another. You have to calculate your route to the ending point within one region and then begin it anew in the next region. Again, this strikes me as a silly omission. If you are in Wisconsin, which is one region, and drive to Minnesota, which is in another, you have to create two routes. Not bright.
There are a number of idiosyncracies, anomalies and bugs that drive me up a wall. However, overall, TomTom is still better than the competition. It computes routes quickly (when it is capable of figuring a route at all). Annoying, however, it tends to prefer expressways, regardless of your preferences. In a major metro area laced with expressways going in all directions, this can create some incredibly convoluted - and ridiculous - routes. Creating alternative and more logical routes is possible, but tedious.
The worst part of the TomTom experience is its customer support. Well, perhaps support is the wrong word for it. I encountered two problems installing the software. It was obviously that the tech support person was clueless and was simply guessing and grasping at straws. (I had resolved the issues before the rep called and already knew what the problem was.) The TomTom rep didn't listen, kept interrupting and when it was pointed out that he was contradicting the manual, he just kept moving. (The manual in at least one instance was correct and the rep wrong.)
The TomTom packaging itself arrived in broken condition. The rep denied it was their packaging, claiming that I must have bought a third-party repackaged product. Talk about insulting: I have the package in front of me with the TomTom labels, the whole works and this guy is telling me that my lying eyes are deceiving me?
A fax to TomTom management about my experiences has gone unanswered more than a week later.
TomTom is riding high right now but I suspect in a couple of years as competitors introduce better products with better support that TomTom will be history. It won't be the first company that offered a good-enough product without support and possesing contempt for its customers to disappear and it won't be the last.
I know that if I find a marginally better product with adequate support, I'd abandon TomTom in a flash.
Jerry
